Song is "The Scientist" originally done by Coldplay but I like Corrinne Bailey Rae's cover.

Hey everyone! We want to thank Diamond_Star_Awards for naming Mirror Mirror Best Teen Fiction!But we need your help!!! There is a second phase ~ voting phase/showdown for which Mirror Mirror is going head to head with the winner of the romance genre! If all of you could help that would be awesomesauce!!!Please go over to:

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and vote for Mirror Mirror under Romance/Teen Fiction Winners please!!! (you can vote up to 5 times)Thanks peeps!!! XOXO

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 We continued toward room 303 in silent understanding. My mom strode toward us; eyes narrowed right at me. Probably from the goofy smile I wore at the satisfaction of achieving what I'd intended to do the moment my ass hit this damn wheelchair.

"Are you sure about this?" Mom said to Sarah while gesturing to me.

What the hell? I didn't need for Sarah to second guess her decision.

I shot my mom a bemused look, and she countered with one of her own. She didn't understand why this was so important to me. No one did.

Sarah stopped me right outside the doorway to room 303. "It's fine by me."

"Okay then," Mom said and patted my sore shoulder. She didn't even apologize when I groaned. "I'll just need you to sign a form adding Sebastian to the list of people allowed to visit. We can do that when we come back, though."

Sarah let go of the handle bars and started walking toward the exit. "I think I'm going to go grab a cup of coffee also before we have to leave for the funeral home. I'll just meet you downstairs here in about ten minutes or so."

"That's fine." My mom feigned a smile. Something was wrong, and I had no idea what. She waited until Sarah was at the elevators, waiting to board before continuing, "She hasn't seen Shelby yet."

"What?"

"Nothing." My mom spun the wheelchair so I could look into room 303. She made sure to stand in the way to block my view of Shelby though. "Are you sure you want to do this?" She shifted from one foot to the other and glanced over her shoulder. "Maybe it would be better if you waited a few days, honey. It's not—"

I stared at her with bold intent. "It's not what, Mom?"

She crouched to my level, which wasn't much. But it did allow me to ascertain what she meant. A steady swooshing of a machine beside the hospital bed as it served its purpose made her point loud and clear. Shelby was on a ventilator.

My stomach sank, along with my heart. A cold sweat blanketed me as I could only stare at my reflection in the glass wall.

Huh? Mom was right. I did look like shit with my busted lip and a black eye. There were even a few stitches near my hairline that I didn't even know were there.

Mom cleared her throat, and her fingers clenched the armrest of my chair. "Shit, Sebastian. I love Shelby, and I see patients coming in here like her every single day, but I can't even..." Her voice trailed off as she started to sob.

I wrapped an arm around her, pulling my mom into my shoulder. "Mom, I need to see her."

It wasn't a want, or a have. Seeing her was a need.

Mom sniffed back a few tears and stood to her full height. "Okay, I'm just warning you. You're not going to see Shelby lying there like she's asleep. This is entirely different."

I shook my head. Maybe if she elaborated, I could prepare myself a little better. "Like how?"

"Well first off, she's in a coma, and will probably be that way for a couple of weeks, maybe more."

That was the same thing Sarah told me, but I needed a few more details. "Why is she?"

"Some head trauma. An epidural hematoma."

I wasn't a doctor, but growing up with one as a parent, I'd picked up a few things. "A brain bleed?"

"Yes." She stalled and blew out all the air from her lungs.

Wow, I had missed a lot by running off last night apparently. "And being in a coma will help?"

"We hope so," was her reply.

"Hope?" I countered. It better have helped her, damn it.

"Sebastian, she's in the ICU." Mom waved her arms around to demonstrate. "She's in critical condition. She almost died last night. So yes, all that any of us can do is hope, and pray."

Pray? More like begging or bartering. It wasn't that I didn't believe in God or anything. Just since my dad died, I couldn't bring myself to pray for anything. Or anyone.

But this was different. This was Shelby.

"What else?" I pushed that to the side. I needed to stay focused on the facts, not the maybes and what ifs.

Mom half turned and leaned against the doorframe. Even though that gave me the opportune advantage to see Shelby, I didn't look her way. Not yet. Not until I could go in there and not break down from the sight of seeing her injured body.

She deeply frowned. "Her entire right arm from her shoulder to her wrist is broken. They even had to put in rods below her elbow since the radius was shattered. A collapsed lung. Perforated spleen. Jaw broken. Too many scratches, bruises, and stitches to count, but that's the least of her problems."

I leaned forward. What did she mean? "Then what is?"

Mom didn't answer me and instead gazed into the open doorway of Shelby's room. Nothing was surprising that should have garnered her attention for over a minute now.

"What is it, Mom?" I prodded.

She forced a sympathetic smile like she'd done thousands of times before when she had to tell her patient's loved ones bad news. "They had to amputate her lower leg."

It took a few skipping heartbeats for her words to compute. "Amputate? As in gone?"

She nodded sagely. "Her lower left leg."

"But how will she cheer? How will she?" Run? Walk? Dance?

My mouth couldn't keep up with the plethora of questions bouncing around my pounding head. Thinking this hard wasn't helping the matter.

Mom grabbed the wheelchair and pushed me inside the somewhat darkened room. A little light came from the sun peeking around the closed shutters. But that didn't matter. The one above Shelby's head gave me a well enough view. Well, one that would most likely haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.

A tube in her mouth, connected to a ventilator, was helping her breathe. Another protruded from the side of her chest. Her lifeless body was in a reclined position, almost sitting upright with huge cushions of some sort, wedging her in tight. A good third of Shelby's hair was gone, probably shaved off from the operations. Instead, it was mainly wrapped in white gauze, with a few red splotches visible.

From what I could tell, two IV's were connected to her chest. Her arm, propped up by three pillows had rods running the lower length of it. Her once beautiful face was left purplish and swollen in the one patch of skin visible between all of the bandages.

My eyes drifted down her body, skipping over the bruises and cuts marring her exposed left arm and hand. They followed this course, landing on the absent rise under the covers of where her leg would be.

The blood drained from my face, I could only clench my fists to make them stop shaking. My stomach roiled, and I had to stand in case I would vomit.

"Sebastian?" My mom patted my shoulder.

I turned away from her. I didn't want her to see me like this. Upset and panicking and on the verge of losing it altogether.

And to think, I asked for this! I'd foolishly thought seeing her would relieve some of this anxiety and make me feel better. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

I shook my head. "I don't. I can't. I." My stammering made me sound like a dumbshit.

"That right there is why I cannot for the life of me understand why you would do something as stupid and idiotic as drinking and driving, Sebastian. Because what you see lying in that bed is the result. What if that was you? Or someone that you hit, since you were too drunk to know, and plowed right through an intersection going almost eighty miles per hour?"

My muscles quivered as my entire body tensed. "Is that what happened? Did a drunk driver do this to her? To them?"

She huffed and marched to Shelby's bedside. "Yes. That's what happened to my best friend. Her husband. Their son. And look at their daughter, Sebastian. What if you would've done this to someone? Could you live with that guilt? What if that was you, right here, on top of everything else that we've lost?"

"Mom, I..." There were no words. I leaned against the wall, staring at the armband cutting into my wrist. "I didn't mean—"

Mom spun to face me, arms crossed and glared. "You didn't mean, what? To get drunk or to drive also?"

"I'm sorry," was all I could say. It fell flat for every reason I had, most of them blotting from my rationale as I uttered that simple apology.

"Yeah." She took a few steps to the door, pausing before she left altogether. "Well, you needed to see what could have happened." My mom didn't bother turning again. "I'll ask Melissa to take to your room when you're finished in here. Don't take too long. You need to rest."

I muttered a quick, "Okay," before she walked through the doorway. For the next twenty minutes, I stayed with my back flush against the side wall. The not so subtle rise and fall of Shelby's chest and the steady mimicking beep of her heart beating had me dazed.

"You know she won't bite," a nurse said from the doorway.

"Oh, yeah." I shook my head and flashed a grin to compensate for my spacing out. My two timid steps failed to match her confident ones as she strode closer to Shelby.

"I don't think we've met." She thrust a hand toward me. "I'm Melissa. I'm Shelby's nurse."

"Hi. I'm Sebastian. Brenda's son."

"And Shelby's boyfriend?" Melissa cocked an eyebrow before walking around the bed to replace an almost empty bag and connected it to Shelby's IV.

Man, I wished.

"No. Just friends." Just barely friends but still, not what I considered her.

"Huh?" she mused while depositing the bag in a nearby sink to drain thoroughly. "Well, I am under orders to make sure you make it back to your room, ASAP." Melissa paused, a slight hum accompanied her exaggerated sigh. "But I'm a hopeless romantic and could probably let you stay for a little while longer if you gave me something here, buddy."

I shrugged and shook off what she was inferring. "I don't know what you're," was all I murmured before she stomped to the hallway and retrieved my wheelchair.

She faked a smile and patted the seat for me to sit. "Okay, nevermind. I guess I was wrong."

Oh, she wasn't wrong.

"Kyle, her brother." My pregnant pause served as my explanation of what happened to him. I wasn't ready to utter the words, "dead" or "died." Even if they were true. "He's my best friend."

Melissa sucked in her bottom lip and nodded mirthlessly. "I'm sorry. I heard about that."

And here I assumed that would have bought me a few more minutes. Two at least.

She leaned over, patting the vinyl seat once again. "Time to go."

I folded my one arm over my chest with the other holding in the sling. My huffing didn't help, nor did my head shake apparently. Okay, so pouting didn't work on Nurse Melissa here. Fine. What did it matter anyway, right?

Melissa rolled the wheelchair forward to cut the distance. Like that was going to prompt me to cooperate. Instead, I planted myself in that spot.

"Sebastian, I'm on orders—"

"Okay," I interrupted with a simple hand raise.

"Okay, what?"

"You're really going to make me say it to stay in here a little longer?"

"Yeah, I am. See I'm one of those, feeling types of people that actually likes to hear how people are feeling. Like I am sad. I am mad. I am...in love with Shelby?" She paused, beaming. "Come on, say it...say it. It's right there on the tip of our tongue."

Who the hell was this woman?

" Fine. Fine." I shrugged to play off the significance of that I was about to admit out loud. To someone else. "I'm kind of in love with her," I blurted.

The smile that Melissa wore was a little too smug as she said, " I knew it! See that wasn't so hard, was it?"

She had no idea.

I bit my lower lip as she retreated with the wheelchair, parking it beside the door.

"Just don't say anything to my mom, please?" That was the last thing that I needed. For my mom to know. Then Robin would know. Then the entire world would know.

Melissa scooted a chair from the corner of the room to the left side of Shelby's hospital bed. She patted the seat, again. This time, I didn't resist and sat down.

I breathed deeply, gazing at Shelby's frail and battered body. So many tubes and wires exited and entered her just to keep her alive.

Melissa placed a hand on my good shoulder. "Oh, I won't say a thing. But I do have to tell you, your secret is already out, lover boy."

I twisted in the seat. "What do you mean?"

Her wink was in addition to the playful upswing to her lips. "Your mom already told me you were in love with Miss Shelby here."

Figures that my mom would do something like that. Probably warning her off in case Sarah denied my request.

And with that she grasped my left hand, setting it on top of Shelby's left. A little cold, a bit scratchy from the left-over tape and gauze. I wasn't even taking her cuts into my assessment.

But none of that mattered. Nothing before that moment had ever been as precious to me.

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