I could barely sleep that night. I tossed and turned the whole damn time, my mind never stopping or slowing down. It was about nine in the morning when I heard a knock at the door of the guest bedroom.

"Come in," I said. Jenny came in with a warm smile.

"Good morning, Hayden. I hope you slept okay. Alex is ready for a ride to get your truck when you are. I think he's anxious to see his sister."

He wasn't the only one. "Yeah, I'll be right out."

It didn't take me long to grab my stuff, before making my way out to the living room where they were waiting. I've been waiting all fucking night for this, but I was not looking forward to going back to where it happened.

"All right," Jenny said, "let's get going."

Twenty minutes later, we were pulling up to Alex's house. We thanked her for the ride before walking up to the front door.

When Alex pulled out his keys, he hesitated, the key hovering by the lock. I didn't blame him. I didn't want to go back in there either. He looked to me for...something. I didn't know what he wanted me to say or do. I was almost as fucked up in the head right now as he was.

Trying to keep it together I said, "It's okay. We can do this."

He didn't say anything back as he unlocked the door and entered the house, with me following behind him. Standing inside that house was indescribable. I looked at the stairs. When I kept closing my eyes last night all I saw was Gabby getting pushed down those fucking stairs, screaming. Now...same fucking thing. I went to the bottom of the stairs where I found Gabby's unconscious body. All the blood was cleaned up. The only thing left was a stain of where it was. Who cleaned this? Then it hit me. Brad. He must have come back by here after he left his aunt's.

Alex walked past me and headed upstairs. I followed behind and went into Gabby's room.

I looked around, trying to see if I could find something that reminded me of her in here. I was surprised that the room was pretty bare. No pictures on the walls, no posters. Nothing. I tried to find her some clothes, just in case, and grabbed some of her books. I was going to come back by another time and pack all her stuff up and take it to either my place, or where Alex was staying.

She didn't need to come back to this fucking hell-hole. She didn't need to be reminded of what happened here that night. Of the pain she suffered. None of it. No, there was no way in hell I was going to let her relive that.

When I was finished, I went into Alex's room and asked, "Just about ready?"

"Yeah," was his instant reply.

He came out of the room carrying two duffle bags and started down the stairs. I followed him out of the house, and we loaded the stuff in the car. Once everything was ready, we were off to stop at my house.

The drive to my mom's was a little longer. Took us almost thrity minutes from Alex's. I told him to wait in the car while I went to get what we needed.

Packing up clothes for me and my mom went by faster than I thought possible. I hardly paid attention to what I grabbed and just threw things in a bag.

When I was about to leave my room, an image of my dad in the hospital came to my mind. I heard his voice clearly. "You run after that girl, Hayden Price, and you are not the son I thought you were. What about your dream?"

I looked around my room and saw all the trophies I won since I was six. I went up to one and looked at my name inscribed on it. Next thing I knew I was throwing all of them on the floor. They weren't me. At all. As I stood there and caught my breath for a moment, I didn't look at all the broken trophies in my room. I just grabbed the bag...and left the house.

***

I grabbed my mom's bag as we both got out and handed the keys to the valet at the entrance of the hospital. "Hey, Alex, you go check on Gabby, and I'll meet you there. I'm going to go check on my mom."

"Okay, Hayden. Sounds good."

We entered the hospital and got our guest passes. I made my way up to my dad's room and wasn't surprised to find my mom in the exact position she was last night.

"Hey, Mom," I said as I leaned down to give her a kiss.

"Hello, son. How are you?" She asked in a gentle tone.

"I'm alright. Didn't sleep to well."

"That's understandable. Have you heard anything about Gabby?"

"Not yet. Alex just went up there to see her. I told him I would come later. Do you need anything?"

She put her book down and rose from the chair. "Actually, I if you don't mind, I need to stretch my legs and get something to eat. Join me?"

We walked to the cafeteria and both ordered some breakfast. Taking our seats, we ate quietly.

She surprised me when she asked, "Tell me about Gabby, Hayden."

God, where do I begin? "I guess it started the beginning of the school year. I felt different."

"Different how?"

"It's hard to describe. It was like, all this time, I wasn't myself, and I wanted to figure out who that was. Like the last 18 years of my life have been a lie. Then-"

"Then what, Hayden?" she asked.

"Then it happened. When I saw her in the hallway at school. It was like there was this...force, that was pulling me to her."

She took a few more bites of her food before saying, "Tell me more."

"Ever since then, she was all I could think about. Then Roy wanted to do this messed up thing and kick the second stringers off the football team."

"That's horrible."

"I know, and then I found out one of them was her brother. So, I was able to get him back on the team."

"That was nice of you," she said with admiration in her voice.

With a chuckle I said, "She didn't think so. She thought I had ulterior motives and wanted to haze him."

She sat her coffee down and gave me a stern look. "But you didn't, right, Hayden?"

I gave her the most honest answer I could. "You know what, Mom? Before my senior year, yeah, I would have. But, I told you, something changed. I didn't want to do all that stuff. Anyway, I invited her to Bonfire Pointe for the party the team has every year."

"And," she egged me on when I didn't continue.

"And Roy and the guys made Alex jump into the lake, and he almost drowned. Gabby took him to the hospital and thankfully, he was okay."

"Those boys shouldn't have done that, Hayden."

"I know, Mom. Then the next day, Gabby was arguing with Roy and them for what they did. I tried to defend her and when Roy pushed her down, I hit him."

I saw my Mom's frown of disappointment that I hit someone but didn't comment. Probably because Roy pushed Gabby down and would have done the same herself. "That's how my knee got injured."

My mom thought about that for a moment. "So, you kept your relationship with her a secret, because of her father? Or yours?"

"Both, I guess. She was scared that if he found out, he would retaliate. And he did. And Dad..."

She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. "None of this is your fault, Hayden. Neither is what happened with your father. I tried telling him a thousand times, that if you ended up not wanting to do football, he needed to honor that. He didn't agree with me."

"Mom, I'm sorry he left. It wasn't right. I feel like because of me-"

"No. Like I said, Hayden, this isn't your fault. Do you know how proud I am of you? You stuck up for that girl, protected her."

My chest tightened when she said that, and I let out a long breath. "Thanks, Mom."

We finished our breakfast before going back to my dad's room. We sat in a comfortable silence for a while, my mom reading, and I was watching TV. About an hour went by before the doctor came inside.

"Good morning, everyone," the doctor said as he shook our hands. "I'm Dr. Mills. So, right now there have been no changes. There's brain activity which is great. What we want to do now is put him in a medically induced coma for a day or two, and try to wake him up again. Then we can go from there."

My mom seemed overwhelmed. "So, wait, what does that mean? The medically induced coma? That sounds bad."

The doctor looked over my dad's chart before explaining, "Well, when put them in a medically induced coma, it gives the brain a chance to heal. It's working overtime right now. So, after we give it a a few days, then we can bring him out of the coma, and hope he wakes up."

"Okay, thank you," my mom said.

The doctor was getting ready to leave and he said, "Please feel free to have me paged with any more questions."

He left the room and I wasn't sure exactly what I was feeling. A medically induced coma sounded like a band-aid and a longshot. I just hoped it helped him. I don't know what I would do if something happened to him.

My phone vibrated, letting me know I had a text. It was a text from Alex.

She's awake. You should get up here.

My mom's voice cut through the silence when she said, "Go check on her, Hayden, and keep me updated."

"Okay, Mom, thanks. You too," I said as I flew out of the room. I ran to the elevator to take it to the ICU. It felt like it took forever to get to her room. I saw Alex talking to her through the clear sliding door and a choked laugh came out of my mouth.

Alex turned around and immediately made a b-line for me, meeting me outside the doors. "Hayden, wait."

He pushed his hands against my chest, keeping me from entering the room. I didn't hear anything he was saying. I didn't even look at him as my eyes were on Gabby. "Is she okay? Is she talking?"

He was saying something, but I couldn't make it out. "Hayden! Listen to me."

That got my attention and I looked at him, waiting for him to continue. "She's having memory problems, Hayden."

I heard what he said, and yet I found myself pushing past him and going into her room. "Gabby, I can't believe you're awake. How are you feeling?"

She frowned at me before glancing to Alex who must have entered the room. She looked back to me and said softly, "I'm sorry, do I know you?"