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[Ashton's POV]

The aching in my head was no longer only from the hangover but also from the fact that I still had no idea what had happened to my grandmother. I sat slumped over in a chair just down the hall from the room she had been place in. Doctors and nurses scurried around me as phones rung loudly from the nurse's station just a few feet away.

It had been sometime after 4am when I finally got to the hospital. I had sat out in my car for a good 30 minutes before actually going inside. I had received countless sympathetic stares from nurses and visitors alike and as I sat here now I was still getting the same looks. Most of the workers here knew me since my grandmother and I were in and out of here weekly and that just made it worse. The ones who knew me on a first name basis tried to console me like my grandmother was already dead, but I refused to believe that. She was a fighter and that was never going to change.

I thought back to last night and calling Charlie up in the middle of the night. I have never felt more pitiful and needy than I do now and I hoped that Charlie wouldn't take my drunken breakdown to heart. I didn't want her to look at me the way everyone in this building was.

I took a deep breath before dialing Charlie's number, my knee bouncing up and down nervously. It took almost six rings before she picked up and my heart started racing the second she spoke.

"Ash? Are you okay? How's your grandmother?"

Surprisingly a smile tugged a the corners of my lips as I sat back in my chair and sighed loudly, "I'm really sorry about last night."

"Don't apologize for that." The sternness in her voice catching me up for a second, "That was a very stressful thing to have to deal with when drunk and you did everything you could for your grandmother, okay?"

I was quiet, not fully understanding how she could be as sweet as she was but her voice quickly brought me back as she repeated herself, "Okay?"

"Y-yeah, okay." I finally spoke as I looked up, my eyes following after a group of doctors talking loudly with each other.

"So how is she?" Charlie reverted back to her first question.

"I don't really know." My voice was inaudible, "I haven't gone into her room yet."

"And why not?" She sounded more upset than I expected her to.

"Because I'm ashamed."

"Ashton, please stop blaming yourself." She huffed loudly, "You put too much pressure on yourself. It was an accident."

"I just-" I sighed and picked at one of the holes in my jeans, "I should have been there."

Charlie was quiet for the longest time. I had actually pulled the phone away from my ear to see if the call had dropped. There was no way she was going to win this fight. I blamed myself and there was no changing my mind. I'm the only one who can look after my grandmother and I should have been more responsible.

"Think what you want then." She sighed in defeat but I could tell she was annoyed.

"I will."

Her voice was soft when she spoke again, "But you'll call and tell me once you know something, right?"

"Of course." I smiled feeling my cheeks start to burn.

"And I want you to call me whenever you want." The cautiousness of her voice making my sit straight up in my chair as I listened hard to what she was saying, "I don't care what it's about or what time it is. Please just call me and I'll listen."

I shook my head in disbelief still not understand how we hadn't connected like this while we were still in high school. Now I couldn't imagine not talking to Charlie everyday and with what she just said, it seemed as though she could be feeling the same way I was.

"I will," I finally spoke.

"You promise?"

"I promise." I smiled into the phone even though she couldn't see me, but I hoped that she could feel how happy she was making me during this stressful time.

I felt a presence next to me and I quickly turned my eyes up toward the 40-something year old man that was wearing a white lab coat and holding a clipboard in his hands. My heart started to race once again as I stared up at my grandmother's doctor, unsure if I really wanted to know what he was about to tell me.

"I've got to go, Charlie." I spoke quickly.

"Okay."

"I'll call you later." I ended our conversation quickly before giving my full attention to the doctor.

"So," He started almost immediately, flipping through a few pages on the clipboard, "Your grandmother is stable for now but I think it's best that she stays here so we can monitor how she's doing."

"Do you know what happened?" I asked not really wanting to know the answer.

"Ashton," He sighed and I clenched my jaw tightly bracing myself for his next words, "You grandmother is very sick. The cancer had progressed a lot quicker than we had hoped and even with the treatments, I'm not sure how much longer they will actually help."

"So that's it?" I felt tears well up in my eyes but I refused to cry in front of this man.

"I'd give her another couple of weeks, maybe a month. I don't know."

I don't know. His words repeated over and over again in my head. Even after he left, they still swirled around my brain making my headache even worse. This couldn't be happening. Why was such a horrible thing happening to someone as wonderful as my grandmother? She didn't deserve to die like this.

"Ash." The sound of Michael's voice caused me to instantly turn my head away and try to wipe way what tears had managed to escape my eyes.

"W-what are you doing here?" I finally spoke after full composing myself.

"News travels fast. I heard someone say that they saw you last night with an ambulance so I knew you'd be here." He looked at me sadly as he took a seat in the chair next to me.

"Great." I shook my head in disbelief. Like I really needed to be the talk of the town right now. I didn't need any more added stress.

"How is she?" He asked just like Charlie had done not long before.

"Sick." I pulled at my hair wishing there was something I could do, "She's really sick."

"I'm sorry." He whispered.

We both sat that in silence for a long time after that. Yet again I sat watching nurses and doctors rushing around and still I made no move to go see my grandmother. I still didn't know what I wanted to say to her and I didn't want to see her like this.

"I'm not going to drink anymore," I spoke up, "Last night was horrible and maybe if I hadn't been drunk I could have done something more."

Michael nodded his head in understand, "Okay. I understand that."

I gulped and shut my eyes for a second just waiting for him to tell me that he no longer wanted to hang out.

"I guess that means we'll have to find something else to do on weekends." He leaned back in his chair.

"We?" I was confused.

"Yeah." He turned to me and smiled, "If you want to stop drinking, then so will I."

"Why would you do that?" I stared over at him not understanding why he would choose to do that when he didn't have to.

"Because that's what best friends do," He shrugged nonchalantly, "They support each other."

Honestly, I didn't know what to say to him after that. The fact that he was willing to give up something that he love to do so easily made me proud to call him my best friend. I had never had a friend like Michael and it was nice to know that he was willing to stick by me through something like this.

It meant the world to me to know that I had two people willing to fight for the friendships we had built. Charlie and Michael were the only two people I could count on now and I knew I was going to need them more than ever in the up coming weeks.