The following day I walked up to the front door of the ICU and picked up the phone to buzz in, mentioning to the nurses' station that I was there to see Will Sanders. To my surprise, the response was out of the ordinary.

    "Oh honey, he's not here anymore."

    "He's not?"

    The woman's voice sounded cheerfully on the other side, "Nope, they moved him out of the ICU into the spinal cord ward on the fifth floor. You're welcome to go up there and ask to see him!"

    Placing the phone back on the wall I raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Sure enough, the new woman on the other side of the phone let me onto the ward, gesturing down the hall to his room.

    After finding room seven I gave a quick knock on the door. Normally I wouldn't bother, but the chance of walking into a random person's room increased when it was my first time there, and I wanted to avoid that if possible. Thankfully, Will's voice could be heard through the door.

    "Hey MTV, welcome to my crib!" He laughed as I entered the room, putting my backpack down at my feet as I took a seat in the chair next to him. I noticed that his wheelchair was placed on the right side of the bed, along with a short wooden plank resting against the wall.

    "I didn't even hear that you got moved out of the ICU, no one thought to tell me?" I gave him a quizzical look.

    "I figured the surprise would be more fun," he cracked a crooked grin, "and it was amusing, so I'd call it a win."

    "You saw your parents last night?"

    "Yeah, they were there when the doctor came in and told me that I was getting moved. They were really excited. I mean, I'm glad and all, but it's just another hospital room. It's not like I can move or anything, so the only nice thing is that it's quieter at night."

    "It's also nice that the doctors decided that you'll make it out with your life, so we'll take that too. Besides, you got yourself a nicer view now," I reasoned, trying to bring some light into the situation.

    "Yep, of the place that took my life away," he grimaced, leaning back onto the bed.

    As soon as he mentioned it, I realized that the window did look right out at Pipeline, the very break where he had his accident.

    "Geez, we should get you out of here. That's terrible, you shouldn't have to-"

    He looked back from the ceiling to me. "No, it's okay. I mean it's hard, but I need to face it eventually. And maybe I can see you surf from here," he cracked a sad smile as I shook my head, "River, I don't expect you to stop surfing just because I had an accident. Yeah, it stresses me out more to think about you out there every morning, but I know you love it. You'll be alright."

    I pursed my lips and nodded at him, fingers gripping my backpack as we looked out at the ocean for a minute.

"So, what do you have in the bag?" He asked, clearly looking for something to distract him.

"Uh, your coach dropped it off this morning. Evan told him that I could get it to you," trailed off, knowing that this would be about as uplifting as a view of Pipeline.

"And?" He questioned, looking slightly concerned at my lack of information.

I unzipped the bag, pulling out a brand new green sweatshirt. "The gear is in," I whispered, looking down at it.

By the time that I looked back at him, his eyes had filled with tears. He picked up the sweatshirt gingerly, followed by the baseball cap, jacket, and a multitude of t-shirts that were also stowed in the bag. "I have no reason to ever wear this again," he muttered.

"You never know, Will," I responded quietly.

He rubbed at his eyes before slapping his hands down onto his legs. Will's red eyes looked into mine and displayed some anger, but mostly sadness. "You've been to my PT, Riv. Have you been listening? I won't walk again, much less see time at third base."

I didn't know whether this was a good time to tell him that crazier things had happened, or whether it was just better to not get his hopes up. Settling for the latter, I gave his hand a quick squeeze before reaching over him to fold the clothes.

"Wait, I'll wear that one," Wil gestured at a green Nike shirt in the pile.

I glanced quickly, "When did you even start wearing normal clothes, anyway?" Today was the first day that I had seen him out of a hospital gown, but he was dressed in a plain blue t-shirt and presumably shorts that were hidden beneath the blanket.

"I graduated from the ICU and from the hospital gown yesterday," he said in a sarcastically cheerful tone, "I'm allowed to wear normal clothes as long as I'm careful with the cuts on my back."

Will tossed me the new shirt and pulled back the blankets before picking up each of his legs and moving them to the side of the bed. Then he lifted his butt up using his hands and maneuvered himself so that his back was facing me.

"Give me a hand, will you?"

"Um, I'm not quite sure how to do that..."

"Just pull my shirt back off of my back before you lift it over my head. The cuts on my chest are basically healed, so don't worry about putting pressure on those. Just watch the back," he directed confidently.

I reached my hands around his waist to the hem of the blue shirt, gripping it and pulling it away from his body. Slowly, I inched it upwards toward his head, trying to decrease the amount of friction between his skin and the fabric. By alternating between lifting it up in the back and the front, we were able to get it off in under a minute. Only then did I allow myself to fully inspect the damage that had been done.

Will's back was the one part of his injuries that I hadn't seen. It was by far the worst, and I was amazed that he could even lay back on it. Deep lines cut across his back diagonally, the skin torn and crooked. Some spots had stitches visible, but most were just angry red lines with some having a sickly yellow color on the edges. There was also a large amount of bruising, adding purples and green to the canvas.

I traced my finger lightly over the strips of clear skin that were untouched by the coral. I wasn't even thinking about the shirt anymore, I was just stuck staring and tracing those patterns. "Will..." I whispered, overcome.

He sat completely still, in silence facing the opposite wall. We sat there for several minutes, both stuck in our own thoughts about the damage that had been inflicted.

Finally, Will raised his arms up and stuck them through the holes of the shirt, followed by his neck. I lifted the shirt off of his back and brought it down slowly until it covered his wounds completely.

"Want to go for a walk? Or a roll?" Will asked.

"Sure, if you're up for it," I responded. Training was done for the day, so I had the rest of the day to kill.

"Why else do you think that I put on this shirt? I'm trying to figure out if there are any cleat chasers stuck in this hospital too," he shot me a smile that showed off his dimples nicely.

"Of course, I'm sure that we could find a cleat chaser around here for you. Too bad you sent the ones from yesterday home," I responded with a smirk.

"Good point. Well either way, I need to build up my hospital clout which means you are coming with me."

"Yeah, do you need your therapist guy to help you with the chair though?"

"Wait and see," he said with a wink. A moment later, I was watching in awe as he lifted his legs up and placed them on the footrest of the wheelchair. The next second he was leaning over the chair, supporting his body with his right arm that was on the far arm of the wheelchair and his left that was still resting on the bed. He lowered himself gracefully into the chair and flashed his white teeth at me.

"You're kidding me," I grinned at him as he pushed himself over to the doorway, "How did this already happen?"

"I practiced all night and all morning after I watched a guy on Youtube do it," he admitted. "The lifting that I used to do definitely helped," he flexed jokingly, "I think that's why the therapist didn't show me yesterday. Most people would need more time to work up to that, but I'm a little more used to challenging my body and learning new movements. My dad helped, too."

My heart swelled as I watched him talk about his accomplishment. "Well, I'm proud of you, dude."

I closed the door behind me as we began to move down the hallway. He moved smoothly next to me, and he was able to go fast enough that I only had to slow down my pace slightly. It reminded me of old times when I would chase after him down the sidewalks on the way to the beach, which usually happened because Evan and Noah had already taken off on the only good bikes. It was slightly ironic that Will was now basically attached to his own set of wheels, but at least he wouldn't be so hard to chase after anymore.

Ok, I love writing this story. I think I've prewritten stuff for the first time in my life. College is probably gonna throw me for a loop but we'll see what we can get done before that. Love you and thanks for reading :)