Lovely- Billie Eilish

You Found Me- The Fray

~~~

I decided to take the long way to my room. I'm tired of being cooped up in there. My hands tightly grasp the small drive in my hand. I can't believe I have it.

The thing I worked for Travis for, the thing Ryder unknowingly lost his life for, is right here in my hand.

He died for nothing.

All of a sudden, the air becomes thick. Everything is always my fault; Ryder lost his life become of me. How can I live knowing he's dead because of me?

Soon as he started to become a decent person, soon as he and I began to build a somewhat platonic friendship. Everything gets ruined.

Death. Death took what could've been away.

It took Ryder away.

My room is right down the hall; I turn right but then quickly back up. There are two nurses headed my way; I can't let them see me. I press the elevator button, the doors come open. I walk in, and the doors close.

I press the 5th-floor button, that's one floor up; I will have to take the elevators at the end of that hall to get back to my side. Hopefully, I can do that without getting spotted.

The elevator stops on the fifth floor; I look both ways before exciting, and then I head down the hallway.

As I tiptoe down the hallway, I start to think maybe I should've gotten socks from the nurse when she asked me if I wanted some; the floor is freezing.

A walkie talkie makes a screeching noise,  "Come in,"

Oh no, the noise is coming from down the hall; I look side to side, trying to find an exit.

"I'm on the fifth floor. She may be up here,"

Shit. Think, Think, Think.

I walk over to the other side of the hallway and then slip into a room. Slowly closing the glass.

A monitor is beating from behind me; no one has said anything, so the person must be asleep. Thank God. This would've been awkward.

My heart pounds as I watch officer Blake search the floor for me. I should move away from this glass. I grab the curtain and slowly close it.

When I turn around, I almost stumble back into the door, my heart stops, and I gag for air.

My eyes scan over the boy in the bed.

It's Ryder.

Is it a ghost? My eyes must be deceiving me; he's dead. He can't be here. I watched him die.

Everyone said he was de--

Then again, no one ever did say that he was dead; they just acted like something tragic happened, and something tragic did happen; he got shot multiple times.

He's hooked up to the monitor, and there is a tube down his throat. I slowly walk over closer to him.

I poke him with my finger, making sure that he isn't a ghost. Nope, he's real. This is real. His body is warm.

I use my hand to push back his hair. My fingers caress the sides of his face taking in every detail and every feeling.

I hear the door slide in, but  I don't move; I don't back away.

"Ms. King," a man says. It's the doctor that I saw trying to save him. I remember his voice.

He walks around the bed, and in front of me, he has a clipboard in his hand; I'm assuming it's Ryder's chart.

"You have the whole hospital looking for you," he states.

I don't respond; I just continue watching Ryder.

"I had a feeling you would be up here," he looks at the monitor and then writes something. I finally look up and at his doctor, "I heard you couldn't talk, so I will answer what I know you're thinking," He slides the chart into something on the side of the bed.

"Technically, I'm not supposed to be telling you this without the parent's permission, but I know what Mr.Adams means to you, so I don't see why not,"

What does he mean 'mean to me.'?

"Mr.Adams was shot three times. One to the leg, one to the right side of his chest and another in the left upper quadrant area of the abdomen,"

That sounds bad.

"No, he is not okay. And no, I have no idea if he will be okay. When you saw me trying to revive him, his heart had stopped, and he couldn't breathe because his lungs were filling with blood; he was drowning,"

My eyes tingle just hearing all the pain I have caused him. Everything he is going through is because of me; it's supposed to be me on that bed with life-threatening injuries.

"Once I resuscitated him, we immediately rushed him into surgery," he explains.

Maybe, if I was calm and didn't have a freaking panic attack, I would have been able to see that.

"Lucky the bullet went through his leg, the other bullet was lodged into his chest, and the one in his abdomen punctured his lung," he pauses. "Long story short, I removed all the bullets; he had to have a blood transfusion because he lost so much,"

I look down at the hopeless boy. Why isn't he awake?

"He slipped into a coma; that's why he isn't awake. That tube in his throat is the only thing keeping him alive right now, and is barely even doing that," he states, answering my question. "I have had cases like this before; none ever recovered,"

So why save him? What was the purpose of saving him if he is just going to die?

He moves from around the bed and heads for the door; I listen as the door opens, "I saved him so everyone could say their goodbyes. The parents already said theirs; you should too,"

...

I walk another lap outside the hospital. The fresh air is doing good for me; I can breathe better out here.  I couldn't go back to my room and just lay there knowing Ryder was upstairs dying.

I can't go through that again; I don't want to ever feel that type of pain.

My phone rings for the sixth time; it's Caleb.

I should answer and tell him what's going on. He's probably worried sick. I wonder if he tried to come and see me. After Ms.Moore visited me, my father told the nurse that he didn't want me to have any visitors. So that explains why I haven't seen him.

I hang the phone up. I can't talk to him right now.

There's a searing pain going through my head; I can't believe this is happening.

The phone rings again. I take the phone and throw it as far as I can. I hear it shatter on the concrete.

Okay, that was a little too much; I could've just shut it off.

A part of me just wanted to throw something, I still want to throw something; I want to punch something.

There's this anger stirring in me. I can't do anything; Ryder is dying, he's hours, minutes away from dying, and there's nothing I can do to stop it.

Death is inevitable; I know that.

But not like this.

Death is one of the greatest events in life.

Your death should be remembered as something beautiful, not tragic.

Death is the last thing you do in life, so shouldn't you do it gratefully?

He can't go like this; he has yet to accomplish anything, he has yet to see his full potential in life.

Ryder didn't know he was going to die, so he didn't have time to accept his fate, to embrace it.

He can't die.

I look up at the sky; the stars are shining bright tonight.

It's crazy to think about how someone could be up there watching us—Whether it's God, the forefathers, our ancestors, the greatest novelist, and poets.

They're all watching us down here.

This is why a part of me believes that we are reborn.

Great novels aren't just written by regular people; they're written by the ones in the stars, who watch our life and then write about it.

From the flames of their past, they arise through their writing and through us.

What I will never understand is how can they just sit back and do nothing when someone else's world is falling apart? Just so they can get a good story out of it.

A gust of wind blows through the air, causing me to shiver, and then I feel it. I open my mouth to speak, "Don't let him die," My voice is back, just as I thought it would be.

It's weird hearing yourself speak after being silent for two days.

I look down and then back up, "I don't know who I'm talking to!" I say. "If I am even talking to someone, maybe I'm just crazy, like everyone says," I feel crazy yelling at the sky.

"Then again, I know I'm not crazy; I know everything happens in this world for a reason; to everyone else, it's always a mere coincidence,"

Some things are too strange and strong to be a coincidence.

"I strongly believe whatever happens to us is because of fate. Destiny is the map to our life, fate is the gas in the car we need to get there,"

"You can't let him die," I restate. "I have never asked for anything; I have never wanted anything. I always have been willing to accept my fate; embrace what destiny had in store for me, but Ryder has nothing to do with this isn't his fate!"

Or is it? Maybe Ryder is a part of the pain this universe is set out to make me feel. "If Ryder is somehow a part of the pain you want to cause me, change it. Please, don't do this. Don't take him away from his family, from me." My voice cracks as I finish the sentence.

"So God, ancestors, whoever is watching us in the stars. Whoever the hell I am talking to, please change the destiny you set out for me to have, or at least take him out of it. Save him."

"Where did you disappear too last night?" My father asks as he zippens the duffle bag he brought from home,

"I just went for a walk," I state, leaving out how I was really outside screaming at the sky.

"And now you can just talk?" he questions, raising his eyebrows,

"Mhm,"

The room door comes open, Doctor Grey walks in. "Hello, Jayda,"

"Hey,"

"The nurse told me you were speaking now, glad to finally be able to put a voice to the face," she smiles,

"You have her test results?" My father asks,

"Yes, everything came back okay, she has a mild concussion, but she should be fine; just make sure you bring her back if she starts getting severe headaches,"

"Okay," my father says.

I hop off of the bed and tie my shoe; I can't wait to lay in my bed.

"So if that's all, I will see you guys in seven weeks so I can remove that cast," she says,

Now that she said the word, my arm starts to itch again, ugh how am I going to go, seven weeks.

"Thank you,"

She smiles and then walks out of the room,

"You ready to go?" he asks,

"The sooner I get away from you, the better," I growl,

"Jayda," he huffs and follows behind me as I walk out of the room.

I need to go upstairs. "Where are you going?" he asks,

"I'm going to see Ryder,"

"I don't think that a good idea,"

I narrow my eyes, "Why not?"

"He's dying," he states harshly.

"Did you see him today?"

"No, but he was dying yesterday. I highly doubt he did a 360 in one day,"

"You don't know that,"

"Jayda,"

"No!" I shout a little too loudly; I walk over to him. "You don't get to tell me what to do anymore,"

"I am your father. I will always be your father,"

"Genetically, yes! You are my father, but a real father wouldn't crush his child's dreams because," I pause. I don't even know why he did it, "Whatever you did it for, there's no excuse; you gave up being my father the day you did what you did."

As I say the words, I slowly see him crushing; he looks like he feels horrible for what he did. But I don't know if he's sorry because of what he did or because he got caught.

I don't care; when I said I hated him, I meant that. I should probably stop while I am at it, but I can't. I want to destroy every hope he has for us ever getting back to how we used to be, just like he destroyed my chances at going to NYU.

"I don't love you anymore. You're nothing more than a sperm donor to me,"

He looks down at the ground and then back to me; he says, "I'll pull the car around."

"Yeah, you go do that,"

He's hurt. Little does he know, it's hurting me more to say these things than it is for him to hear them.

I walk down the fifth-floor, heading to Ryder's room. As I come upon the room, doctors are around the door. I spot Evelyn and Josiah in the crowd. Evelyn is crying.

Oh no.

My feet drag against the floor as I walk over to the room; I push past the doctors and enter.

Nurses are surrounding his body, hooking him up to things and drawing blood. His doctor stops talking when he sees me. Josiah and Evelyn look my way. Evelyn comes over and hugs me tightly. "You're okay! I'm so happy your okay," she says.

I thought she would be mad; I am the reason her son got shot.

"It's nice to see you're doing good," Josiah greets me. Through pressed lips, I smile.

Evelyn looks back at the doctor; I look over at Ryder; he no longer has a tube in his mouth; the monitor is still beating, though.

He's alive.

"You can continue; she's his friend," Evelyn says.

The doctor, whose name I never got, looks away from me and starts speaking again, "He will need physical therapy; it'll be a while before he gets his strength back. Football is out of the question; he'll be wheelchair-bound for a while; when he gets his upper strength back, we can move to crutches."

Evelyn sighs, "I guess something good has come out of this," she jokes. She must not approve of him playing football.

"I'm sorry, doc, but how is this even possible. You said he was going to die," Josiah says.

"It isn't possible; it's a miracle," The doctor responds passionately.

After the nurses move away from him, I walk over to Ryder's side. His chest moves up and down. He's breathing on his own.

As I said before, some things are just too strong to be a coincidence.

"I don't know how, but he is alive. Yesterday when I saw him, he was barely holding on," The doctor looks back at me. "I don't know what you said to him, Ms.King, but whatever it was, it worked,"

"What?" Josiah questions,

"Yesterday she visited him; I told her to say her goodbyes. I don't think it's a coincidence that he started to get better after she spoke with him."

Everyone looks at me; Evelyn smiles brightly; she looks at the doctor, "Will he be okay, though?" she asks him.

The doctor looks back at me, but this time looks down; Evelyn and Josiah, along with the other two doctors, follow his eyes. Everyone staring at me is making me nervous.

I look down to see what they are looking at.

I didn't even feel it—his hand. Ryder's hand is gripping mine.

Out the corner of the doctor's mouth, he smiles and then says, "He'll be fine; his fate changed."

~~~

(And so it beings ☺️

I really couldn't take you guys being sad y'all so dramatic lmao ... why would I ever kill him 🤦🏽‍♀️😂 but yeah I decided to update today

Did you guys enjoy this chapter? Did you cry? I definitely did while writing it😭

And I see Ryder as Leo Howard *aka Jack from Kickin it or James Lafferty *Nathan Scott from One Tree Hill... ugh so hard okay sometimes i see him as Leo Howard ...most of the times I see him as a younger James Laffery hence why in the beginning Ryders last name Scott.)