༺ FIFTY - FOUR ༻

While they're treating Chuck without telling me how it's going, Thomas appears to be well already. Physically, at least.

They tell me he got multiple bruises and abrasions, but nothing's broken or anything. His stomach will be fine.

I think I should go talk to him. But it feels wrong to do it before there's any news about Chuck. So I wait and wait and wait. They're too busy to ask me things, which I'm glad about because I know barely anything.

I wonder where Thomas's parents are. I know Chuck's have arrived a few minutes ago, his mom in tears, holding what I think might be Chuck's stuffed animal, and his dad freaked out.

I spoke to Mary for a quick second. Requested her to not call my parents because I don't feel like talking to them, because I don't even know what just happened. Can't explain much if I don't know, and I'm not hurt, so they don't have to worry.

Eventually, a nurse walks out of a room and I rush up to her, even faster than Chuck's parents. "Is he alright?"

She hesitates. Her eyes move all over my face, inspecting the clothes the hospital gave me and my desperate face.

"Yes," she says. "But it'll take a lot of time to fully heal."

Waves of relief make my tense shoulders relax. I exhale, gratefully nodding. "Thank you."

The nurse nods and then walks up to his parents to spread the news there.

I sit down on a chair, still debating what to do. They're treating Gally in another room. Apparently his body and mind aren't in a good state. They, Janson and who knows who else, used him as a test person, he might've gotten brain damage. Also the reason he obeyed Janson like that. Manipulation. Lots of it.

I haven't seen Janson in the hospital. Maybe the police got him.

Okay. It's going fast, but good so far. Chuck is alright. Thomas also is. I'm alright, I think. Gally will hopefully be alright. And Janson and WCKD will be stopped.   

I knock on Thomas's door. There's not really a reply, but I can't wait and just walk into his room, only to find him crying quietly.

He's lying on his side, back facing me. His shoulder are shaking. Soft sobs leave his mouth, then deep inhales, hiccups, and more sobs. His hands clasp around a pillow harder every second.

It physically hurts to hear and see this.

Slowly, I walk over to him. Touch his back so he automatically turns around, and sit down. "Here." I pull him into my arms, then just hold him as he cries.

Though it's heartbreaking, it's nice to help him after finding out about everything. Or after everything he has done for me in the past.

"I really messed up." He sniffs. "I didn't mean to. I thought that if I stopped Janson by myself— but then he threatened me— it no longer worked," he stammers, not well with words right now. "I swear I didn't mean to."

I rub his back. "It's alright. It'll be solved. Chuck's okay."

With those admirable brown eyes, which are now big, he looks up. "He is?"

I nod. "He's alive."

A relieved breath leaves Thomas's mouth. "Good," he whispers.

I pull him closer. I've missed it. Touching him. Hugging him. Helping each other with things, though he's never been very open about his own problems.

I hope that now, he will.

"You wanted an explanation," he murmurs. "I'll give you one now."

"Tomorrow," I say. "You must be exhausted. Try to catch some sleep."

After a few seconds of hesitation, he nods. "I will."

I let go of him, my heart aching, and move the blankets on top of his body as if he's a little kid getting tucked in by his mom.

He keeps looking at me as I do it, eyes still watery. "Rose?"

"Hm?"

"Would you mind staying?" He whispers. "I don't really... I don't want to be alone right now."

"Yeah, sure," I agree. It doesn't take much hesitation. I would've done it for anyone struggling like this.

I remove my shoes and climb next to him, both nervousness and warmth kicking in. "Hopefully the nurses won't get angry."

He manages a small smile. "They feel too bad for us. They won't."

I manage a smile, too. "Yeah." And inspect his face for a while. "...can I?"

He nods. Carefully, I wrap an arm around him. Pull him closer, so he's in my arms for once.

"We'll talk tomorrow."

✵

I wake up, basically my whole body touching Thomas. Our legs are tangled together, I can feel his breaths on my neck, and our torsos touch.

I must say, it's not bad.

"Morning," I say softly. He wakes up two bloody hours after me, but I didn't mind waiting. Neither did I want to leave his side. "Slept well?"

He yawns. "Too short."

My lips automatically curve up. "Alright, I can't blame you after everything that happened."

Thomas closes his eyes again. Hums. "But now Janson is gone, hopefully, I'm free to tell you everything. And I kind of have the urge to, before I mess even more up."

"An explanation would be nice, yes."

He nods. "Start from where?"

"Perhaps the beginning, Thomas."

"Good idea," he agrees. "Alright. I'll start with... my arm."

"Good start."

"Alright. So. You know about the accident?"

"Yes. It wasn't an accident."

"Well, you also know how I broke my arm?"

"No. You never told me. I don't think anyone really knows."

"I do."

"No shit. Explain."

Thomas nods. "Alright. Janson broke it."

I stare at him.

He raises his eyebrow, waiting for a reply.

"How?"

"I don't know. He just walked up to me and broke it."

"You're joking."

"I'm not! He just like grabbed my hand and my elbow and crack, there it went. Did it a minute before I would go onto the rink."

"Meaning you were already sabotaged."

"Exactly."

I shiver at the idea of breaking someone arm like that, or thinking your game will go good until someone randomly decides to break your arm. "You don't really sound sad about it."

"I like to talk about my trauma in a happy way until it goes away."

"Ah. Makes... a lot of sense, Thomas." 

He smiles. "Okay. Continuing... about a week before the breakup. Janson said—" he stops. Sighs. Bites his lip. Does somewhat every sign of nervousness there is.

"It's alright," I assure.

"I feel like throwing glass against the wall," he says. "No, Janson. I want to throw Janson against the wall and let him have a painful long death with a lot of needles and—"

"Maybe just tell me what he told you first. Then I might agree."

He nods, clearing his throat. "He confronted me about the files and everything. When I denied, he threatened he'd ruin my career. I didn't believe him because I don't really have a career. But the next day, when I still hadn't returned the files, he got angry. Pushed me against a wall and said bad things would happen to you if I didn't give up on trying to stop him."

He gets a little more serious now. I can see his eyes change. "So I was a little more careful. Still, I believed that if I stayed away from you and made sure Aris was with you whenever Janson was, you'd be fine. Until Janson gave me like a million ways he could ruin your life. He said that if I'd dare to tell you one more thing about WCKD, he'd do one of those things. So to get you even safer, I broke up with you. I'm sorry about that, by the way. I never knew I could play such an asshole."

"You indeed were an asshole."

"Yes," he says. Then, he swallows. "After that, Janson liked to slam me against more walls. Some punches here, punches there. Few threats, reasons to ruin your life, how he had acces to ruining your father's job."

He's taking way too easily about it. So I think he meant it when he said he likes to talk happy about his trauma. Because this for sure is traumatic.

"Then my panic attacks got worse because lovely how often I thought of the way he could be doing things to you. Had some nightmares about Janson. So I eventually gave him most of the files, thinking it would fix things. But they didn't. So what he meant with 'not our first lovely meeting'... it basically happened everyday. Got to feel a nice cold gun against the side of my head as he spoke about killing anyone who I'd tell WCKD about."

"You kept sending Chuck away to protect him," I realize. "So they wouldn't get suspicious or anything."

He nods. "Exactly. But I noticed you were getting worse in the meanwhile, and obviously I care more about you than Janson's threats, so I watched you that Friday night. Noticed the pills falling from your pocket. I told your parents. I knew that you'd be safer from yourself like that, that no one would hurt you if you had adults around you all the time, and that you'd be able to recover."

All I can do is nod. My eyes should stop watering.

"Then Newt showed up at my house and I saw my life flash in front of my eyes at his anger. Newt also likes pushing me against the wall, after I said I never meant to hurt you. He was like 'oh, don't lie to me!' blah blah blah, 'don't. lie. to. me!" and then let me go."

Inspiring.

"Days continued. So did Janson. I kept seeing him because I was fucking afraid he'd hurt you, or Chuck. My nightmares kept waking my parents up and they started to get sick of all my panic attacks. I kind of convinced them to go on a holiday so I had space in the meanwhile, promising them I'd be safe."

My mouth's half open. "You let your parents leave you in a horrible state only because you were afraid they were annoyed?"

He shrugs. "Whatever. At least they couldn't see me stabbed. It was because Janson threatened he'd take your role. I was already afraid you might've not been able to dance due to your health, but the way he said those things irritated me. I overheard a few girls the next day, speaking about how she got the role of Clara. Then I went up to Janson, but he had a knife, and you know."

"But he can't just stab you like that!" I peep. "Only because you got angry?"

"I had three weeks of warnings like punches. Should've seen it coming."

Three weeks. The way Thomas is explaining it makes it sound less worse, but if you translate it correctly, it means Janson actually abused him for three weeks long. Traumatized him, according to the panic attacks and nightmares.

I want to apologize about my way of acting, but it wouldn't make any sense. He was playing his role as an ex boyfriend too well for me to notice, so if I apologize now, he for sure won't accept it.

"Then yesterday in the attic... I figured they brought Gally back. They made some good money out of him before he got so unwell he had to go back. The serum didn't work. They didn't manage to make it right, and now I'm afraid Gally will always be a bit damaged."

Though I don't know the boy, I feel my heart ache for him. It's sad, thinking you'd become a famous sporter and then this happens.

"Janson wanted your file, but I refused to give him it. He said he promised to keep you safe, so what would he even want with the file? And I also stole one of the serums to check it out, though I never really got the chance to do that."

I wrap my arms around him, no longer able to take it. "I'm so sorry all that happened and no one was there to help you, Thomas," I whisper.

"It's alright, Blondie. I'll manage. Wait, can I please call you that now?"

I nod. "You can."

"Awesome." He kisses my forehead. "Wait, can I even kiss you? Are we...? You know?"

"Well, I believe you," I start. "So you do still love me?"

"Of course I do!" He cups my face. "I've never stopped loving you. Everything I did in the past weeks was to protect you, no matter how much it hurt. I only realized I would maybe never get you back when it was too late and I really messed up. But I've never stopped loving, wanting, needing you, Rose."

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry or just hug him, so I do everything at once. "When you were acting like a dick, I did love you a little less, but with this whole explanation, I'll forgive you."

He looks more surprised than I expected him to. "Really?"

"Yes, really."

"You don't need time to consider anything?"

"No. I believe you."

"Ah. That's nice to hear." He takes some deep breaths. "Well, Rosalind Isaacs, can I get the honor of kissing you before you spill all the secrets about your recovery?"

I smile. "I'm haven't recovered yet. I've only taken like three bites of every meal Mary gives me."

"You will recover," he tells me, forcing me to look at him by using the hands on my cheeks. "Still waiting to get the honor, though."

A chuckle leaves my mouth. "You get the honor."

We both lean in. I think this is the softest our lips have ever connected, but it does also contain more emotions than some of the other kisses we've shared. I just slowly move my lips against his as the nice tingling feeling spreads through me like a spell.

I missed it.