Dreaming Up A Secret

“Back in bed,” a low, masculine voice command, lifting me up, dripping tears and dripping blood, and placing me back in the bed, a younger looking women, probably the nurse, was scurrying around him to reattach me to all the machinery. I whimpered pathetically as she missed the vein in my arm over and over until the doctor had to step in and help.
“Now young man,” he said when I was reattached, “you need to stay in bed, get some rest. You got really hurt, scared a lot of people. Especially your dad. When he came to visit you and you weren’t there, Ronan’s mother explained what happened, he rushed right over here. He had to go home, but he’ll be back later. So rest up so you can see him, ok?”
I flinched when he mentioned the last part. My dad. Abusive dad. He had come looking for me? Then in a flash, it all came back. The tapping of the beer bottle, the glass shattering, the blood gushing from Ronan down off the side of my bed.
“R-R-R-Ronan!” I gasped.
“Ah yes, your little friend,” the doctor said, thinking I was asking about him, “well, he’s not as lucky as you were… he’s been in a coma for a while now,” he picked up the clipboard hanging off of the end of Ronan’s bed that contained his charts and examining it, “quite a few cuts and bruises to the head, seems to have gotten knocked around a lot. I’m sorry. We don’t think he’s going to make it.”
I sobbed desperately, shaking my head to say no, my hair sticking to my face. Alice walked towards me, trying to bring my head against her side in a comforting gesture which I stubbornly resisted.
“He will!” I gasped, probably incomprehensibly. “He’s going to be fine.”
Alice put her hand on the top of my head and turned it towards her, “sweetie, he had a good life, but according to the doctor’s there’s nothing going on in his mind right now… he’s already dead. Its better to let him go with out the suffering.”
My head dropped, I couldn’t find the strength to hold it up anymore, could barely manage to keep my breathing and thoughts going.
“Alice,” I murmured, “I don’t want him to die, I can’t let him die.”
“Aiden, honey, you don’t have much control over this,” she told me as the doctor left the room.
“But its my fault. All my fault.” I explained as the doctor left the room.
“No, Aiden, no, you can’t blame yourself for this.”
“But its my fault!” I was screaming now. “It was my dad! He…” I got cut off.
“What did I do, son?” He asked, marching into the room like a concerned parent.
I could feel the color draining out of my face; If I said anything now, we were all fucked.
“N-nothing dad,” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking… trying.
“How are you feeling?” He asked with a sickening sarcasm only I could hear.
“G-good dad, thanks, how bout you?” I stuttered back my response.
“Well I’m doing just great, and I promise, I’m not leaving your side again,” he told me with a wolfish grin, a hidden threat that was just buried deep enough that no one would see it.
I glanced at Ronan, wishing he would wake up now more then ever as I started to cry, not being able to stop. Yes, random crying, sometimes a general part of being a teenager, but for me it wasn’t random, for me, I was back to where my dad was beating him.
“Now, now, everything is fine,” my dad told me, touching my arm.
I recoiled at his touch and nodded, hiding my face in the pillows.
“Does is hurt?” Alice asked kindly.
I nodded, trying to think of any other way to get medication enough to knock me out. It wasn’t a direct lie, because plenty of things hurt, like my feelings, my heart, my mind… it just wasn’t exactly physical… well, except for my head, which was throbbing incessantly. I heard her leave to get the medication, dragging Tom with her.
“Now listen up,” my dad‘s word‘s were slurred; He was drunk right now, “if you fucking tell anyone I’ll kill you and them and your little fag boyfriend… not that he’s going to survive the night.”
I couldn’t say anything, mostly because I couldn’t think anything. I just prayed that Alice came back soon. I craved the numbing relief that pain medication always brought and the unconscious, dreamless sleep that always came with it.
When she did return to the room, Alice was ushering a very tall women with a needle held carefully in her hand. I was thankful for how quickly it took effect after she jabbed it into me and almost instantaneously, I was out.
~ Ronan’s Point Of View ~
Where was I? I don’t know. What was happening? I don’t know. Where is Aiden? I wish I knew.
Everything was dark, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face… literally. Every step I took my foot hit nothing, yet I never fell. I reached my hands out in front of my face, trying to feel something, to feel anything. Yet not matter how far I reached, no matter many airless steps I took, I couldn’t.
But then there was something, ever so slight and gentle, and it was caressing my lips softly, alluringly. I could feel my heart skip a beat; After so many days, weeks even, of nothingness, it was like a peace offering after a war. I clutched it hopelessly, needing it there. I could feel soft skin under my hands, then a far away light. Half of me was wary to go near light; I’d seen the movies, light meant you were dead, well the other half urged me to run for my life towards it, anything was better than this.
So I started running as fast as I could, hoping I wouldn’t fall.
And he was on top of me, I was holding him. Aiden was here. He was hugging me.
“Aiden!” I forced the words out of my lungs where they had been caught my whole time
in the blackness.