The Stars Are Fading Away

I gotta get out of here
And I'm begging you
I'm begging you
I'm begging you to be my escape

Amber’s POV

When I slipped into consciousness, the first thing I felt was the smell of alcohol polluting the air. Rubbing alcohol.

I was tired. So tired. I had just woken up, but I was unable to open my eyelids to look around.

I took a deep breath. I heard someone else take a breath, too, a sharp intake of air. I heard a chair scrap across the floor.

“Amber? Are you awake?” the voice was apprehensive. It took me awhile to put the voice to a face, it was Mason’s.

I opened my eyes, finally. A white ceiling. A white wall. Ugly green chairs.

My eyes wandered over to the left, and Mason was sitting in one of the chairs. He looked relieved.

“Thank God.” He took a deep breath, leaning his head against his palms “Thank God,” he repeated, quieter.

I looked down at myself I was in a bed with white sheets and a thin white blanket covering me. An ugly hospital gown was draped over my shoulders.

So I was in a hospital.

My throat was dry, so I tried to clear it. When I did, all that happened was a wave of pain. It was like someone had gotten sandpaper and rubbed my throat raw. I almost started choking. I tried swallowing, and that hurt, too.

“Can I–water,” I managed to say.

Mason immediately got up, nearly running into a nurse that had just come in. She picked up the clipboard hanging off the bottom of the bed and examined it for a moment.

“I see you’re awake,” she glanced at me, smiling. I nodded.

“We need to check your stitches and throat, if you could just sit up a little,” the nurse ordered, and I situated myself accordingly.

She carefully bent my head foreword and rubbed something on the base of my neck. It stung, but I didn’t really care. I wanted to know what happened. When she was done, she took a small light and shined it into my mouth, nodded and pursing her lips.

“Um… She wanted some water,” Mason asked, uncertainly.

“Of course, I’ll get her a glass. There a water fountain down the hall if you want to refill it.”

I leaned back into the bed and Mason sat back down in the chair. I noticed he looked disheveled. He was wearing the clothes he’d been wearing before and he had some stubble, like a five o’clock shadow but darker.

“How long–” I coughed. My voice was raspy and rough.

“You’ve been here since around 2:30AM, it’s 4:00 now.”

From the sun shining from the window, I assumed it was 4:00PM.

The nurse came back with a glass of water, placing it on the table next to the bed.

“If you need anything else, just press this button,” she said, gesturing to a white button on the side of the bed before walking swiftly into the hall again.

Once she was gone, Mason scooted his chair up to the bed. I picked up the water and took a small sip, and it brought relief to my throat. I noticed Mason was staring at my neck, and I looked down, too.

Huge, dark bruises, all around. You could clearly see handprints, around my neck like a disgusting necklace.

“What happened?” he whispered.

It had come to the point where Mason asked me this so much I would just recite it. Like lines from a play.

“He picked me up after my last class. I didn’t know where he was driving to, but I didn’t say anything.” I paused. I didn’t want to mention that Wren’s excuse was Mason. It would just make him feel guilty. “And then he…”

“Choked you? He tried to kill you, Amber.” Mason’s eyes were closed and his voice was tightly strained.

I gritted my teeth and nodded.

“Please, Amber, he’ll just try again. I can’t lose you.”

“I was going to,” I said, truthfully.

Mason looked hard at my face, deciding whether I was lying. He took my hand in his, staring at it instead of my face.

“How did I get here?”

“Derrick found you.”

I was shocked. Derrick had found me? Why would he be there?

“I had this horrible feeling that something bad was going to happen. I called Derrick, and we went out looking for you. You weren’t at your dorm, you weren’t at his apartment. We checked bars. Then we checked alleys. When we found you, you were unconscious.” He swallowed.

“Derrick called an ambulance and they took you here. You had to get stitches near the base of your neck and you have ‘severe bruising’ on your neck and throat. They said you could be discharged once you were awake for awhile.”

He took a deep breath and cleared his throat, glancing up at my face, then back down to my hand.

“When I saw you, laying on the ground, I thought you were dead. I thought you were gone forever. I don’t ever want that feeling again,” he whispered, still looking at my hand.

I was speechless. His head was bent down so I couldn’t see his face.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

He shook his head, sighing.

“Derrick had to go to class. He met Grace,” Mason added, smirking a little. “They’re quite a pair.”

I laughed. Derrick and Grace in the same room would be hard to handle.

“Grace was here?”

“Yeah, I called her. You had her number on your cell. By the way.” He dug in his pocket.

“Here,” he said, placing my phone in my hand. I flipped it open hesitantly. There were no missed calls. I threw it onto the table.

Mason sat back in his chair, relaxing.

“Wait, don’t you have class?”

“Yeah.” He closed his eyes again. He looked exhausted.

“Did you get any sleep last night?”

“No.”

“You didn’t sleep at all?”

“I’m about to,” he yawned. I didn’t like that he’d skipped class and stayed up all night. He should have gotten some sleep. He didn’t need to miss class for me.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mason muttered, as if he had heard my thoughts. I watched him for awhile. His breathing slowed and his mouth opened a little. He was asleep.

I sat back in my bed, wondering when I could go home. I wanted to sleep in my own bed. I closed my eyes.

I heard someone come in, but I didn’t open my eyes. I hoped it was a nurse and they would go away, but they didn’t. I heard a chair creak as they sat down, so I opened my eyes.

It was Derrick, awkwardly staring at the wall. He looked over at Mason and nudged him a couple of times inconspicuously to try to get him to wake up. I smiled a little, and his eyes flashed to my face.

“Amber! You’re awake!”

I smiled a little wider.

“How are you holding up?”

“My throat hurts when I talk.”

“Just pretend it's from a cold,” he said, winking at me.

I laughed a little and sighed. Derrick sat back in his seat and glanced over at Mason again. “How the hell can he sleep in one of these goddamn chairs,” he muttered, shifting in his seat. He sighed when he couldn’t find a comfortable position, then glared at me. “Lucky, you get a bed.”

I laughed, ignoring how it made my throat throb.

Derrick and I chattered for awhile, letting Mason sleep. When the clock on the wall said 8:00, a nurse walked in again. She checked my clipboard, and turned to me.

“Your condition hasn’t changed and we don’t think there’s any infection, so you’re free to go. You can check out at the front desk.”

Derrick stood up abruptly. “Come on, let’s go! I am never sitting in one of these chair again!”

The nurse shot him a disapproving look before she walked back out into the hallway.

“Mason. Wake up.” Derrick shook his shoulder, but Mason didn’t respond. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and dropped onto the floor.

“MASON! YOU HAVE TO DRIVE!”

He started awake, jolting away from Derrick, who had just screamed in his ear.

“God, okay, okay,” he said, getting up and walking out the door without waiting for us, working on autopilot. We hurried to catch up with him as he walked swiftly down the hall. It was floored with white and grey speckled tile. I watched my feet instead of my surroundings; I didn’t like hospitals.

We got down to the front desk and walked to Mason’s car. Derrick got in the passenger seat, so I was forced to sit in the back. I curled up against the armrest and watched the city flash by. I felt sleepy all of a sudden, but the cold window kept me awake.

I was surprised when we pulled up to where Mason and Derrick lived. I had expected them to take me to my dorm.

The window I was leaning against swung open, but before I could fall onto the driveway Derrick caught me.

“Wow, you’re a little out of it, Amber,” he said with a grin, but I could tell he was worried.

“Just tired,” I yawned. Mason wound an arm around my waist and I instantly leaned into him, mostly because I didn’t want to support my own weight. I wanted to sleep.

As soon as we got inside, I went into Mason’s room and crawled under the covers, pulling them over my head and hugging a pillow close to me. I heard Mason and Derrick talking in the living room, and I could vaguely make out the conversation.

“Good call, I wouldn’t want her to be alone…” That was Derrick, the conscious part of my brain told me.

“Yeah, that’s why I didn’t take her back to her dorm. I thought he might… Look for her.”

“Do you think he thinks she’s…”

“I don’t know or care what that douchebag thinks.”

“Okay, you didn’t need to jump down my throat. Just wondering. But do think it’s safe for her…?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I’m just worried.”

“Yeah. Yeah, me too.” There was a sigh, then the door quietly opened. Mason got into bed, too, and rested his chin on my shoulder.

“Are you asleep?”

I nodded childishly and he chuckled, wrapping his arms around me.

“Good night, then.”