Super Avenged: Only Human

Somehow, I convinced Miya’s doctor to let me stay overnight at the hospital with Miya. I supposed he might’ve been a little more lenient in my case, since I hadn’t seen her for three weeks. Everyone seemed to be much more sympathetic towards Miya and me than they would be towards some random couple who’d been in a car crash or something. The nurses were all smiles, clearly as thrilled as I was to have Miya back safe and sound. Well, no one could be as thrilled as I was to have Miya back.

The nurse finished setting up the other hospital bed in the room for me. She smiled and nodded in my direction as she stepped quietly out of the room. I looked back down at Miya, running my thumb gently across the back of her hand. She’d been sleeping soundly for about half an hour. I’d delivered her to the hospital and then, as they bandaged up her cuts and scrapes, hurried home to get a change of clothes for her and for myself. She changed into the clean, dry clothes and slid underneath the sheet. Within minutes, she was sound asleep. Then, the doctor came in to talk to me about Miya’s condition.

I looked around at the sound of the door opening. Matt poked his head into the room and motioned for me to come out into the hall. I gently released Miya’s hand and rose from my seat next to her hospital bed. As I walked out of the room, I flicked the light off and then slid the door gently shut.

“C’mon,” he said, leading the way down the hallway towards the waiting room. “We want to talk to you.”

Brian, Johnny, and Zacky sat in the waiting room. Several people kept glancing at them, obviously unsure whether they were actually members of Super Avenged or not. Once I stepped into the room, though, all those people instantly knew who they were and went back to their own devices. Matt and I sat across from the three of them in the bland blue waiting room chairs.

“First of all: how’s Miya?” Zacky asked, even though he probably already knew the answer. Like I’ve mentioned before, he tends to read minds to get answers rather than just waiting for someone to say them.

“Well, the doctor says that all of her physical wounds will heal just fine,” I began. “It’s nothing real big, anyway. There are just a lot of cuts and bruises and minor things like that. The thing he says he’s worried about is her mental recovery. That’s perfectly understandable, of course. She’s not going to walk away from this experience without a couple of mental and emotional scars, but the doctor thought that it might get as bad as depression, suicidal thoughts, stuff like that. He suggested taking Miya to a therapist, but I don’t like that idea. Miya’s tougher than I think most people realize. But when she wakes up tomorrow, I’ll ask her about it, and if she feels like it’s a good idea, then off to the therapist we go.”

I really didn’t like the idea of taking Miya to a therapist. She had an incredible threshold for getting over pain. I mean, she recovered from the whole Brendan ordeal, and that was completely on her own. Now, she has me to help her recovery along. I just felt better with letting her recover naturally, privately, and on her own. A therapist would probably just piss her off more than anything.

“So, how did you guys know where I was?” I asked, looking around at my friends. In turn, all of them looked at Zacky.

“Well, ever since Miya was kidnapped, I’ve been monitoring your thoughts,” Zacky answered. “At first, it was just to make sure you didn’t try anything crazy or rash, like going into the bad side of town and beating people up for answers. But then you started getting those videos, and it became the perfect way for us to stay up-to-date on everything that was going on. You can’t keep secrets from your own thoughts, you know.”

“He said that you sometimes got some dirty thoughts about Miya,” Brian snickered. “And we would always know, too, because he’d suddenly be like, ‘Oh, no, Jimmy, put her clothes back on!’ It was quite possibly one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.”

“I had to pull out of your thoughts a few times,” Zacky admitted, shaking his head. “It was too awkward and...strange. You were definitely a lonely man...”

“Yeah, well, sue me,” I said with a grin.

“We better get going,” Matt announced, starting to rise to his feet. “Johnny has to get his sleep or he gets cranky and starts breaking shit.”

“Yeah, last week he woke up in a bad mood and broke a coffee mug,” Brian complained. “It was my favorite one, too! Jackass.”

Johnny just shrugged. Everyone else climbed to their feet as well. We said our good-byes, and they headed out the doors as I walked back to Miya’s hospital room.

I tried to be as quiet as possible as I opened the door and stepped into the room. I closed the door silently behind me and began to tip-toe towards my bed.

“I’ve been awake this whole time, you know,” Miya’s voice came out of the darkness. I stopped and pivoted myself towards her bed.

“Do you want me to turn the light back on?” I asked.

“No,” she answered. “It hurts my eyes. You can come lay with me, though.”

I walked over to Miya’s bed and pulled my shoes off before climbing up next to her. She scooted over so I had enough room to lie down beside her. The instant I got myself situated, she pulled the sheet up over my body and snuggled closer, resting her head on my chest.

“So, the doctor wants me to visit a therapist,” she continued quietly. Her fingertip drew circles on my shirt, and I couldn’t believe how great it felt to be lying next to her again. I’d really been missing out.

“Yeah,” I answered, curling my arm around her. I traced patterns on her back with my fingertips. It always seemed to soothe her. “I personally don’t like the idea, but if you want to, then I can make it happen.”

“I don’t like the idea much either,” she agreed, shifting slightly so that her head rested in the crook of my neck. She’d taken a shower here at the hospital, so her hair smelled like the generic shampoo the hospital gave her. Somehow, she could make even the blandest smell the most intoxicating drug I’d ever had the pleasure of smelling. “I can recover on my own. I don’t need a therapist to tell me that it isn’t my fault, asking me how I feel all the time, demanding that I just talk about it. I know it’s not my fault, and I don’t think sharing my feelings with every person I meet will help any more than just telling you when I’m ready. I’ve recovered from worst pain before.”

“I always knew they underestimated you,” I said, pressing a kiss into her hair. “So, no therapist?”

“No therapist,” Miya agreed. She sighed, and the feel of her warm breath on my neck sent a shiver down my spine.

“The doctor will not be happy about this,” I told her.

“About what?” Miya asked sleepily. She snuggled closer and settled in for the night, pulling the sheet further up her body.

“Us sleeping in the same bed together.”

“They’re just a bunch of tight asses anyway,” Miya grumbled. I smiled and rested my cheek against Miya’s head. And for the first night in three weeks, we fell asleep in each other’s arms.