Set Me Free

Drew’s P.O.V.

He woke up? And he tried to call me. Ever since that call last night, all I could think about was Dane. Of course I was thinking about him even before that, but still.

Why didn’t he say anything when I picked up? He could have at least said hi. Did he think I’d hang up on him or something? Sure, I left him, but he had to know I had at least been there for days beside him. It was me he called, not anyone else, so he must’ve known that I had been there.

Or he could have just called the first number that came to mind. He wrote to me that he loved me, so maybe he just wanted to talk to me, but was afraid I’d turn him down again. Maybe Genna was right, maybe being away from him was doing him more harm than good. Or maybe I shouldn’t show up. Now I know that I’m the reason he’s placed himself in a coma, staying away from him might be better.

I didn’t have any more time to argue with myself since I’d already arrived at the hospital. Not only that, but I was surprisingly already parked. Taking a deep breath and trying to once again flatten my mess of hair, I made my way into the hospital. I’m pretty sure I got some weird glances, but I didn’t care, my sights were set to room 306. What if Jorge was there and choked me for causing his little brother to do this? What if he had me banned from the hospital? O.O...

Can people do that? I don’t think you can get banned from the hospital.

I know I’m thinking a lot of nonsense, but it’s the only thing keeping me sane at the moment. All I really feel like doing is just turning around and booking it back home. He won’t miss me.

I arrived at Dane’s room; his door was opened, two doctors talking outside. I didn’t see Ash or Jorge anywhere. The only person in the room was some guy, semi short, dark brown hair that was so messy that it was neat. I suck as explaining people, so just bear with me here. I just didn’t know who the guy was or why he was in Dane’s room.

Slowly, carefully, I made my way into the room and sat on the chair on the other side of Dane, across from the guy. He didn’t even bother looking up at me.

I wished he’d leave though; I wanted to talk to Dane in private.

After about five to ten minutes of us sitting in absolute silence, the guy just got up and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. I don’t know what he was thinking, or even if he knew what he was doing, but I didn’t care; I was finally alone with Dane.
I firmly grasped his slightly colder hand in mine. How could I be so stupid?

Dane looked so peaceful; I wouldn’t mind waking up to that face every morning. Too bad he’s leaving. Might as well confess one last thing before his brother takes him away.

“I just want you know how sorry I am for doing all of this to you. I didn’t think me leaving would have had such a strong impact on you. I wished you’d have at least said something over the phone last night. You know, I would have been here in a heartbeat. What I’m wondering is if you can hear me or not. Maybe you just called me last night because I was the first person who popped up in your mind at the time. I hope you really can hear me. I’d love that.” I cracked a small smile, still staring at his beautiful face. He really shouldn’t have to go through any of this.
“Everyone’s really worried about you. I’ve gotten so many calls from the school asking how you are. Gabe just won’t stop calling at all. You two seemed like really good friends.”

Okay, I’ll admit it, maybe I was a little jealous of Gabriel. He’s the only in the entire school who’s ever admitted he’s gay, even though there were about ten more gay guys, but before all of this, him and Dane seemed to be getting along really well. I know that’s not fair of me to say, seeing as I was dating Echo, but...I don’t know, I just wanted Dane to stay single.

How selfish do I sound right now? I really don’t deserve this boy, but I’ll be damned if I walk
away from him again.

“I really miss you too. I just wish you’d wake up again; I miss not talking to you. Avoiding you was the biggest mistake I could’ve made, but I’m willing to fix it. Even if you move away to San Francisco I want us to talk. I know I don’t deserve someone like you, but hopefully you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me for everything I’ve done to you.
I completely understand if you don’t. I can’t remember if I’ve told you or not, but I broke up with Echo; she said she saw it coming. I’m sorry for being such a damn coward. I promise I’ll never do this to you again. I wish I could’ve been there when you woke up; this may not be the time, but I really want to kiss you right now. Not on the cheek or forehead, but...you get it.
You could say I’m nervous, though for the life of me, I can’t tell you why, but I can tell you something and maybe you can help me with it.”

Sitting there, just talking to Dane made me feel better than I had for the past two days. He can’t answer me and he’s not even looking at me, but he helps me in ways no one else has been able to. When I went home for the first time since Dane’s been in the hospital, I went straight to my room and bawled my eyes out. My mother was in tears herself, just watching me in agony, but there was nothing else I could do. I’d left and tortured myself into believing that Dane would be better off without me. I never want to go through anything like that again. My douche bag of a brother didn’t care and sat there making fun of me the whole time, calling me a ‘fucking fag’ and picking on me. He’s a homophobic asshole who should rot in
hell.

“You know that day when Felicity kidnapped you and tried forcing us to talk to one another? Well, I said something to her that day, something I really shouldn’t have. It’s been eating me up, seeing how badly I hurt her, but...I was desperate to get out of there; I didn’t think I could be in the same room as you without losing it. She’s quiet now and careful around me and I don’t want her to be. I want my little sister back, but...I just shouldn’t have said it.”

I hung my head, sighing. If he were to hear me, maybe when he got out of this, he could help me, tell me what to say to get myself out of this.

“Remember one of the first days we met and you told me that you wished you were adopted and I got really mad? Well, you can’t answer, but I think you know. Um, you think I’m adopted, don’t you? Seeing as I’m the only British one in my entire family, but...I’m not the adopted one...Felicity is.
It’s hard to explain, but, here goes nothing.” I took a deep breath; no one other than our family knows about this, and the other family that was involved, but they were thankfully forced out of our lives.
“Before moving here, mum and dad weren’t the richest people ever. We lived in one of the worst neighborhoods of downtown New York and we were barely getting by. Dad worked for this...terribly Oil Company that never struck anything anywhere, so after Sam was born, when he was one and a half and had started talking; my dad’s job moved us to Dorset, England. It was a nice little village, but not the place to go to make money. That’s where I was born.

“Mom had to move back to the U.S. with Sam after getting her own job, but she needed some government support, so that’s why she took Sam with her, to get more money, and dad said he was coming a little later on, but didn’t end up going until I turned three. I’d actually never met mum before that.” I cleared my throat, feeling unwanted emotions rising up into my chest.

“A year later, Felicity was born. When we’d moved from England, we moved back to the same shitty apartment in New York and mum and dad just couldn’t take care of all of us, they didn’t have a way. Sam was at school and dad was supposed to pick him up, but he was forced to work overtime and Sam’s teacher took him home. She saw the condition we lived in and called child services. They told our parents that they couldn’t possibly take care of Felicity and took her away. Felicity was just three months old at the time.
“Mum and dad made sure we visited her as much as we could and they tried absolutely everything they could to get her back, but when she was one year old, she got adopted by this...Scottish couple, I think. Not the point, at first they acted like they loved her and cared for her, but as soon as Felicity turned two, they forced us to stop visiting her. They called their lawyers and made them file a restraining order against our entire family; it just about killed my parents.” I sniffed, looking back up at Dane’s peaceful facade. “Mom tried fighting back, but wasn’t financially fit enough to find a way. By then, my dad was working his ass off, doing everything he could to maybe get a raise, earn enough money to maybe get Felicity back.
She went from foster home to foster home before she was even three and my parents were at their wits end. By then, I was only seven and Sam was nine, so we didn’t understand what was going on. When I turned eight, we got this phone call from a very frantic social worker, the one who had been trying to get Felicity home to us ever since she got sent away. She was crying and just flipping out and mom and dad had no idea what to think about it; that was until she told us that Felicity was in the hospital.”

Slow tears were cascading down my face as I was forced to remember that that day. I might not have understood what was going on, but I remembered the fear that had coursed through my veins as my parents raced down the hospital hallways with Sam and I in tow. It was as if it were just a bad dream, which was what I had kept telling myself, days after it happened.

“Mom and dad had dragged us down to the hospital, finding the social worker standing in the lobby waiting for us. She tried telling us what had happened, but my parents didn’t want to hear it, they made a bee line straight for Felicity’s room, where they found police interviewing her doctor. When we finally got to see her, I wished we didn’t...not like that. She was only four years old. Bruises lined her entire face; you couldn’t even tell what color she was. Her head was thoroughly bandaged, she was stitched up...she looked like a discolored rag doll they’d haphazardly sewed together in order to keep her from falling apart. It was awful and I swore that I’d never see that again and then you ended up here after being left for dead. I’m so sorry that I hadn’t come to visit you, but I didn’t think I could. I didn’t know what you’d looked like and frankly, I was too scared out of my mind to find out. You could’ve looked just like she did and I wouldn’t know. I was only eight when it had happened, what did you expect?” I tried laughing, but it just came out forged and fake.

“Our parents were able to get her back, but she was never the same. The doctor told us to watch out for her brain activity, to make sure that everything was working because her foster parents had tried to kill her because she wouldn’t eat her vegetables.
Her epilepsy didn’t strike until she was about five or six; there was a huge lightning storm. She got scared and kept complaining that the light was hurting her eyes and giving her a headache. Mum found her in the kitchen in the middle of her first seizure. Apparently the head injury finally caught up to her.”

I didn’t want to tell Dane the next part; if he could hear me, there’s no way he’d stop himself from being disgusted with me. He’d surely hate me and wish for me to leave. I’m disgusted with myself.

“That night when she kidnapped you and I wanted to get out, I’d told her that...” I sighed, taking my hand away from Dane’s. “I told my own little sister that I’d send her away, back to the people who’d hurt her if she didn’t let me go. I said that I’d make sure she’d go back to them so they could do whatever they wanted with her. She’d almost died that day. I shouldn’t have said what I did and I want nothing more than to take it back, but I can’t. I swore to myself before that if I were to ever meet those people, I’d make sure to kill them for doing that to my little sister.” Tears softly patted down to Dane’s blanket. “I looked so serious saying it too. She probably thought I was telling the truth and I haven’t tried to talk to her about it ever since. I’d want nothing to do with myself and I don’t want her to have anything to do with me either.
Hopefully this is another thing you can forgive me for.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dane’s brother and his boyfriend (the guy who had been in the room) had come back into the room shortly after I’d managed to calm down from my little confession. Jorge obviously looked confused as to why I was in the room, but didn’t question it, knowing I wasn’t in the mood at the time.

At about ten thirty, they’d left to go back to their hotel room. Jorge looked like he’d been dragged to hell and back...and then down to hell again. The only way he’ll be coming back is when Dane wakes up.

I don’t know when, but I’d fallen asleep, dreaming of the day this will all just disappear; the day Dane wakes up and says that he forgives me for all the wrongs I’ve done and that he wants to make them right. It was the best dream I’ve had in a while. Hopefully I stand a chance at making them come true.

I was lost in la la land when I suddenly felt pressure on my hands. It was probably just Ash, telling me that I have to leave. Might as well let her think I was asleep for a few more minutes.

The pressure she was putting on me wasn’t letting up; it was faint, weak, like she wasn’t even trying, or was in too much pain to try. Why would Ash be in pain? And why is she trying to wake me up from my dreams? She’s let me stay the night here before, what was so different now? Reality was too hard to think about, I don’t want to wake up...not until Dane does.

A short, rasping cough rang throughout the room. Did another patient manage to stumble into the room? Maybe they needed help.

Saying goodbye to the dream for the time being, I risked cracking open one bloodshot eye. The crying from the day before finally got to me, my head felt as though it was being ripped open.

There was no one else in the room other than Dane and I and he was still asleep. What the hell? Am I imagining things now; great, I’m going crazy.

I closed my eyes once more, but once again that hoarse cough engulfed the entire room. The person sounded as if they were in desperate need of some water.

Opening my eyes, I stood from my place on the chair, unlatching my hands from Dane’s, looking everywhere around the room, to find once again, that it’s completely empty. Confused, I stuck my head out of the door, looking for anyone walking by, but the floor seemed completely deserted.

Well no wonder, I looked over at the clock on the wall, its two fifty in the morning.

I was rubbing my eyes when the rasping cough came back and that was when I realized, it was coming from the bed.

Sprinting as fast as my legs could possibly take me, I removed the oxygen mask from
Dane’s face, seeing his mouth move, as if trying to suck air into his lungs. His eyes were caked shut and didn’t look like they’d be opening up any time soon.

“Dane? DANE?” I screamed, trying to get him to at least open his eyes for me. I missed those bright green irises of his.

Without a second’s hesitation, I pressed the button on top of his bed, signaling for a nurse to come over.
He began coughing and hacking, his eyes shooting open from the force. He looked like he was chocking on his own spit. Thank god I paid attention in health class to know not to place the oxygen mask direction over his mouth while he was chocking. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I knew that I’d actually killed Dane.

A nurse ran into the room, saw Dane nearly dying in my arms and ran right back out. WHAT THE HELL!? Are they not trained for this sort of thing?

I had sat on the bed next to him, sitting him up, in order to get some water into his mouth. He was just spluttering it right back out in a fit of coughs. I brought the oxygen mask back to his face, but he used what little strength he had to push it back out.

“Come on Dane; just take a sip, please.” Where the hell is that nurse?

As if on cue, the lady walked in with Ash and Dr. Malridge. They tended to him almost immediately, pushing me out of the way in the process.

Ash nearly yelled at the lady to go call Jorge and tell him what happened. I don’t know what the doctor did, but he got Dane to suck down that water as if his life depended on it.

Dane dropped back down on the bed almost immediately.

“Look after him for a bit while I get my equipment.” Dr. Malridge tells me as he walks out of the door.

I walk over to Dane’s bed, sitting on the edge, looking down at him. He looks absolutely drained. His eyes drooped to the point where only one looked less than half opened. He’s sickly pale and his lips are so chapped they’re split. He was still the most breathtaking thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.

Bringing one of my hands to his forehead, I notice that he was burning up, even though he’s so pale. Can someone get a fever after just coming out of a coma?

He opens his mouth, as if he wants to say something, but for him, that’s quite a feat.

“Don’t try to talk, its okay, I’m not going anywhere. Just try to sleep.”

Trying to shake his head, Dane lets out another shaky cough, closing the only opened eye before opening it once more.

“What’s the matter? Just try to sleep.”

Once again, he shook his head, trying to look up at me. His mouth opened once more, this time he managed to get a single sound out.

I opened my mouth to tell him to try to sleep once more, but one look from those tired, sea green eyes shut me up.

“I-I...” It looked as if it took all of the energy he had left I him just to say that, but it seemed so important to him. There was a determination in his eyes; he just had to say what he was trying to, or else it would be the end of everything he knew. Why couldn’t he just wait until morning?

“I-I...I f-fo-forgive you...”