These Are the Lies I Have Created

“Okay. I’m going to go get a coffee then. I’ll, uh, I’ll be back.” I headed out into the white hallway, with Jared and coffee on my mind. Does Jared want me to be here? To be with him? Well for the night, but I guess eventually I’ll have to know if he does want to be with me… I hope the coffee isn’t too shitty here. Probably is, I fuckin’ hate hospitals.

As I approached Jared’s room I saw a nurse walking and my heartbeat started to speed up. What happened?
“Uh, miss, why were you in there? What was wrong with Jared?” She just smirked at me, like she knew something I didn’t.
“Are you the partner? He’s fine; I just gave him some medication that will help him sleep without pain. You got him here in time, he’ll be normal again in time.”
“I’m not, I’m not dating him.”
“Sure you aren’t sweetie.” The nurse patted my arm and left me with my coffee.

After a minute, I opened the door of room 312 to see Jared, looking out the window with his eye that wasn’t swollen. His head turned towards me.
“Hey.”
“Hey Jared.”
“So, you got your coffee? It any good?”
“It came from a hospital cafeteria, what do you think?” I said with a smile, half joking, half serious. He chuckled and then winced. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, don’t worry. But I think I’m gonna pass out any minute now from the meds.”
“Okay, I’ll let you sleep.” He mumbled out a “thanks” and shut his eyes. It was hard watching that. Seeing Jared slowly close his eyes like that, it reminded me of seeing people die in movies. I was close to crying.
“Gerard sit down.” I nearly jumped a foot in the air and jared gave a quiet laugh His eyes were still closed, but he had a small smile on his face. I sat down. “Night Gee.”
“Good night Jared.”

Just after that, he was out cold, and I couldn’t help but move my chair closer to his hospital bed. I was memorized by his face. It was so distorted from the mugger, but yet in his sleep he looked like he wasn’t in any pain. Like his sleep was canceling out the day’s bad events. But without that event I wouldn’t be here. When Jared wakes up in the morning, I’m going to talk to him about us, if there is a us, if he wants an us.

It was around six o’clock when Jared started to wake up. The sun hadn’t been up long, but I had. I didn’t sleep all night, and I was surrounded by coffee cups. I watched his face scrunch, trying to decide if I shouldn’t be staring when he woke up. Would it be creepy if I was? And was I sitting too close to his bed? During the night I sort of shifted closer to his bed. I’m practically right next to it. But before I could change anything I saw his eyes open and the look of confusion play on his face

“Gerard?”
“Uh, morning Jared?”
“Gerard, where am, I’m in the hospital… the mugger.” I gave him a moment to remember. Suddenly he turned to me quickly. “You stayed?”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t have to.” He took a look around the room, “Jesus, how many coffees did you drink last night?”
“A lot. I didn’t sleep.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Well the chair’s not that comfortable, so it wasn’t too hard.”
“Oh… come sit with me, on the bed.’ And scooted over to the right side of the hospital bed and patted the spot besides him. I was way too fucking tired to pass up his offer. It was a tight fit, but I liked being this close to him.
“Ugh, your bed is so comfy, I could fall asleep right now.”
“Here, Gerard, just lie your head on my shoulder and sleep.” I started to follow his suggestion, and move my head to his muscular shoulder to fall asleep, but before I could I remembered what I’d promised to myself during the night.

“No, wait, I want to talk.”
“I’m sure it can wait.” He said. I could tell he was worried about me.
“No. It can’t. I want to talk about us.” I was so sleep deprived. I wasn’t thinking right.
“Us?” Fuck, he’s hesitating. God damn it, this is my fault. I should have waited.
“Not that there is an us, unless you want an us, or I don’t know. Fuck, this isn’t how I planned.” He doesn’t want to be with me. I know it. Everything will be awkward now. Great.
“Do you want an ‘us’?” Jared asked awkwardly and absent-mindedly.
“Possibly?” I answered shyly, “do you want an ‘us’?” I asked, stealing his words. I was too nervous to come up with me my own.
“Maybe, yeah.” He didn’t sound to confident.
“What if we, say, go on a few dates, yeah? And then, uh, take it from there, decided from there?”
“That sounds good. We’ll go on dates together, with only each other?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. I could almost smile; I guess I didn’t completely mess it up. “I’ll only go on dates with you, and you’ll only go on dates with me.”
“Okay.” He sounded a bit more confident in his answer this time, and a small smile formed on my face.