'Cause Love Is A Selfish Thing

I woke up several times, and each time I had no trouble recognizing where I was or remembering what had happened. It was staying awake that was the hard part. I didn't even think I could open my eyes more than tiny slits. I didn't really care though because it felt like I could sleep for several days, months if someone would allow it. A few times, I hovered between a restful slumber and being conscious enough to realize what was going on around me. Vaguely, I thought about the last few moments that I was truly awake. I had been so sure that I wouldn't ever wake up again, and I just wasn't ready for that. There was no way I was prepared to die yet when there was so much left to do. I needed to see my best friend live her dream wedding with the man I had grown to think of as the brother I'd always secretly wanted. I wanted to see how far all of my friends got with their lives and be able to live alongside them during it. I wanted to watch Daniel grow up and be the perfect combination of his parents that I knew he was going to be. Even if it was only for him to tell me he thought it was best to leave me, I had to see Alex one more time before I gave in altogether. With fingers that had felt like they couldn't even bend properly and vision that had been so blurry it was a wonder I could see anything at all, I had found my phone and managed to call Hadley. Whatever had left my mouth, I was unaware of. But considering I was in the hospital, I could guess that the words I had slurred out had come out the way I wanted them to.

I hated that this had happened. How could I have been so stupid and careless? Thanks to a lapse in judgement and a heart that I had been convinced was breaking again, I had overdosed. It was a wonder I could get that word through my mind. I had never thought I would ever pay so little attention and I could never imagine that I would let myself continue to do something I knew could only result in something so terrible. An accident or not, I was grateful it had failed. I was happy to be breathing now, barely remembering the labored breaths from right after calling Hadley. I was happy to be alive.

It took me at least another hour before I decided I had to force myself to stay awake. I couldn't say for sure if there was someone sitting with me but I figured I owed it to all of my friends to finally open my eyes. It took more effort than I thought I had strength for just to get my dark blues open to the world after I don't know how long. The light was bright and hard to adjust to after having gotten used to what I had thought was going to be endless darkness. I started to bend my limbs, testing to see if everything still worked and wanting to welcome the slight popping of my joints. But I decided that it probably looked like I was fidgeting too much and looked to my side instead. I shouldn't have had to doubt that there was someone waiting there for me to wake up. Of course Hadley would be sitting in that chair and counting the seconds until I finally opened my eyes.

"You're awake!" she exclaimed, much too loudly in my opinion. She launched out of the chair and flung her arms around my neck, squeezing tight enough to temporarily choke off my air. "Don't you ever, ever do that to me again," she demanded in a shrill voice the moment she pulled away from me, not wasting any time in getting to the point. She pointed a stern finger at me, but I could tell it was all she could do not to start crying. It to was easy to tell she had already spent some time doing just that.

I felt even more terrible knowing that I'd caused my best friend in the whole world the worst kind of pain. But I didn't know how to apologize just yet. "What happened?" I asked, sounding somewhat dumb. Obviously, I knew what happened. I wanted to hear it explained out loud though, by someone who loved me and who wouldn't make it sound so official like a doctor would. Like the time I had woken and had Jack explain my car accident to me. It had been so much easier to have a conversation with someone who cared before anyone else.

"What do you mean what happened?" she screeched, throwing her hands in the air in complete exasperation. She was still playing the anger card, letting it take over a bit more to hide the melancholy state that existed beneath. "You nearly fucking died with the sleeping pills and vodka stunt you pulled!" The fact that she was swearing meant that she really was pissed and not just fabricating it so she didn't look weak. Ever since she had gotten pregnant, she had tried her best to refrain from cursing. Moments that she felt like this were the true exceptions.

"I know what I did, and I know that it wasn't smart," I admitted freely. Why deny that? I had already expressed to myself in my patchy thoughts that it was the stupidest thing I'd ever done. "What happened after I called you? I haven't been awake long enough at all to realize anything that was going on. How long was I out?" I added as an afterthought. This seemed to be even more important in my addled brain. But I knew it couldn't have been too long. I was stiff from lack of movement, but not too horribly.

She threw herself back in the chair that very well could have been her home for days. She ran her fingers through her light hair. It looked freshly washed, so maybe I was wrong. "You told me you made a mistake and that you wanted to live. I was so Goddamn confused but something told me you needed help. So I called an ambulance and got there right before they did. I almost lost it, Clarke. I thought you were dead. That's a dreadful story for another day. But here, they pumped your stomach and promised me that you would make a full recovery. That was last night. So you've been asleep for over twenty-four hours," she explained, all the pain she had felt in each of those hours flooding her pale grey eyes. Slowly, they filled with tears I knew she wasn't going to allow herself to shed. The worst had passed. I was finally awake and she was going to try to breath a sigh of relief.

At last, I moved more than just simple stretching. I lifted my arm to run my fingers against my scalp, pushing my hair away from my face. It was nice to move again. "I'm sorry," I told her meekly, knowing a couple words couldn't make up for this. This was a month that should have been all about her and here I was, making her worry about me. I had to try my best to get things back on track the moment I could. "You know I didn't mean to though, right?" I begged her to understand. "I was so distraught over realizing how stupid I had been about the entire Oliver situation and then how mad Alex still was at me. Being slightly drunk is definitely not the best time to make a decision like starting to take sleeping pills." I had thought back to how great the idea seemed when my thoughts had been swimming in vodka.

Hadley nodded. "I've known you for what feels like my entire life. Not for a second would I ever think that you would do this on purpose. It's just shocking when you find out it's happened at all. There are a handful of people I can't lose in this world. Don't tell Marshall, but you share the top spot with Daniel," she said soberly.

I, on the other hand, couldn't help but giggle some. At least my tiny outburst finally caused her to crack a smile. I still tried quickly to compose myself. It just didn't seem right to be laughing at a time like this, no matter how happy I was to have woken up. "Where are they anyway?" I wondered, trying to sit up so I could look around and see if maybe I just couldn't see them and they were being extra quiet. She hit the button on the side of the bed for me that bent the bed into a sitting position, and more of the room came into my view. But it was empty except for just the two of us. My heart sank a little. I was so looking forward to seeing her son.

"I sent them home an hour or so ago. It was already passed Daniel's bedtime and I really wasn't sure how much longer you were going to be out. He was perfectly fine with the idea of curling up next to you and sleeping. But I just wasn't sure what the sight of you just lying there was doing to him," she admitted, suddenly looking sad again. I didn't blame her for not wanting him here just to watch me in some coma-like state. "Megan and Ashleigh were here, too, for a while. I told them I'd call if anything changed."

"Who else knows?" I questioned, pulling the woven blanket up over my arms and up to my chin. I was chilled by the thought of everyone knowing, of secretly thinking that I had tried to kill myself because they didn't know me the way my best friend did. It wasn't that I cared what they all thought. It was mostly just that I wanted to keep it to myself until I could fully explain, or understand it completely myself.

"Well, your parents, obviously. They're flying down, if they're not on their way here. They said they'll just stay down here until after the wedding," she told me with a light shrug. The thought came to me then, and I can honestly say I wished it hadn't. I opened my mouth to ask, but I couldn't seem to get it out. For a moment, I was sure I looked like a dying fish fighting for oxygen even though it surrounded me. "I didn't call him. Or any of them. I wasn't sure if you would want me to, and by the looks of it, I think I made the right choice," she responded to my pathetic expression. "Do you want me to now? You could do it," she suggested.

I shook my head rapidly. "No, not yet. I'll tell the boys soon. But I don't know about Alex…" I trailed off. My hesitation to want to tell him was something I couldn't seem to explain to myself. If he was still angry with me, I wouldn't even have to worry about it because he certainly wouldn't even let me speak.

She nodded in understanding, and that was all that was said about it. I felt a lot better the longer we sat and talked. She wanted to get the doctor, or at least a nurse, but I refused to let her leave, clamping onto her hand that she had slipped into my own. Hospitals still scared me to a point of never even wanting to drive passed one and doctors were no better in my book. I could just about stand being in the room as long as I didn't see anyone of official capacity around. She claimed this would be next to impossible since apparently there was a nurse's station right outside my door, which also meant I wouldn't be getting any sleep during my stay here. But I figured I could deal with the latter since I'd been sleeping for so long already. The former, I would get passed when the time actually came. So I simply pushed her to talk, about everything and anything. I didn't really care what about. For what was surely the millionth time in my twenty-three years, I wanted my mind on anything but the problem at hand.

It wasn't long that I continued to ask her to speak, maybe only an hour. In the middle of her pressing me to find out what I had said to Oliver the day before, we recognized a slight commotion going on close by, barely anything at all. We could hear sneakers running down the hallway, squeaking and slapping against the tiles. They were coming closer to the nurse's station across from my room. There was another set coming, too, but not as fast or frantic. Hadley turned around in her chair to see what was going on, though she couldn't see out the door. I stayed facing forward, staring at the blank white wall across from my bed. I wasn't sure if I really didn't care what was happening that had someone in such a hurry, that I was really that heartless. Part of me told me that it would be for me. But I kept it locked up in a tiny part of my brain because I simply wasn't sure what it would mean if I was right.

"Where is she?!" the person asked the moment they were at a standstill. It had taken him a moment to actually get to that point, he had been going so quickly. The nurse on duty must have asked whom he was talking about because he continued with another question. "Clarke Elizabeth Holliday! The fucking love of my life! What room is she in?" The person who had obviously been following him faintly told him to calm down some.

My head snapped up at the sound of my name. I had been trying so hard to not pay attention that I hadn't registered the voice. I had promised myself that I would always know his voice, no matter what was going on, no matter where I was. Slowly, tears sprang to my eyes. I refused to believe that it was because I hadn't noticed it was him. Even more that it was because he was here even though Hadley hadn't told him. She was facing me again, had been since the moment my eyes were averted to the doorway neither of us could actually see him through. I couldn't see her expression but I could feel her eyes on me and knew she was trying to apologize for something she didn't do. She extracted her hand from mine and pat it gently, saying something as a promise to come back in a few minutes with snuck-in coffee and to call the girls and Marshall while she was gone. On her way out, she passed Alex coming through the doorway.

He was much slower now than he had been getting to the nurse, seemingly pausing every time his feet almost met. He didn't sit when he was finally by the bed, visibly too anxious to do anything but stand over me. His hands were shaking, and he moved them around a lot. Finally, he reached down to take my hand like he had been contemplating. His grip was much different than Hadley's, his rough fingers slipping smoothly between mine. I still couldn't do anything but stare at his face. "You tried to kill yourself," he choked out after a minute. It was a statement, not a question. I didn't like that.

I shook my head, finding that it was buzzing. I hadn't even realized it had been this whole time, but it started to even harder now. "No. I swear to you, Alex. It was a complete accident," I whispered, willing him to meet my eyes so he knew I was telling him the truth. I knew his views on this kind of thing because of the lose that had happened in his life. I knew he thought that life was a beautiful thing not to be wasted and that everyone needed to see their own beauty in themselves to know that it was all worth living. I didn't want him to think I didn't see that, because I really, truly did. He was one of the main reasons I had been able to after a struggle to get there. His chocolate eyes steadily crawled up to meet my own and I knew this was him asking me to continue, to make him understand. I wasn't going to pass up my opportunity. "You hanging up on me was the last thing I could handle yesterday," I started. Wanting to feel like we weren't having this conversation in a hospital room, I sat up more and crossed my legs, careful to keep his hand and eye contact. That was when I noticed the few wires actually attached to me, but I simply ignored them. My heart was still beating. We were fine. "Thinking that this was over was so hard. I had my trusty friend liquor and I'd been prescribed sleeping pills. I just wasn't being smart in thinking that it was best to mix the two, especially when I was already drunk. I wasn't thinking straight. But it was not a suicide attempt." I squeezed his fingers, hoping it would emphasize my truth.

He sighed but finally moved from his standing position. Never letting go of my hand, he sat in the chair Hadley had been occupying moments ago. He covered his eyes with his free hand and simply sat there for a moment. He looked too deep in thought for me to even think about wanting to disrupt him. When he dropped his hand what felt like ages later, his eyes were shining with a layer of tears. I didn't want anymore crying today, especially him over me. But I didn't have a chance to say anything because he had jumped back up, taking my face between his hands to kiss me. I tilted my head up as he parted my lips and I fell back into everything we were. "There's no way this is over," he whispered against my lips. "If that's what you thought I meant when I said it would be better face-to-face, you're crazy. I want to hear your explanation about what's been going on, and not over the phone," he affirmed, pulling away from me ever so slightly.

My arms, which had slid around his neck of their own accord, lowered again and I took hold of his wrists on either side of my face. I hadn't noticed until now that there were tears streaking down my cheeks. So much for no one else crying today. I sniffed before looking him in the eye. "I want to tell you. I want to tell you everything that's happened since November. I'm sick of hiding it from you," I said. His answering smile was enough to clear my tears up in seconds. His thumbs already resting on my cheeks, he wiped away the tracks the tears left behind and kissed me once more. "Just sit with me," I demanded softly. "I don't want you flipping out if you get too angry." It was only a theory that he would stop himself if I was close by, but it was worth a shot.

Alex nodded and I finally let go of his wrists so he could drop his arms. I scooted to the other side of the bed, allowing him to slid next to me. His arm slipped behind me while I sat back, and I settled into a comfortable position against his chest. It almost wasn't right to start speaking, to tell him things that were going to bring this mood down. So quickly things had been brought back to our bliss just by telling him I hadn't tried to kill myself. And just as quickly, I could feel his body tense in anger by telling him about Oliver. He wasn't the least bit pleased, and he nearly jumped up when I told him of the first bruising incident. It was the exact reaction I had been expecting when I had thought about filling him in. I tried to calm him down, but after admitting that the bruise he had seen on my shoulder was caused by being shoved into a wall, it was pointless. He didn't make any action to get up and find Oliver to kill him, just dug his fingernails into his palms and mumbled curses under his breath in a gruff voice. He appeared to soften some when I told him my reasoning behind staying, maybe not fully understanding it but appreciating it.

"Don't ever worry about me like that," he interrupted, using a soft voice and brushing my hair behind my ear. "The only advantage he has or had over me was you. Hurting you. I'm not saying that we had to be together if you were afraid. But you should have told me why you were afraid so that I could help you," he said, and he wrapped both arms around my waist to pull me closer.

"Yeah, well, logic like that didn't come out until he actually hit me," I blurted idiotically. I knew this was the one I should have eased into, but it wouldn't stay in any longer. Tension ran through Alex again and I thought for sure he was going to leap off the bed and start running again, this time in the opposite direction to kill Oliver just as Hadley had wanted to. I grabbed his hands on my waist though and held on as tightly as I could. "It's over though. We don't have to worry about him anymore," I tried to assure him.

"We don't have to worry about him only after I've fucking punched him," he seethed. But he wasn't trying to get up anymore, instead relaxing at my touch. "If you ever see him again, you're going to tell me, Clarke. I want my chance to hurt him. I'm not even joking when I tell you he needs to pay for what he did to you," he told me, his tone deadly but with an attempt to stay soft.

I nodded automatically to tell him I would let him. If he wanted to avenge the bruises I'd been given, I wasn't going to deny him the pleasure. I was just happy that he wasn't completely losing it, and I had a feeling he was calming himself for my sake. He was pleased with my promise though and left it silent for a while. I had explained everything that needed to be said and I felt more relieved than I had in months, believing that it was all done with. I settled back into his relaxed arms and ran my fingers up and down them, watching the hair bristle with goosebumps. "How did you know I was here, anyway?" I asked after a few moments of a comfortable silence. He had been continuously pressing his lips into my hair but now lifted his head. "I mean, Hadley said she didn't tell any of you. Have you developed a sixth sense?" I teased with a grin.

Alex chuckled, but shook his head. "A series of events. I heard Flyzik telling Courtney about it when I got out of the shower. She remembers you, and wanted to make sure you were all right and maybe come see you if they had time. I think she overheard Jack telling Rian and Cassadee when they were plotting their own time to come. Jack's actually outside right now. And if I'm not mistaken, Lisa informed him, who was filled in by Ashleigh," he replied, taking a deep breath at the end to regain the oxygen he had lost while recounting the story. "Word travels like fire, especially when so many people care about you," he claimed with a shrug. When I looked at him though, he was smirking like he was quite delighted with this inferno.

So everyone knew, even friends I'd barely seen in a year and probably people I'd never met. But I didn't care like I thought I would. All that mattered was that it got him to me, even though I had been sure I didn't want him here. And he was right. They all cared about me. They would all just be happy that I was okay. "I love you," I told him clearly, still tracing circles on his arms with my fingers. I couldn't pinpoint what caused the words to come out other than I wanted to say them. But I was also willing to go along with the fact that a cheerfulness I hadn't felt in forever was radiating through my veins.

I felt his fingers slip under my chin and he gently turned my smiling face to his. "I love you," he stated delicately, but with so much force behind it, before pressing his lips to mine once more.