Forever's Not Supposed to End

Nathan's point of view

"Oh my god, of my god," whispered Hayley, starting to cry, sitting up, pulling the sheets around her.

I pulled on my clothes and started pacing the room.

"Why can't I remember anything?!" she suddenly cried out.

"I don't remember anything either. Maybe... maybe we got spiked? Something in our drinks?" I wondered aloud.

"That would make sense. My mind is completely blank after the... oh my god Nathan, the rum we were all drinking!" she realized and I nodded. I'd already figured that part out.

"I... w-we.. I, oh my god, Matthew," she crumpled, burying her face in her hands and crying.

"Shh, it'll be OK, we're gonna figure this out," I said, sitting beside her on the bed and trying to comfort her.

"NO IT WON'T BE OK!" she yelled, pushing me away.

"I'm gonna go and see if Mateo and Dan are here, and if they can help us remember anything, try and stay calm," I said quietly, hurt that she had yelled at me like that. I left the room and closed the door behind me.

Dan was asleep on the couch, his right arm hanging over the edge of the couch attached to Mateo by a pair of metal handcuffs. One side of the cuff was on Dan's right wrist, the other side on Mateo's left.

Mateo was awake and staring at me.

"Dude. What the fuck happened?" he whispered loudly, trying not to wake Dan.

"No fucking clue. I was hoping you could help us out on that one."

"I don't even know how this happened," he hissed, waving the arm that was locked to Dan.

I shook Dan roughly to wake him and he groaned loudly, trying to punch me with the arm that was cuffed to Mateo and failing miserably.

He looked around.

"Aw fuck," he grumbled, sitting up slowly and rubbing his eyes with his left hand.

"Please tell me you remember something?" I demanded.

I was getting desperate.

I felt sick.

I'd done a terrible thing.

I needed to know why and how.

"I got nothing," he said shortly.

"You guys, I'm thinking maybe we got roofied," said Hayley, coming into the room. She was dressed in her costume from last night, without the shoes now. Her hair was dripping some water from the strands around her face where she had just rinsed off her make-up in the bathroom sink.

Our eyes met and I felt an even stronger pang of guilt.

She loved my brother.

She may not have told anyone yet, but the look she just gave me told me she did.

"That would explain it," I nodded. Matthew had been roofied before, by a dude who was trying to to score with him. That time, it had been hilarious, this time, it was anything but.

"Why would someone date-rape drug us?" asked Mateo, tugging at the handcuffs biding him to Dan.

"Because they could?" I suggested, starting to pace the room, unable to think of any other reason.

"I'd like to know for sure what it was, so I'll be right back," said Hayley, pulling on a pair of my shoes and storming out of the apartment.

Within two minutes of her leaving Mateo, Dan and I were in the kitchen, doing our best to wriggle them free of the handcuffs.

"Almost," winced Mateo, trying to tug his hand through. We'd covered it in butter to try and help it slip out, but it didn't seem to be happening.

"Maybe we should check our pockets, see if we have the keys or anything," suggested Dan.

"Damn, that would have been a good idea like an hour ago," I sighed, checking my pockets. They were empty and I punched the wall in frustration, then swore loudly at the throbbing pain in my hand.

"Camera!" gasped Mateo, pulling his camera from his pocket. I snatched it and switched it on, then started viewing photos. Dan and Mateo peered over my shoulder.

"Oh dear..." I sighed, looking at the pictures of the four drunken messes we had become the previous night.

The pictures clearly showed our descent from being civilised human beings into completely trashed and useless.

I scrolled through the images.

Hayley doing shots.

Dan and Mateo talking to a woman dressed as a police officer, explained the handcuffs.

Me doing a headstand.

Me drinking rum from the bottle, then Hayley drinking rum from the bottle. Then a picture of the two of us looking at each other in a way I didn't like and didn't remember.

There were a few shots of our walk home, some of Dan on the floor, explaining his bloody knee. A few of Mateo trying to climb up the fire escape. A few of me smoking.

Then nothing. Nothing after we got back to the apartment.

Hayley walked slowly into the room, holding up a tiny silver key.

"Found this on the sidewalk outside, thought it looked about the right size," she said quietly, handing it to Mateo, who swiftly unlocked the handcuffs and did a small dance for joy.

"What you got there?" I asked, hinting at the small-ish box she was carrying.

"I went to the hospital, and my friend who works in the lab has agreed to test blood from each of us, try to figure out what we were drugged with," she explained.

"Sweet. Would be nice to know, make sure it's nothing that's gonna kill us in the long term," said Dan, sitting down at the kitchen table and resting his head in his hands.

"My thoughts exactly," said Hayley, staring at the ground.

She wouldn't look at me. She couldn't look at me.

"How long will these take to get back?" I asked as she pulled on a pair of latex gloves from the small box of supplies.

"A few hours and my friend should be able to call me with the results," she said, again looking anywhere but me. Her hands were shaking slightly as she carefully drew a small vial of blood from a vein in Mateo's arm, then put a piece of cotton wool over the tiny puncture wound and taped it in place.

"See, that didn't even hurt, why can't you stay as a nurse and always be the one to take my blood?" he asked and she shrugged.

Next she took a fresh needle and vial and repeated the same process with Dan, who didn't even flinch.

She paused for a second, then glanced at me.

"Arm please," she said in monotone.

I held out my left arm. She looked at it, picking out a vein close to the bend of my elbow.

"Holy fuck," I muttered as she jammed the needle in my arm so hard that I tried to pull my arm away.

"Don't be a pussy," taunted Mateo, clearly not realizing that Hayley was hurting me on purpose.

I stared into her face, trying to make her look at me. Her eyes met mine for a second, and I noticed her eyes were full of tears.

She removed the needle slightly and the pain stopped immediately. Once she had the blood she needed she told me to put pressure on it, then repeated the same process on herself, not even flinching as she poked a needle into her own vein.

"Doesn't that freak you out?" asked Dan, watching her drain a small amount of her own blood into a vial. She shook her head.

There was little conversation until Dan and Mateo each decided it was time for them to leave, with Dan taking the carefully labelled tubes of blood to the hospital on his way home.

"Did you decide what you're going to tell Matthew?" I asked her quietly, right after the door had closed behind Mateo and Dan.

She turned to look at me and shook her head, tears starting to roll down her cheeks, she'd been fighting so hard to keep them inside, but she couldn't fight any longer.

"It's better if he doesn't know right? I mean, we were really drunk, and someone drugged us, and we didn't know what we were doing, and everyone makes mistakes," I tried to comfort her by pulling her into a hug, but she just stood completely still, not hugging me back.

"It didn't mean anything right?" I asked, looking at her face.

"To you it didn't maybe. I haven't... I've only ever slept with one other guy. To me, that isn't something that can ever be meaningless," she said quietly, shaking her head, more tears fell.

I felt even more guilty, if that was possible. If Matthew found out he would be completely crushed.

He'd probably never speak to me again, I had sworn I'd look after Hayley at that party, make sure she was safe from this exact kind of thing.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered, holding her tightly, just letting her cry into my shoulder.

"I'm not blaming you," she whispered back. There was no need for us to be whispering, but it felt almost as if we spoke loudly about it, someone would find out about what we had done.

"Matthew can't know. I... I'm falling for him, I don't want this to ruin it," she said slowly.

I nodded.

"I should probably get over to his place, my normal clothes are there, and I'm sure he'll be wondering where I am by now," she said, pulling away from me. I let her go.

As she walked towards the door I gently took her hand and turned her back around to face me.

"Don't feel bad. Mistakes happen, we can just put it behind us and move on. Don't let this affect anything with Matthew OK? Because..." I paused, knowing I shouldn't say what I was about to say, it was a secret between he and I.

"He's going to ask you to be his girlfriend. I think today. Don't say no to him, you two are adorable together," I said, giving her hand a small squeeze which she returned, a very faint smile creeping onto her face.

"We can make this go away right? Just say it never happened?" she asked.

"What happened?" I smirked, playing along.

"Good. OK. Great. Right. I'm gonna go see Matthew. You coming?"

"I'll be over in a bit, want to try and sleep off this hangover a little first," I said, shaking my head then wincing slightly.

She nodded and left the apartment, really struggling to walk in her high heels, but having nothing else meant she had to wear them, at least until she got to Matthew's place.

I crawled back into my bed, groaning loudly as I lay my aching body down.

I lay still for a few moments, just letting my muscles relax. A fresh wave of guilt washed over me as I caught of waft of Hayley's hairspray smell from the pillow.

What had we done?

Matthew's point of view

I pulled my knees up to my chest, glancing at my cellphone again. It was long gone mid-day and Hayley's hadn't come home yet, not even called. Nobody had.

It felt like they'd all forgotten about me.

I was proven wrong when the door to the bedroom opened slowly and Hayley's face peeked around the door.

"Thought maybe you were dead," I laughed as she came and sat beside me on the bed. I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her tightly.

She smelled like... Nathan.

"You slept at Nathan's place?" I asked, letting her go.

"Yeah. We all were just... urgh. I've never been so hungover in my life," she whined, clutching at her head with one hand and her stomach with the other.

"Aww poor baby. Lay down, I'll fix you some breakfast," I said, kissing her forehead.

"I don't think I can stomach anything right now," she argued weakly.

"Yeah you can. You'll feel better for it," I insisted.

I made her two slices of toast, but didn't put anything on them, I really didn't want to make her puke, and grabbed her a glass of orange juice.

She was curled in a ball in the centre of the bed, her head in her hands.

"Try and eat this OK, I know it isn't much, but you will feel better if you eat something," I said, offering her the plate. She took a piece of toast and bit off the corner.

I watched in amazement as she ate the crust from all the way around, then put the middle part of the bread back on the plate, before starting on the second slice.

"You only eat crusts?" I smirked and she nodded.

"That's awesome, cause I only eat the middle," I grinned, picking up the piece of toast and eating the rest of it.

She was so quiet, but I assumed it was just because she felt hungover and miserable.

"So was the party fun?" I asked as she chugged down the orange juice in one go.

She nodded hesitantly.

"You don't seem so sure," I chuckled, pushing her hair back off her sweaty forehead.

"You're burning up," I said, worried now. She nodded.

She looked so pathetic, so... vulnerable.

"That shirt wont be helping," I said, tugging on her skin tight black skeleton shirt she was still wearing from last night.

She closed her eyes and shook her head.

Half-waiting for her to stop me, I peeled her shirt off and threw it aside, then lay down beside her, resting my hand on her stomach and slowly rubbing small circles on her bare skin with my fingertips.

"Just go to sleep," I said softly, continuing to rub her stomach, hoping to help her feel less nauseous.

"Can't. Waiting for a phone call," she said weakly.

"I'll get it and wake you up," I offered, kissing her cheek.

"Mmm, thanks," she mumbled, starting to fall asleep.

I had planned on getting up and doing something with my day, but instead I lay next to her and watched her sleep for hours, until her phone rang. She woke up and answered it, saying only a few words before hanging up. She asked for something to be texted to her, so I wasn't surprised when her phone bleeped a few minutes later with a text message.

"You gonna get that?" I asked.

She rolled over and nuzzled her face into my neck.

"Not right now."

"Aw I hate seeing you like this, I want you to feel better," I whined.

"Now you know how I feel all the time," she mumbled. I felt a tug of sadness. I kept forgetting all the horrible things Nathan and Hayley had witnessed me going through. I was trying so hard to push it from my mind and move forwards with my life.

"I do feel better, when you're around," I said and she groaned loudly, poking me in the stomach and making me squirm away from her.

"Massively cheesy much?" she grinned up at me.

"Well," I shrugged. "It's true."

"Nathan said you were going to ask me to be your girlfriend. Is that true?" she asked, looking at me with a hopeful look on her face.

"Well... maybe I won't now, seeing as he's ruined the surprise. But we probably should, you know, make it official, I mean, if you want to?" I chuckled awkwardly.

"If you're asking, then it's a yes," she said, slightly awkwardly.

"Really?" I spluttered, unable to stop myself from breaking into a massive grin.

She nodded, looking surprised by my reaction.

"Don't look so shocked," she giggled.

"I just... I don't know. I'd kinda pussied out of asking you.. so didn't expect this to happen today," I laughed.

"You're adorable," she mumbled, wrapping her arms around me more tightly and kissing my neck gently.

A small shiver ran down my spine and my heart started beating faster.

"Bleurgh, wish I didn't feel so sick," she groaned, rubbing her head.

"Just go to sleep, girlfriend," I smirked.

"Maybe I will, boyfriend," she responded, then yawned.

It didn't take long before Hayley was fast asleep in my arms. I was still sleepy myself. As much as I didn't want to admit it, getting physical with her a few nights before had completely drained me of all my energy, and I was actually worried about the next time it would happen.

Trying to ignore the way her hair smelled strongly like Nathan, I rested chin against her head and let my eyes slip closed.

I just listened to her breathing slowly, deeply, so relaxed, my hand on the small of her back, fingers lightly resting on the soft skin.

There was no doubt in my mind I had fallen head over heels in love.

The hard part would be telling her.