Forever's Not Supposed to End

Matthew's point of view

*Two weeks later*

"How was it? What did they say?" asked Nathan, bounding over and sitting next to me as I slowly sank into the couch.

"It's not great news," I sighed, kicking off my shoes and clenching my hands into fists.

"In what way? What do you mean?" he asked, face falling.

"They said the pain isn't going to go away, that it's something I'll probably live with for the rest of my life," I said bitterly. I couldn't look at Nathan. I stared at the floor.

"Come here," he said, grabbing me in a hug. I didn't hug him back. I didn't want to. It wouldn't make anything better.

"Did they say when you can play bass again?"

"Whenever I feel strong enough. I'm so sick of this," I muttered.

He let me go and leaned back, eyes locked on my face but I wouldn't look at him.

"Look at me?"

I sighed and looked up at him. He didn't look too upset.

"It'll be OK. We're going to build your strength up, and you'll be back to normal, I promise I'll do whatever it takes, whatever I can do to help you," he said.

"Nathan, you're gonna make me start blubbing like an emo fool," I laughed, shaking my head.

"Did you unpack your boxes while I was gone?" I asked him and he shifted uncomfortably.

"Nathan! That was all I asked you to do today, and if you didn't do that, you may as well have just come to my hospital appointment with me..." I sighed.

Nathan and I had moved in together, in a two bedroom apartment not too far from his original place. We were both really struggling with rent and bills, and it was true that living together meant we only had one set of those to worry about.

But we hadn't lived together in a long time, and we were already bickering and it had hardly even been four days.

He hadn't unpacked anything, and his boxes of stuff were scattered all over the place.

"Do you want me to help you?" I offered and he shook his head.

"No, you should probably be sleeping or something right?"

"Well, yeah, I should be, but I don't feel that tired right now. Just because the hospital says I'm supposed to sleep like 23 hours a day doesn't mean I have to," I explained, standing up and stretching.

"What did they say about your weight?" he asked nervously, looking at me.

It was true I'd lost a lot of weight. I was trying to avoid the subject.

"They said..." I sighed and ran my hands through my hair.

"They said I need to eat an extra thousand calories a day, and that I am underweight and I need to put back on the weight I've lost. It's mostly muscle though, I mean, my body has just used up the muscle as energy to heal my head... so I have to work out and rebuild it..." I trailed off as his face lit up.

"Does that I mean I get to feed you up on junk food? And then make you work out?" he grinned.

"If you really want to," I rolled my eyes. "But can we please sort these boxes? Or I might just have to kill you," I added quickly.

"Fine," he sighed, standing up and walking into his room, grabbing a box along the way.

I grabbed a box too and started to help him unpack.

"Sometimes I just can't believe I'm related to you," I sighed as I opened the box I had grabbed and found several questionable items near the top of it, including women's underwear and a pair of handcuffs.

"Oh, yeah, give me that one," he smirked, trading for the box he was working on.

"So... you keep their panties as what? A souvenir?"

"Something like that," he nodded.

"You never fail to disgust me," I said, shaking my head.

"I'll take that as a compliment," he smirked, setting the box to one side and starting on another one.

"Ever thought about growing up?" I asked him, as I unpacked a box of his clothes, folding them neatly into a drawer.

"Nope."

"I mean like, having a real relationship? Not just one night with each girl?"

"Sometimes it's more than one night!" he said indignantly.

"What, sometimes she stays for breakfast?" I laughed and he punched me in the arm.

"I do think about it, I think to myself 'Nathan, you're going to be thirty next year, you should have a wife by now', but then I just think that person hasn't come along yet, and there's no point in trying to force that with someone who isn't that one girl," he said and I nodded.

"I'm kinda glad that Amber turned out to be a cheater, because the more I think about her, the more I realize it never would have worked out, we just weren't that compatible..."

"But Hayley?" he smirked.

"It's early days, don't jinx it!" I warned.

"But she loooves you, and you looooove her," he taunted. I blushed slightly red.

Hayley was back in Nashville with the rest of Paramore, they were starting to work on some songs for a new album. Their popularity was building due to the fact they'd done some touring in the late summer, and their record label had agreed to give them one more shot.

"Yeah but I've only known her a few months, and most of that time I've been sleeping," I said, finishing the box of clothes I was on and starting on the next one.

"But she obviously really likes you, or why would she stick around when you're asleep? Or leave you those little notes all over your apartment? Or always text you to see how you're doing? And now she's technically officially your girlfriend, you should probably tell her how you feel," he said.

"Technically officially?" I repeated, smirking.

Nathan threw a pile of shirts at me.

"You know what I mean!"

"Yeah, I do. I just think I should wait a little longer, don't want to freak her out or anything," I said, pausing for a second and closing my eyes.

A wave of tiredness washed over me and my head gave another painful throb.

"You gonna go to bed?" he asked quietly.

I nodded and left the room, stripping down to my boxers and climbing into my bed. My cellphone started to ring just as I was drifting off to sleep.

"Mmhello?" I mumbled sleepily, not even opening my eyes.

"Hey, I'm so sorry, were you sleeping?" it was Hayley, she sounded like she was driving.

"Not quite. Are you driving?"

"Maybe. How did your check-up go?" she asked.

"It went fine, they said I'm doing good," I lied.

"Really?"

"Well, they said I'm doing OK, but I need to stop trying to push myself, and I need to put on weight," I admitted.

"As soon as I'm back in Chicago I'm gonna start feeding you up," she giggled.

"Aw jeez, with you and Nathan doing that I'll probably be obese by Christmas," I yawned.

"You sound really tired, go get some sleep and I'll talk to you soon OK?" she said, she sounded odd. Like she was worried or tense about something.

"I'll call you when I get up," I said through another yawn.

"Talk to you later," she said, hanging up.

I set the phone on the side and closed my eyes, wishing she could be with me as I fell asleep.

Nathan's point of view

I continued to unpack all my shit so Matthew didn't flip out at me when he got up. I could understand why he found it annoying, with random boxes of my things all over the apartment, but I really just couldn't be bothered.

It was such a boring task. Open box, empty it, put it all away, flatten box, repeat.

I continued for hours, until I heard a knock at the door.

Confused, I went to answer it. Nobody knew we had moved yet, and the only person who knew where we were living should have been in Nashville.

I opened the door.

"Hayley, what are you doing here?" I asked as she stood awkwardly in the doorway.

"Can we go for a walk?" she asked quietly, I could see in her eyes something was very wrong.

"Sure," I said quickly, grabbing my coat and pulling on a pair of shoes and following her downstairs.

"So what's going on?" I asked as we started to walk down the street.

She stared at the ground, her hands stuffed in her pockets. Her face was puffy like she'd been crying.

"What's so important you've driven ten hours to tell me?"

She shook her head and started walking faster.

We walked five blocks until we reached the park, she didn't say a word to me the entire time.

"Can we talk now? Are we far away enough from Matthew?" I hissed, taking her arm to stop her from walking.

"I guess," she mumbled, staring at the ground.

"I suppose I have to tell you something Nathan," she said, looking up at me. Her eyes met mine.

"I... I'm pregnant."

I blinked. I felt like I must have mis-heard her. It couldn't be true.

"What?!" I spluttered, unable to stop the word tumbling from my lips.

"I think I'm pregnant," she repeated.

"Wait. You think you are? Or you know you are?"

"I know I am," she mumbled, staring at the ground again.

"Fuck," I breathed.

We were both silent for a few minutes, both staring at the ground.

"I.. it's mine?"

"Couldn't be anybody else's. Matthew and I haven't... you know," she trailed off.

"From Halloween? The party? When we were drunk?"

She nodded.

I was still kind of hoping that Hayley and I hadn't actually slept together that night, that for some reason we had just both decided to sleep naked in my bed. The blood tests that Hayley's friend at the hospital ran for us showed we had all been roofied, so remembering the night was never going to be possible.

"What... what are you going to do?" I asked her quietly. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, my head was buzzing with a million thoughts.

"I figured that's something we need to decide together, seeing as this is as much your problem as it is mine," she said, still not looking up at me.

"Yeah, it is," I said quietly, still in shock.

"I mean... it's only been what 2 weeks right? It's just a bunch of cells. You could..."

"Absolutely no way," she said firmly.

I sighed. If an abortion wasn't something she'd consider, we'd need to think of something else.

"OK. Well then we need to figure this out," I said slowly. My mind was already filling with various plans, how to cover this up, how to make it go away, each of them more implausible than the last.

"You need to go sleep with Matthew," I realized out loud.

"I need to what?" she said, glaring at me.

"Well, I mean, then you can... tell him it's his? I mean, the dates are close enough right? And then he wont hate the both of us forever," I explained.

"That's a terrible, horrible thing to do," she said, shaking her head.

"Have you got a better idea?" I asked.

She thought for a few moments before shaking her head.

I sighed, wringing my hands together.

"That is probably the only way we can resolve this," she said quietly.

I nodded.

If Matthew ever found out what had happened between Hayley and I that night, he'd never forgive either of us and I knew it.

"If you don't want to do that, I'll still be here for you, I'll support you whatever you decide. I just don't really want to lose my brother," I said, putting my hands on her shoulders.

"You were right though, that is the best way of sorting this out," she said, her eyes full of tears.

"Come on, don't cry," I said, wiping her tears away with the sleeve of my jacket.

"I never... I didn't even think this could happen... It didn't even cross my mind..." she whispered.

"Me either. But it has, and we've got to stick to the plan, I know its terrible to lie to him, but I mean... we don't have a choice," I said, pulling her into a hug.

"I'd better go, I need to be in Nashville by the morning," she mumbled against my shoulder.

"Yeah, go, he's at the apartment," I nodded, letting her go.

"This is so wrong," she said sadly.

"Like I said, is there any other way of doing this?"

She shook her head and started to walk away. I watched her go, sitting down on a park bench.

My knees were weak, my palms were sweaty, there was a lump in my throat that felt like it was the size of a grapefruit.

I was going to be a father.

I couldn't get my head around it. It didn't feel real.

Hayley's words just kept echoing in my head, over and over again.

"I... I'm pregnant."

I was going to have to live a lie, as 'Uncle Nathan' to my own child.

I felt sick as I realized the potential the lie had to destroy everything.