I Made You up to Hurt Myself

Jimmy adored his present, much to my relief. In fact, I don't think I've seen him dressed in anything else lately. I half expected him to get cautioned and told to get changed, but seeing as it was Christmas, the nurses and orderlies let him away with it. Perhaps some of them do have a heart, who would have guessed? It pleased me, though, knowing that it was me who'd made him so happy. It was an odd feeling - almost like pride, but not quite. I'm not quite sure how to explain it, it was just pure joy.

I expected that with me being his 'Santa', he would be mine, but it turns out I was mistaken, because the only gift I received was from Aled. Turns out they'd just handed people names, so rather than two people buying for each other, you had one person buying for someone, then someone completely different buying for them. It made no sense whatsoever to me, but that said, not many things do.

He handed me the two, reasonably sized packages, wrapped in bright paper, looking nervous as he did so, and me being the impatient git that I am, I opened them straight away.

The first one contained a CD, and the second, a CD player to play it in, headphones included. Needless to say, I loved it, and I may or may not have attempted to hug Aled in such a forceful fashion that I almost knocked him over. It wasn't my fault. He's just incredibly light.

At first, I wasn't entirely convinced that he liked me, to be honest. I assumed it was just some sort of sick game that he and Shay had come up with; befriend the new kid, and lead him on to believe you actually care about him, then laugh about how he actually believed you behind his back. Damn paranoia. But Aled had really put some thought into this gift. I could tell. The CD was an old Blink-182 album, and I'd mentioned once, ages ago, that they were my favourite band. He'd remembered. It sounds pathetic, but it was really touching.

***

I spent most of Christmas day itself with Shay and Aled. It's funny, I had friends back home, who I would have gladly called my 'best friends', but with these two, I can barely even remember the others. I feel so much closer to them that I ever did with that lot. They probably wouldn't even care if I never came back home, whereas I'm sure Shay and Aled would have something to say if I spontaneously disappeared. It's awful that it's taken something like this to show me what true friends were like, but I didn't regret one bit of it. Oh, I'm so cheesy.

We sat in the lounge together, whilst Sean stayed in my room. He'd mumbled something earlier about being sick, and although I'd protested and insisted I would stay with him, he finally convinced me to go. So far, I was thoroughly enjoying this decision. Don't tell Sean I said that, though.

Because it was Christmas, I was allowed, just this once, to play music in the lounge, so of course, I took this as an opportunity to try out Aled's gift. It was brilliant. Not only did I get to sit and listen to my own music or once, which I hadn't been able to do since I arrived here, but I also got to educate some of the more unfortunate ones, not blessed with a music taste like mine. They didn't seem to care though; everyone was up and dancing, regardless of the music.

It was cute, too, because at some point during the day, all the couples decided it would be a good idea to get up and dance together, all slow and romantic; exactly like how you see it in the movies. Except it probably amused me more, because it wasn't some lovey dovey slushy love song they were dancing to, it was Blink-182, and not a slow one either, nope, they were all slow dancing to Dammit. Don't even ask me how that works. I felt pretty proud, though.

Admittedly, I did feel a little left out. Everyone here had their boyfriend - or girlfriend, but come on, most people here were gay - while mine sat in the room, possibly dying, but Shay and Aled (I should give them like a coupley - is coupley a word? - nickname. Shaled? Shayled? Hm... I'll keep working on that) dragged me up to dance about halfway through the song. The three of us stood in the middle of the room, looking like complete twats dancing, but it was fun. Admit it, you're jealous of my friends.

***

Later on, I returned to the room Sean and I shared, to find him, thankfully, not dead. That was a relief. I didn't particularly want him to die. No shit, Ian. But he was alive, so good things.

"Hey," I called quietly, just in case he was sleeping, which it turns out he was. Maybe the wee pet actually was sick. Aw.

Not wanting to wake him, I got changed quickly, before lying down beside him, careful not to make much noise. He rolled over in his sleep, and instinctively wrapped his arms around me. I think I may just love him.