Dick-punching? This was the first time I’d heard of such a thing, although since it was Kelsey saying it, I supposed I shouldn’t be too surprised.
“I already punched him in the kidney, so that’s out,” Kelsey went on.
“What?” I turned to look at her, causing her to lift her head from my shoulder. She punched him in the kidney? I…this was the first time I was hearing about it, although, again, shouldn’t be surprised. Kelsey did things without thinking.
But so did I.
“I punched Dean in the kidney,” Kelsey stated, matter-of-factly. “At least, I think it was the kidney. It’s what I aimed for, since his face was already fucked up.”
“I was the one who fucked up his face,” I told her, causing her to blink in shock.
“Really? Well damn, we double-teamed him without even knowing.”
I was pretty sure double-teaming someone meant something else, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. Instead, I felt myself smile. Yeah, a smile—not really warranted by the events of tonight, but one that grew because of the girl beside me.
She punched Dean. Was it wrong to be proud of my girl?
My girl. She was my girl. She had to be. She was no one else’s. She was mine and mine alone, and I’d be damned if I ever let her wiggle her way through my fingers.
“I have to say, even though we fuck up a lot, we’re pretty awesome,” Kelsey said, and I found myself agreeing.
We weren’t perfect. We’d never be perfect, but maybe we could be imperfect together. Wasn’t that what life was about? Finding someone who you wanted to spend the rest of your life with? Someone who you could see yourself having fun and making mistakes with? No other girl made me feel the way Kelsey did, and I’d be damned if I ever let her go.
She was my girl, whether she realized it or not.
Chapter Twelve – Kelsey
We were only allowed to see her for a quick visit, since it was past visiting hours and we weren’t family. The nurses made an exception because I was the one who found her, and her roommate. Without me, she’d just be some Jane Doe, since her ID was somewhere in the dorm room, an unnamed girl who overdosed.
She was still alive, but barely. They flushed her stomach, but she kept having seizures, so…they put her in a medically induced coma.
Mel looked so small on that bed, so still, as if frozen in time. Her arms were hooked up to IVs dripping fluids into her system to keep her hydrated, her body still pale, but looking a bit better than it did in our room.
I could not get her seizing out of my mind. I’d never seen a seizure before. Growing up, kids made jokes about seizing and stuff, but you never really knew how bad they were, how unnatural they were, until you watched one first hand.
It wasn’t good. It wasn’t joke material. It was awful, and I felt an inner pain unlike any other. My heart literally hurt for Mel, for what she did to herself, what she was going through. My heart might’ve ached before for Levi, but this was a different kind of pain. The soul-crushing kind. The kind of turmoil you only felt when you were faced with the reality that someone you cared about might not live to see another day.
Or that she might never open her eyes again.
I sat on a chair with a hideous floral pattern beside her bed. My body was exhausted from staying up all night; through the curtains on the window, it looked like dawn would arrive soon. No matter what I tried to do, I could not tear my eyes off her.
She looked so fragile, so broken. I couldn’t believe I didn’t pay enough attention to her before. How could I have missed how broken she was? Was I really that terrible of a friend?
I hated it. Honestly, I hated it more than I’d ever hated anything before. My self-imposed misery because of what I did the weekend before Halloween was nothing compared to how shitty I felt right now.
Levi stood behind me, towering over me as we both looked at her, as if staring at her hard would bring her back, undo the mistakes made on this shitty night.
It wouldn’t. Staring at her would only make me feel worse, but here I was, and here we were. Levi was dragging me out of here after this; I guessed sleep would be a good thing, but I did have classes to go to. The closer we got to Thanksgiving, the more everything felt real. Papers would start being due soon; the professors would start going over the stuff that would be on their exams. Now was really not the time to start skipping classes.
Plus, I was paying for this shit. Well, future me would. Loans and all that.
“You gotta come back, Mel,” I told her, feeling slightly weird talking to an unconscious body. “It isn’t going to be the same without you.” That would be an understatement. If Mel didn’t wake up once the doctors thought her brain could handle it, if she kept seizing and being unresponsive, nothing would be the same. The room, my classes, even my time at SCC.
I felt Levi’s hand on my shoulder, a gentle, soft touch. Just letting me know he was there, that he’d stand by me. I felt guilty enough as it was, I really didn’t need to add more onto it, but…God, I just couldn’t let Levi go. We’d both fucked up, and we’d both probably fuck up again in the future, but I didn’t care. I wanted to be there when he fucked up, and I wanted
