Tony’s POV
I jumped up from my sleep, I was woken up by phone going off next to my ear. I tried to feel around on the couch I was lying on to find my phone and took it up to my ear without opening my eyes.
“Hello?” I said. My voice sounded like it had been scrubbed with sandpaper.
“Tony where the fuck are you? We’re supposed to have band practice!” Jaime said through the phone. I was still half asleep and couldn’t quite process what was going on. I hadn’t even figured out what day it was yet.
I opened my eyes and looked around my living room to find any kind indication of what time it was. I saw on the clock on the wall across from me that it was two pm. I must’ve eventually fallen asleep after hours of being awake.
“I’m sorry, Himes. I’ll be there.” I said, immediately hanging up after. I didn’t need him to interrogate me about why I was late.
I sat up straight and dragged my hands over my face. I felt like I had slept for a long time, but still wasn’t totally satisfied. I was tired, but a different kind of tired as normal.
Tequila, laughing, a horrible crashing sound, a scream, bars…Did it all really happen? It was only a few hours ago, but it seemed like a horrible dream that kept haunting me.
Do you know those moments when you just had a nightmare and then after you wake up, you still feel scared for quite some time? Well, that was how I felt and all I could hope for was that it would go away soon.
I stood up and walked back to my bedroom, heading straight for my closet. I took out a random t-shirt and jeans. I didn’t even bother showering. I had already done that when I came home this morning, trying to wash the stench of the cell away. I put up a snapback so I wouldn’t have to do my hair and then walked over to the front door.
Only then I realized I had no idea how to get to Vic’s house, where we had band practice. My driver’s license wasn’t valid anymore since this night and they had taken my car to the police office. Which meant I needed to start using the bus.
I groaned. I fucking hated the bus. The bus was one of the reasons why I started taking driving lessons as soon as I could. The smell was always horrible in busses and for some reason people always stared at me in busses. Okay, people always stared at me, but in busses I couldn’t just stand up and walk away from it.
But even though I never went with the bus, I’d rather go with one now than go with my car. Even if I still had one. I didn’t want to think about getting inside a car right now. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt more people.

*

“Wow, you look horrible.” Mike said as I entered Vic’s living room. The other three boys were sitting on the grey couch and they all looked up at me as I entered. I didn’t want to look at Vic, afraid he would shoot me the disappointed face again. I wondered if he had told the guys. Maybe they had found out through social media. I hadn’t looked at the notifications on my phone since I was at that bar last night. I would only make it worse if rumors started appearing on there.
“Well, thank you, Mike. It’s not like you have ever looked better.” I said, a bad attempt to make a joke. I sat down on the couch, trying to sit as far away from the others. Which wasn’t hard, Vic had quite a long couch, one of those that were shaped like a corner, you know.
Jaime grinned. “Hungover? It would actually explain why you’re late.” He said.
I looked at Vic who was shooting my an expectant look. They didn’t know yet. He hadn’t told him. I guess he was expecting me to do that. But I wasn’t planning on breaking my little act here.
“Yeah, something like that. I’m just really tired.” I said. Technically it wasn’t lying, it was keeping something from them. Which was less bad, right? I just didn’t want them to judge me. I didn’t want them to treat me differently than they did now. Everything was good as it was now, I was so lucky to have these guys, I didn’t want to lose them.
“Tony…” Vic said, pushing me to tell them. I looked at him and saw that familiar older brother look on his face.
“Vic…” I said back in the same tone, trying to mock him.
“We don’t keep secrets, Tony. Get it out.” He said, obviously not amused with me.
I rolled my eyes and sighed. “I don’t get why you just didn’t tell them yourself if you were going to make me tell it anyway.” I said. I knew it was a tough shot, but I just really didn’t want to relive the whole thing again. I was definitely going to if I had to tell them.
“Because it’s your own fault! You should take the responsibility of telling people!” he said a bit louder and we glared at each other for a few seconds. I knew he was right, though. If I had made different decisions, I wouldn’t be in this situation. I was pushing this all on Vic and I shouldn’t do that.
“What the actual fuck is going on here?” Jaime asked, adding a little chuckle at the end to light the tension. It made the tension only worse, though.
I stopped the staring contest with Vic and took a deep breath. “The reason why I was late today, is because I went out with Sam yesterday. And then on my way back I hit a girl with my car…she is in the hospital now.” I said.
It took a few seconds for them to process this. I’m sure they would’ve thought it was some sort of fucked up joke, if it would’ve been someone else telling them. I’m sure they knew I was dead serious.
“Well fuck…” Mike eventually said after a silence that was way too long. “What happened? Why did you hit her?”
I looked at my hands, trying to avoid their stares. I was so afraid everything would change after this. “I-I had a little too much to drink…I thought I could still drive easily, but then she appeared on the street…it went by so quick and I somehow took way too long to react. And then…” I said and stopped talking after that. They would get what I meant. I hated that every time I thought about this, I could hear the crash and the scream of the other girl all over again. They sounded real even in my head.
I was still staring at my hands, but I hadn’t noticed they had started shaking. “I called 9-1-1, when they arrived I got arrested and they took me to the police office. They interrogated me and then I spent the night in a stinking cell. I called Vic to bail me out and he did. Then I called the hospital…”
“You did what?!” Vic asked loudly. I finally looked up again and saw that he had a shocked expression on his face. I didn’t dare to look at the other guys yet.
“I needed to know how she was doing, Vic. I couldn’t sleep and I was so tired. Everything I could think about was whether I had killed her.” I said and Vic’s expression softened a little, but he still seemed to disapprove of the way I handled things.
“Well, how is she?” Jaime asked. I looked at him and Mike and saw that every bit of color had drained from their faces.
“She’s in a coma.” I said, trying my best to contain myself. I hadn’t cried over this yet, but if I was going to, I’d rather do it alone. “She has like all these broken bones and internal bleedings. And damage to her spinal nerve or something. They were going to call me if they had updates on her…I told them I was her cousin.” I knew they would normally find this very funny.
“What would you have done if they would’ve told you that she was dead? Or what are you going to do if the police or the family finds out that you have called the hospital saying that you were her cousin?” Jaime said. Okay, so he was on Vic’s side. This was his way of telling me that I shouldn’t have called.
I opened my mouth, but choked on my words. “I-I don’t know. I panicked…I was so tired, Jaime.” I said, not able to say anything else.
Jaime sighed and put his hands in his hair. “Jesus Tony. I can’t even express in words how stupid this is of you. You’re not a teenager, right? You know that you can’t drive with alcohol?” he said, the tone in his voice matching Vic’s. Who was obviously happy to have Jaime on his side with this.
“It was not supposed to happen…I didn’t have that much more to drink than is legal…And I thought I was so sober.” I said. I noticed I was making excuses up for myself. It probably sounded incredibly stupid to them.
“You could’ve called us to drive you home.” Vic said.
“I didn’t want to-“
“Yeah, or taken the bus…or a taxi.” Jaime said, interrupting me. “You can’t keep making up excuses for this, Tony. It’s your fault, take your responsibility.” I already felt tears form in my eyes.
“GUYS STOP!” Mike eventually yelled out, making us all look at him. He was always pretty contained. He looked over all our shocked expressions and sighed. “You guys don’t think he is getting enough shit already?” he said pointing at me. “from the police, from the family, from his own conscience probably. He doesn’t need his own friends to hate on him. I mean it was obviously an accident. If one of you guys have only thought for own moment that Tony would ever hurt a fly, then I will not only be out of the band, I will also move to Australia, change my name to Larry and refuse to admit that I ever knew you.”
I looked up to Mike with gratitude and he shot me smile back. A silent tear was now rolling over my face. In the end I didn’t need more pain to break, but for someone to actually have my back. Maybe I wasn’t going to have to do this all alone. “Thank you.” I mumbled.
Mike shrugged. “Well, I still think you’re an idiot. But I think you’re an idiot with a good heart. And I think you’re probably going through a lot right now and this is only the beginning. You need a friend to have your back.” He said.
I smiled at him and took him into a quick one armed hug. When I said back down I saw that Vic and Jaime were still looking at Mike with open mound. “What?” he said, switching looks between them. “It was a stupid decision of him to drive with alcohol in his system, but in the end he was just unlucky. There are loads of people who drink and drive and get home perfectly fine. I bet we all would’ve done the same in his situation to be honest.” He said.
I was so damn grateful for Mike right now. I had felt like a horrible person, because everyone kept telling me I was, but this made me feel so much better.
Vic opened his mouth and then closed it again. “Okay, I guess you’re right, Mike. But…” he started, but Mike made him shut up with a shocked expression on his face. “Wow, wow, wow. Can we just go back to the part where you said I was right? I want to record this for special occasions. You know, my wedding, your wedding, I wanna show this to our great grandchildren.” He said, taking his phone out of his jeans and pointing the camera on Vic.
Vic shot him a glare, but I could still see a smile hiding underneath it. He hit Mike’s phone out of his hands. “What I was going to say was.” He said and he now looked at me. “I’m sorry, we should have your back. Right Jaime?”
Everyone looked at Jaime as a small grew on his face. “Yeah, I guess so. It’s nuts, but who cares. You would’ve done the same for all of us.” He said, still a bit hesitant, but in the end his friendship was stronger and that was what mattered.
“Thanks guys.” I just mumbled, not really knowing what else to say. I really didn’t know what the people around me were going to think about all of this. I knew some of them would say it was my own fault. Probably because it was, but at least I didn’t have to face these people alone anymore.
“So, how do you want to do all of this?” Vic asked and I knew exactly what he meant. He meant how I wanted to handle the whole situation I was in.
I hadn’t thought about it that much, but I still pretty much knew how I wanted it. “I don’t want my mom and sister to know. I guess they would have my back, but I just can’t do it to them. If I get prosecuted, I’ll just do it on my own.” I said.
They all nodded. “Family can’t know. Got it.” Jaime said.
“Secondly.” I started. “The fans can’t know. I guess the story hasn’t gotten leaked yet, so we just gotta make sure it doesn’t get leaked. There’s only one condition: my family and the fans have to know about it all if I have to go to prison. But let’s just assume for now that that won’t happen.”
“Well, that one is gonna be easy. We’re the only people who know, so if we all just agree to shut up…” Vic said and everyone nodded again.
“lastly, and I know you guys won’t like it, but if she wakes up…I want to go visit her.” I said and I almost felt a bomb drop in the room. My words being the shards of glass flying around the room.
“Wow, are you sure you want to do that?” Mike said. I swear his eyes were about to pop out of his head. “I mean, don’t you think that will be traumatic for the both of you?”
I sighed and looked down at my hands again. How was I going to explain this, so they would understand? “I have a good feeling about it. Besides, I just want to apologize, even if she won’t accept my apology. I just…” want to be able to sleep at night I said, saying the last part in my head. But I guess they understood. I never needed much words to express myself. That’s just how I am.
“Well, I hope she’ll wake up soon. So you can get it over with and both parties can move on.” Vic said, his words sounded a little stiff. I knew he didn’t agree with my decision, but it meant a whole lot to me that he tried act like he did.

Audrey’s POV *two days after she woke up*
There was a little television in my hospital room. It hung on the wall across from my bed and I had turned it on from time to time. I guess it had the purpose of taking the patient’s mind off of things. To make them forget about their current state, or at least to get them through the boring days alone in a hospital room. I guess I was happy I was alone. At least I wasn’t forced to talk to anyone.
The television didn’t really work for me, though. I had never really understood why people watched television anyway. I didn’t have the attention span to concentrate on the brainless shows. I just wanted to do things.
Even now, all alone in my hospital room, bored to death, I still couldn’t concentrate on the tiny screen in front of me. Instead I held my hand in front of my eyes and made it into a fist, I put pressure on it, but still felt weak, like I was drained of energy. It was like my hand wasn’t my hand.
I flexed my fingers again and then repeated the process. Two days ago, about an hour after I had found out I couldn’t move anything of my body, the feeling in the upper half of my body slowly came back. It started as a tingling feeling in my fingertips, but steadily the feeling spread through my arms, chest and stomach. It felt like I was being poked with several tiny needles all over my body: it didn’t hurt, it was just unpleasant. A few hours later I was suddenly able to lift my right arm. It felt like a piece of concrete hanging on to my body, but at least it did something.
My happiness didn’t last long, though. Because no matter how long I waited, the tingling feeling never reached my legs. It kept contained into the rest of my body. I told this to the doctors and they immediately researched me. They did a spinal tab or whatever, they made pictures of my back and my legs. I tried to get some information out of them, but they wouldn’t tell me anything. They just looked at my with those expressions that were a perfect mix of fear and pity. I guess I didn’t need the doctors to tell me the bad news, in their own ‘ethical’ manner, to know what was going on. I knew I was never going to be able to use my legs anymore.
Or as my doctor put it: “Because of the crash, your spinal nerve has lost contact with the nerves and muscles in your legs. The damage is too bad to be repaired again (yeah, he actually said ‘repaired’, like I’m a freaking machine) I’m so sorry Ms. Rose, it will be very unlikely that you’ll be ever able to walk again.”
Oh, his words were so professional and understanding, he could be in one of those stupid hospital drama series. Too bad I don’t like hospital dramas and too bad that his words made me want to jump out of the nearest window. Or throw him out of the window. But I figured that wouldn’t be such a good idea, since I would probably end up in jail next to the person that hit me with their car.
So, now I spent most of my days training my hands to react at my will again. I had had injuries before and I knew exactly how to do these kind of things without burdening my joints and muscles. I guess one of the perks of being a professional sportswoman was knowing every single bit of your body.
I tried to think as less as possible about my life outside these rooms. I didn’t want to think about what I wanted to do with my life now. I didn’t want to think about the fact that everyone was going to look at me with pity and that I would need help doing the most simple of tasks. And I most definitely didn’t want to think about the fact that I needed to be in a wheel chair. At one point the doctor had started talking about that too, but I just zoned out. I didn’t want to hear it.
I clenched my hand one more time and then let my hand fall back on the matrass. I looked over to the clock on the wall on the right of me and saw that it was almost two pm. It meant that it was almost visiting time and that my mother and brother would come over. Although I didn’t really wanted them to sit down next to my bed and pity me, I did wanted something to break the boredom.
I rolled my head back on the pillow so I was facing the wall across from me again. I looked over my legs, that were covered with the hospital blankets. They didn’t look useless, still they pretty much were. I poked my finger in my right thigh. Nothing. Left thigh. Nothing. I probably shouldn’t be doing this, if I wanted to keep my sanity.
I suddenly heard footsteps in the hallway and my head shot up. I probably shouldn’t have done that, though. My body was covered in bruises and stitches. Besides, my broken ribs were killing me. I guess that was the down side of my feeling coming back.
I thought my mom and brother were about to appear in the door, but instead I was greeted by the face of a man I didn’t know. I knew he wasn’t a doctor, one because he didn’t wear doctor clothes and two because he wasn’t the doctor type. He had dark, short hair held up with a bit of wax. He wore a black shirt and jeans and he was covered with tattoos. The colorful pictures reached from his fingers over his arms and even reached to his neck. I saw a small diamond shimmer underneath one of his big brown eyes. A small uncomfortable smile grew on his face.
I waited for him to say something, but he remained quiet. “Uhm…Are you Mrs. Norris’ grandson? She’s in the room next to this one.” I said, figuring this was probably the kid the woman in the room next to me had spoken about when she was so kind to visit me yesterday. Although she had told me that he was about seventeen and this guy was at least twenty-five.
He put his hands in the pockets of his jeans and awkwardly rocked forwards and backwards. “Uhm no…I was just…Are you Audrey?” he asked.
I raised an eyebrow. What the fuck was this supposed to mean? “Yes…Are you my stalker?” I asked, semi-serious. Although I really didn’t know who in their right mind would stalk me.
His face seemed to relax a little as he let out a small chuckle and stepped a little further into the room. “If I were a stalker, I wouldn’t be in your room. I would be creepily making pictures from a far distance.” He said, joking back, but it seemed forced.
I smiled at his joke, happy with the distraction of this stranger. “True. Are you my fairy godmother then?” I said, feeling a little more at ease with this strange person. Still I couldn’t help but think that this was all extremely odd.
He grinned. “If I were your fairy godmother, I would be a woman.” He said.
I couldn’t contain my laughter, which earned me a very painful sting in the ribs. I tried to contain it, but I guess the pain was readable of my face, because the stranger looked at me with worry. There was something else mixed into his expression, but I couldn’t quite place it.
“Well, can you at least tell me your name if you’re going to stand in my room awkwardly?” I asked, trying to get the attention of my pain.
It seemed to work as his face eased a bit. “I’m Tony.” He said. Somehow his name fitted his face.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Tony. I would introduce myself, but since you already know my name…” I said. The awkward tension was hanging in the air. Somehow I knew Tony wasn’t quite good at the social skills.
“Yeah…” He just said and then it seemed like he drifted off in a daydream. In a bad daydream, because there was pain on his face.
The silence after his last word grew longer and longer eventually hitting the one minute mark. “Uhm, what if you told me why you’re here? My family will come in a couple of minutes.” I said and he seemed to wake up from his daydream.
He swallowed something away and then walked a little closer to the end of my bed. “Sorry, I never meant to bother you.” He said and then he closed his eyes. Like what he was about to say was physically hurting him. Or like it would hurt me. “Look, there’s no easy way to say this, but I just need to do this.” He said and I could hear now that he spoke with a small lisp. He opened his mouth a few times, words not coming out as I was anxiously waiting for him to speak. What would a stranger have to tell me that was so nerve-wracking to him? “I-I j-just…I just wanted to say that I’m sorry…I’m so, so sorry…”
My mouth slowly fell open without me knowing as I suddenly realized what he was talking about. I was pretty sure I stopped breathing for a while. “You’re sorry for what?” I asked, my voice shaking.
He looked at me with fear in his eyes. “I’m sorry for hitting you with my car.”

Notes

heeyeyeyey

So, i don't know if anyone's even reading this story, but I'm having fun writing it so it's okay :)

they finally met! yay! how do you think Audrey will react to Tony's apology. Would you forgive him? (I'm actually curious, so please tell me!)

xxxx

Nicky