April 12, 2010 (35)
12:45 p.m.
Rush Copley Hospital

“I’m sorry,” Cole said for about the millionth time. I was standing over his hospital bed with Shaun next to me. After leaving Mimi’s, I drove him over here to get his jaw checked out. Luckily, it wasn’t completely broken, but it was still pretty bad. He could talk a little better now though. “I didn’t mean to get you fired,” he said.
“You know, if you would’ve just listened to me and stayed away from Michael in the first place, this never would’ve happened. I don’t get why you always have to be so freakin’ stubborn!” I remarked. I felt bad that he had injured his jaw, but I was still pretty mad that he had fought Michael even though I’d told him not to.
“I was just trying to help you!” he cried. Shaun was standing there silently, probably not wanting to interfere with our argument. “That guy was ruining your life, Evalynne! And it hurt me so much to see him hurt you!”
“Oh, really?” I scoffed back at him. “Well he’s not the only one who’s been hurting me lately! You’re the one who’s now dating Chelsea all because you were stupid enough to cheat on an exam! Why the hell would you do that, Cole?” I demanded.
He let out a deep sigh, probably wishing he could’ve just avoided this conversation completely. But we both knew he couldn’t. We couldn’t just pretend like this wasn’t happening, because it was. And I refused to be with Cole if he was with Chelsea at the same time. Blackmail or not, I wouldn’t be cheated on again.
“I was stressed out, ok?” he snapped back. “I’d just found out that you were getting beat up by Will. We’d just…you know,” he said, hinting at when we’d slept together. That seemed like so long ago now. “Plus, this was before Will had been caught. I just had so much on my mind. I couldn’t focus on studying. I was desperate, Evalynne.”
“Don’t you dare try to put this all on me!” I told him. I wasn’t about to let him make me feel bad about something that wasn’t my fault. Just because he was stressed about me didn’t mean that it was my fault he cheated on his test. I hadn’t forced him to cheat. This was definitely not my fault.
“I’m not putting anything on you,” he said. “I’m just trying to get you to see where I’m coming from. I didn’t cheat just because I didn’t feel like studying. I’m not that kind of person, Evalynne.”
I swallowed hard, taking this all in. He did kind of have a point. With all the stress I’d caused for him, it had to be difficult for him to focus on his school work. Maybe it was time for me to just forgive and forget. But there was one thing keeping me from doing that.
“Ok, I understand why you did it, but we still can’t be together. Chelsea’s still forcing you to date her.” I reminded him.
“So what? You know that I don’t see anything in her. We can still be together. I just have to make sure to spend at least a little bit of time with her so she doesn’t get pissed and decide to tell my professor what I did.” he replied, as if it was no big deal. Did he honestly think this wasn’t a big deal though? Did he honestly not care that he was being forced to date Chelsea?
“It’s not that simple, Cole.” I returned, beginning to grow frustrated with him. “I don’t want to be cheated on again.”
“But I wouldn’t be cheating on you!” he said. “Chelsea and I aren’t a real couple. It won’t be like what Will did to you.” When he said Will’s name, I was instantly reminded of the news report I’d seen earlier today. Cole obviously hadn’t seen it because he had been in class when it was on. So he didn’t know just how much pain Will was in.
“He only did that because he was alone. He wanted to keep things going with Lacey because he was afraid of what might’ve happened if he let her go. He was just so alone.” The more I thought about it, the more my heart ached for Will.
“What are you talking about?” Cole demanded. I glanced over at Shaun, who was listening intently. He hadn’t seen the news report either.
“Will tried to kill himself sometime last night. He broke one of the lamps in his room and used the broken glass to slit his wrists,” I informed them.
Neither of them said a word. Shaun’s eyes were wide in shock, but Cole didn’t look the least bit surprised. “He probably realized what a monster he’s become and just couldn’t live with the guilt anymore,” Cole finally said, his tone thick with resentment.
“I can’t believe you just said that,” I murmured back to him in disbelief. I just didn’t get how he could be so hateful towards Will. He had only met him twice. He didn’t even know him. It wasn’t fair for him to judge him like that, especially after all that Will had been through.
“Well what do you expect me to say, Evalynne?” he demanded. “I’m not about to forgive him for what he did to you just because he has some depression issues. That doesn’t even begin to excuse him from what he put you through. And you shouldn’t be feeling bad for him either. He doesn’t deserve your sympathy.”
I shook my head, sick and tired of listening to all of Cole’s hateful words. “You just don’t get it.” I told him. “You don’t know what it’s like to come to a point in your life where things are so bad that you just don’t want to stick around to see what happens. You don’t know what it’s like to not be able to look ahead to the future, because you feel like you no longer have one. You don’t know what it’s like to lose everyone you ever cared about. But I do. So I will sympathize for Will because I know what he’s going through. I know how much he’s hurting right now.”
Cole looked up at me with pain in his eyes. He had to have known what I was talking about. After all, he was the first person I’d confessed to about causing that car accident with Ash’s mom so long ago. He knew that it wasn’t just an accident too. He knew that I had been attempting suicide because everyone had left me at that time. Ash, Kristy, Mom…everyone I cared about had just left me.
“Yeah, but none of that was your fault,” he told me. “Will brought this upon himself.” Now he was starting to sound like Michael.
“Hey you guys, we heard about what happened. Is everyone ok?” I turned around at the sound of Addison’s worried voice, only to find her rushing into the room with Ashton at her side.
“Yeah, we’re fine,” I assure her with a small smile.
“Hi, Addison!” Shaun greeted her enthusiastically.
“Hey, Shaun,” she replied, smiling back at him. Ashton glanced at the two of them, a suspicious look in his eyes. I could see why though. It was pretty obvious that Shaun kind of liked her.
“You’re jaw looks pretty bad,” Addison said to Cole. “It isn’t broken, is it?”
“No, I’m ok,” Cole assured her. He still had that irritable tone to his voice from talking about Will.
“How about you, Evalynne?” Addison asked me next. “Are you ok?”
I wasn’t sure why she was asking me this. It wasn’t like I’d gotten hurt or anything. “Uh, yeah,” I replied, confused.
“Alright,” she said. “I was just asking because I heard about what happened with Will. I wasn’t sure how you took it.”
I swallowed hard, knowing very well that I wasn’t ok with what had happened with Will. It hurt me to know how much Will was hurting, to know that he felt so lost and hopeless that he’d actually tried to kill himself. It kind of made me want to march right over to that mental hospital and wrap him up in my arms and let him know how much I really did care about him. But I didn’t tell any of this to Addison of course.
“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” I lied to her. Cole glanced up at me, aware of my dishonesty.
“Ok, just making sure,” she said.
Just then, Cole’s doctor walked into the room, making his way through the cluster of people to get to Cole’s bedside. “Alright Mr. Wilson,” he said to him, “you’re all good to go. Just try to take it easy, ok? No more fist fights,”
“Got it,” Cole replied with a nod. He swung his feet over the side of the bed and stood up, following the doctor out of the room. I, along with Shaun, Addison and Ashton, trailed behind them. Once he was checked out of the hospital, we all headed out into the parking lot.
All five of us stood there awkwardly near our cars, not saying anything to eachother. “So…” Shaun finally said to break the silence.
“So,” I repeated. “I should probably start heading home. I need to start looking for another job, since I was fired from the diner.” I narrowed my eyes at Cole as I said this.
“I’m sorry,” he said for about the millionth time that day.
“Yeah, whatever,” I murmured back.
“We should probably get back to school. Our professors probably think we’re like, ditching class or something.” Shaun said.
“Yeah,” Cole agreed. He looked up at me, biting down on his lower lip. “So, uh, would it be alright if I called you later?” he asked me. “I finally got a new cell phone,”
I sighed, wishing I could just stay mad at him. But I couldn’t. I loved him too much to hold a grudge against him. “Sure,” I replied.
He grinned at me before saying goodbye and getting into his car. Shaun climbed into the passengers seat and they drove away. “Well I need to get to work,” Ashton declared after glancing down at his watch. “Would it be ok if you rode back with Evalynne?” he asked Addison.
“That’s fine with me,” she agreed. “Is that ok with you?” she asked me.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” I said. So Ashton headed off to the diner and Addison and I headed back home to our apartment. When we got there, Addison went to go work on a paper she had to write for one of her classes so I was left alone in the living room.
I tried to look through the list of jobs that were hiring in the newspaper, but I just couldn’t get myself to focus. I couldn’t stop thinking about Will. I wanted to go see him so badly that it hurt. Then just go visit him, I told myself. I really wanted to, but I wasn’t sure if that was the best thing to do. Would that be too difficult for Will to handle? Would it be too difficult for me to handle? I wasn’t sure.
But I would never know unless I went. And I did really want to see Will. Besides, he had to be awfully lonely holed up all by himself at that mental institution. Wouldn’t it be good for him to get a visitor? Maybe we could repair things between us. Maybe we could be friends again. I would really like that.
So with a deep breath, I rose to my feet and slipped on my shoes. “I’m going out,” I called down the hall towards Addison’s room.
“Ok,” she called back. I walked out of the apartment building, started up my car and then I was off.

Author's Note: Check me out on Youtube if you wanna...I have videos posted for this series & my username is LexiWrites (: