A/N
This chapter contains slight mentions of self harm and suicide. If these are things that bother you or may be triggering for you, please don't go ahead and continue reading this chapter ❤❤

If you are someone struggling with something like this, please seek help, and stay safe ❤

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On Sunday morning, I finally had my che up. Before I went I was extremely fuckcing excited, because I was positive that they'd send me back home that day, however things didn't really go as I'd hoped.

"Okay, you can check out on November 7th," the doctor said, writing something down on her clip board.

"What?! That's like two weeks away!" I said, sounding angrier than I intended.

The doctor sighed. "I told you Hayley, there's some external stress on your ribs, they aren't heeling very well. You won't be able to move around too much if you go back anyway."

"What do you mean by external stress?" My mom asked.

"Well it's possible that it's just taking time to heel, but...things like anxiousness, sometimes ptsd are likely to cause you to occasionally over work your lungs, which might affect your heeking ribs, so if that's the case, you might want to look into it." She said, and I felt my body sink into a pool of discomfort and denial.

I was sort of dazed for the rest of the conversation, and the rest of the day, it was weird.

I didn't reply to Levi and Scarlett who asked what the doctor said, I didn't want to talk about it at all.

***

Later that evening, Aiden came over to do some work, and it was going fine, until,

I noticed his hand, which was usually covered in bands and bracelets was empty.

I looked at his wrists, when a sense of panic and fear flushed threw my body.
My brain paused, and I couldn't find the right words to say.

I saw healed up cuts, slashed across his wrists.

I slowly looked up at him, and gupled.

My jaw was clenched and the pit in my stomach grew bigger as I began to feel a small shortness of breath.

I knew that if I tried breathing in too deep, my ribs would hurt.

I started to fall into a pool of thoughts circulating around what was going on and why the hell it bothered me so darn much.

I couldn't control what I was feeling, and I was confused as hell...

Aiden doesn't come off as happy, but I didn't know it was that bad. I really hope he's doing okay.
He was away for a year, no one talks about where he was....he never talks about it. What if he tried killing himself like my dad. What if he does,

I hope he hasn't had it too bad. Wait, why do I care about him so much.
Maybe I'm not thinking straight. Maybe this is just because of everything that's happened with my father.

"Hey," I heard Aiden's voice, pulling me out of my own spiral of thoughts. "Is something wrong,"

I cleared my throat feeling a little disoriented. "I....um...I recently found out..that...my father tried to kill himself," I said softly.

He looked at me and narrowed his eyes. He looked confused, but at the same time sort of concerned.

"I know it's not my place...but.." I sniffled, "um...my dad had this tattoo, that you also have...a semi collen..and...I..I don't know it's weird to me that he was not okay, because we were really close.."

I started rambling, and my brain was going off, and for some reason I couldn't get myself to shut up.

"and I don't know how I didn't see that he was not okay, which is sort of scary. And everyone in school keeps saying things about you and talking about where you've been, and as much as I don't want to care...I sort of do, and people keep talking about how you were in the hospital in sophmore year, but no one will tell me why, and I don't want to ask because that's weird, but I..also....." I sighed, "I just...tell me that you're okay, and if you're not, then I'm sorry that I had no ide-

He looked at me and unexpectedly chuckled, "I'm fine,"

I let out a long breath. "What?"

"I..wasn't fine few years ago, but I am now," he said.

"What do you mean?"

He cleared his throat.."uh...my mom...she met with an accident as well, but she died." He said.

Oh my fucking god. That's why he seems to care? That's what Levi was talking about as well right.

"Oh..damn..I'm so sorry," I said softly.

"That's why I was in the hospital a lot, and people saw me here, and made up reasons," he said,  "after that, things got messy, and I wasn't really doing great. My sister sort of sent me to rehab, which really helped, but....I am fine now," he said.

I started to realize how weird I was being, and frowned.

I starred into his grey eyes and he gave me a small but genuine smile. He didn't do that very often.

"Are you fine? Sitting in a closed room for a long time can start to get....difficult.."

"I'm fine..I just...I can't belive that..I didn't know my dad was so unhappy,"

"You didn't know because he didn't want you to know," he said,

"I know, but we were really close, and it sucks that he didn't think he could tell me," I sniffled. "....If things ever get bad again..." I mumbled

"They won't," he said softly.

"But if they do,"

"You'll be the first to know," he smiled.

The rest of the evening we ended up talking for a really fucking long time.

I definitely didn't see him any different, but I saw him as a lot more.

When his sister found out that he was hurting himself, she helped him a lot, and made him get the tattoo, and found him somewhere to go.

He was in rehab for the past year, and it seems to have helped him a lot.

I spoke about my father for the first time after his death and it felt really weird.

"hey, do you know when you'll be out of here?" He asked, after we started talking about lighter topics.

I sighed..."7th November," I said, turning the ring on my finger.

"What? That's like 2 weeks?"

I nodded,

"Well it'll be over before you know," he smiled.

Later that night, we just talked about random things, which took somehow took my mind off of everything that was going on.

I didn't care that my leg was broken, and my ribs. I didn't care about my nightmares, or collage or how much I was missing out. I didn't care about the accident. All I cared about was me, and him, in that moment, and having a good time, and it was one of the best feelings ever.

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