Was he Never Real?

Chapter 4

“Oh my gosh, I’m so happy you’re okay, Em! I was so worried, I made Mason bring me up here every day hoping to be here when you woke up. I’m so happy you’re finally awake!”

She tried to continue, but I had to interrupt her. “Thank you Kels, but can you loosen up a little? You’re hurting my arm,” I laughed. It killed my arm, but I didn’t want her to feel bad. She was just really excited and I couldn’t blame her. I was so happy she was there. I wished she would’ve been there when Mason left earlier.

She flung herself off of me, backing up a little bit with a worried look on her face. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Emma. I didn’t mean to, I’m just so excited! Are you okay?” She was bright red, probably from guilt and embarrassment, which I didn’t want.

“I’m fine, my arm’s just a little sore. Don’t be sorry. I’m really happy to see you. I’ve been going crazy here since Mason left.”

Mason looked over at the mention of his name and he opened his mouth. Assuming he was about to apologize and say he shouldn’t have left, I cut him off before he could even start.

“Mason, don't you even try to apologize! You needed sleep. Bad. You clearly haven’t been sleeping well if you’ve been staying on that couch and I think it’s fine that I was bored as long as you got some proper rest.”

He looked back down and didn’t say anything for a minute, which confirmed that I was right, and he was going to apologize. He shouldn’t feel bad for going home and getting sleep when he probably didn’t even know when he last got a good night of sleep.

Kelsey sits on the edge of my bed, holding my hand while Mason walks over and sits back down in the chair next to my bed. We sat and talked for a bit before Ari came back in to check on me again.

“Hey, Emma. Are you still doing well? Do you need anything to eat or drink?” She briefly glanced over at Mason but held eye contact with me for the majority of the time she was talking to me. She turned a little red, but I brushed it off. Mason’s a conventionally attractive guy, so I was sure she just thought he was cute.

Maybe I can set them up. Ari is the type of girl I would want Mason to marry.

I thought to myself before snapping myself out of my thoughts to respond to Ari. “I could use some juice, my throat is a bit dry. I’m still full from the soup though! Thank you!”

“Of course! I’ll be right back with some juice for you.” She gave me a smile and turned back to the door, giving Mason another glance on her way out.

As soon as she was out of the room, I looked at Mason and saw that he had a small smirk on his face that he was trying to suppress.

“You like her too!” I practically squealed.

He looked up at me, shock showing all over his face.

“What? Why would you think that?”

“I’m not stupid, Mason. I saw that smirk on your face when she walked out after checking you out. What did I miss when I was knocked out?”

He looked like he was going to burst from embarrassment.

“You didn’t miss anything, Emma. She’s just one of your nurses.”

I knew he was lying. Next time he left, I was going to make sure she was single. If she was, I'd get them together. I was determined by that point.

“I don’t believe you, but I’ll let it go since you seem like you’re about to die of embarrassment.” I could barely speak because I was too busy laughing at his face.

I know my brother, a lot of people might have thought that would be a cocky smirk, but he’s not egotistical. That was proof that he was into her.

8:28 P.M.

I had been lying in bed talking to Kelsey and Mason for almost three hours. Kelsey had only gone to work and had come to see me since the day of the crash. She took three days off of work after my crash to stay up here with me, but her mom said she needed to go to work to get her mind off of my crash so that she would calm down. She was freaking out more and more every day, thinking that I wouldn’t wake up, so she needed a distraction. She’d still been up every day after she got off work to visit me.

I know it’s not my fault, but I still feel horrible for making her and Mason so scared.

“I still don’t know exactly what happened. Can someone please explain it to me?” I asked, knowing I knew the answer. After Mason’s reaction to me mentioning Lucas earlier though, I wanted to know what he thought happened.

“Emma, can we talk about this tomorrow or something? You just woke up today, and you already freaked out earlier. I don’t want to risk anything.”

He looked anxious. He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t know what story to tell me. I had a feeling he wasn’t going to tell me and if he did, he wouldn’t tell me the truth.

“Fine, whatever. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” I was annoyed. I feel like I had a right to be aggravated. If he wasn’t hiding something from me, he wouldn’t seem so anxious and he would tell me.

11:17 P.M.

Kelsey had to go home, they wouldn’t let her stay no matter how much we begged Ari to let her. Mason dropped her off and went home to grab me a change of clothes. While he was gone, he left his overnight bag. As I was looking around the room for what felt like the thousandth time, I noticed what looked like my phone case — pink, sparkly and looked like the same size as my phone. I went over to check and sure enough, it was my phone. It was a bit cracked, but it wasn’t broken to where it couldn’t be used.

I knew he was lying. I thought to myself, getting more annoyed than I was when he wouldn’t tell me what happened in the crash.

I left my phone in the bag after making sure it still worked. I decided to confront him about it tomorrow. I just didn’t understand why he'd lie to me.

Did something happen that I don’t remember? Or was it while I was unconscious? Is he just that mad that I was with Lucas? Am I just going insane?