Declan's POV

I close the door behind me on the way out. Sitting in the waiting room down the hall are the three of them. Cyrus had his arm draped over Natalie's shoulder, the latter still wiping away some tears off her face. Adam was sitting there bouncing his knee with his hands clasped and staring off into space.

Cyrus shot up the moment he saw me. "Anything?"

I shook my head and Natalie sunk lower into her chair. "I'm going to grab some coffee, do you guys want anything?"

"I'll get some, come sit down," Adam spoke quietly.

"Thanks," I told him, sitting down and rubbing my eyes with sudden exhaustion.

After he was gone Cyrus shifted in his chair. "That's the first time he said something since we've been here."

I thought about that for a second before my phone rang. Caller ID said it was Julie. I was supposed to be home hours ago.

"Hey Julie," I greeted. There was noise in the background. She was probably putting Parker and Evelyn to sleep now.

"I know you like to go off with your friends after practice sometimes but a heads up would be greatly appreciated. Are you safe?"

"I had to take Rowena to the hospital. She got hurt pretty bad."

"What?" She shrieked into the phone. "Stay there, I'm coming right now."

I didn't even have time to respond before the line cut off. I tucked my phone back into my pocket. We stayed quiet for a while.

"Hey, Nat?" She looked up at me. "Why didn't you tell us about the way Jeremey treated you?"

She looked back down at her feet. "Because I thought- actually I knew you guys would do something about it. Row was the only one I told and I made her promise she wouldn't tell anybody." She bit her lip as more tears came. "If I had known he was going to do something like this I would have-" a sob broke her words. "I would have said something a lot sooner. It just wasn't easy to talk about and I didn't want anybody to get hurt because of me... and now she's hurt-"

"Not because of you," I cut her off. "It's just him, Nat. Nobody else."

She blinked at me. Something in her expression right now reminded me of Evelyn and I would have smiled because of it if we were in a different setting.

Natalie frowns as if she made her mind up about something. "That goes for you too you hypocrite. I know what you've been thinking."

"I think the guilt is inevitable," Cyrus speaks up. "We can all feel better once she wakes up and tells us how dumb we're being." He paused. "Unless she does blame us, then we're all screwed."

"She won't blame me, I'm perfect," Adam says, finally returning with some coffee and granola bars.

His joke didn't come with his usual mischievous smirk. He sat down and I gave him a nudge on the shoulder. He gives me a flicker of a smile back.

"Hey, her mom made it," Cyrus said motioning to the lady speed walking down the hall. I know Rowena had mentioned that she had gone back to her job out of town just a few days ago.

Then a blonde head caught my attention down the hall. "So did Julie," I said to no one in particular.

I got up and walked down the hall to find her. Her worried expression dropped significantly when she saw me.

"Where is she? Tell me what happened."

I filled her in on everything within a few minutes. Julie had a hand on her heart and then on her mouth in reaction to it all.

"She's going to be asleep for a while, there was really no need to come all the way down here tonight," I told her.

"Yes, I did. If not for her then for you," She says and reaches into her tote. "I brought you a change of clothes and a good blanket. I know you aren't planning on coming home tonight if she's stuck here."

I lose the words I meant to say. She hands me my things and goes into her tote once again. "They've been wanting to see her for a while now, so they made this for her the other day. I thought I would bring it for her to see when she wakes up."

Evelyn drew her a picture. It was the two of them playing in a sandbox. She let parker draw himself off to the side in a green crayon. He looked like a bug with a giant head. Considering Evelyn only drew pictures for me that involved my death, this was really nice and super out of character for her.

Then I flipped it over to the other side where the three of them were standing together. I was in it this time. Only, I was lying in the middle of the road and a car was coming towards me. Evelyn had an evil smile on her face. That was more like it.

I cracked a smile at it. Rowena would love it.

"Thank you, Julie. Where are they anyway?"

"Your dad put them to bed. He's with them now but if I'm not needed here I should probably get back. Tell me when she wakes up?" I gave her a nod and she gives me a sympathetic smile in parting before she turned to walk away.

"Julie," I called out, stopping her in her tracks. She turned around and waited for me to say something. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"No, I mean, thank you for everything. I know I'm really hard on you and it's not fair to you. You're a good mom to Parker and I appreciate you being one to Evelyn. She doesn't remember our mom, you're it for her. I'm glad that it's you. You've... always been there. So thanks."

Julie smiled at me, her face lighting up even though her eyes were moistening with tears. For the second time that night, I received an unexpected hug. Her arms wrapped around me and my body went stiff in the surprise of it. But I hugged her back, eventually relaxing into it.

"Sorry," she said, pulling back and adjusting herself. "Thank you for saying that Declan. It means a lot to me." I nod in response. "I'll let your dad know where you are. See you later."

"Bye," I tell her.

I do end up staying the night there. I stay in the waiting room, giving Rowena's parents the space to be with her. I hardly sleep anyway.

The next day comes slowly. Our friends come back in the morning and then they force me to go home to shower and eat something real. I do both within an hour and come straight back.

It's another day of waiting around and doing nothing. They say there's a chance she could have lost some of her memory. I didn't think about that. I didn't want to.

The entire day goes by. It's around five or six when I fall asleep again.

Someone nudged me awake and I opened my eyes to find Natalie standing over me. "She's awake!"

————————

She doesn't hear me come in right away. I don't know why I'm stepping so lightly. I guess I was afraid to make too much noise.

Her parents are talking to her and she listens without saying too much. They look like they're finishing up a conversation, her mom hums in agreement at something, and then they're done. I take my opportunity then.

"Hey Row Row," I say gently. She looks up at me. It feels like ages since I've seen those olive greens.

"Row Row?" She frowns.

"Yeah," I nudge. "I call you Row Row sometimes. You don't like it much but I do it anyway."

"Um." She looks at her dad so guidance and I feel the pit in my stomach. "Which one is he again?" She whispers.

Well if that didn't feel like a fucking butcher knife to the heart I don't how else to describe it. I swallow at the sudden dryness in my throat. Am I breathing? I should breathe.

I check behind me just in case there isn't some stranger standing behind me that she could have been talking about. There was no one of course. "I- um.. me? I'm-" Am I fucking stuttering? Since when do I stutter?

I try again but the words dig their heels into my throat and refuse to come out. I think I stutter again.

"Wait- I'm sorry, Declan. I really can't. It was his idea," Rowena points to her dad. "He told me to do it, but it's so evil I can't keep it up."

I'm blinking at her. Then I'm breathing in relief. Then I'm blinking again. Her dad lets out a laugh and Rowena offers me a light hearted smile.

"I told them not to," her mom rolls her eyes. "We'll give you guys a moment. Come on, Peter, you child." She pulls him out of the room and he laughs the whole way out.

"My memory is doing okay," she speaks first.

"Do you know what I've been through you while you were out?"

"No. I'm so sorry, come here."

"No," I cross my arms. I suddenly feel like a child who's throwing a fit. So I uncross my arms but then I decided it was awkward to leave them hanging there. So I cross them again but this time I give my muscles a subtle flex.

"Declan, come here, I couldn't forget you even if I wanted to." I looked at her. She was awake and her eyes were lit up in her amusement. Maybe it was at my expense but I didn't care anymore. She was here.

And then she smiles at me and that little dimple in the bottom corner of her mouth deepens. I'm a sucker for that tiny little dimple. Stupid lil indent.

I settle in the chair next to her and grab her hand, bringing it up to my lips and placing a kiss there.

"You okay?" She asks me with concern. She takes her hand out of mine to run her fingers through my hair and then drops it back into my grip. "You look like you haven't slept."

"And you slept too much. How do you feel?" I wasn't going to talk about me right now.

"Well there's the headache but I think the drugs are kicking in so that's nice. I didn't remember everything about what happened leading up to this, but it started coming back to me slowly."

"What do you remember?" I ask.

"I remember the article. Everyone was mad at me for something I supposedly wrote about them or their friend. I really didn't write that right? My brain isn't leaving that part out?" She asked me.

"There's no way you wrote it."

"Okay, that's cool then. Um, and then I remember being at practice and Coach asked me to grab his notebook or his whistle or something like that. Jeremey was there yelling and slamming things. Then my feet were yanked out from under me and I hit my head on the tile. Hm," She thought about it some more. "All the details and the in-betweens are still coming through. Doc said it might take a little while."

"Don't worry about it right now," I told her. "I'm glad you're awake."

She smiles at me. "It was a really mean prank. I won't forget you." She gave my hand a squeeze.

"Yeah well if anyone gets to forget, it's me. Don't think I forgot how you greeted me the first time I spoke to you."

She outright laughed at that. "That was still your fault. I'd say it worked out anyway though. Love at first slap, am I right?"

I smirk at her. "You know that wasn't the first time I saw you, right?"

"When was the first time then?" She asks me.

"Let's see," I lean back and look towards the ceiling thinking about it. "You were shouting something at the referee. And it was like something out of a damn movie because the wind was blowing your hair back and I was like, damn she fine in the back of my head, you know." She interrupted my story by flicking me in the arm.

"But then Duncan played that foul on Cyrus and they started fighting. Adam and a couple of the others were helping Duncan being their captain and all. Then you come out running and you throw yourself on Adam because he was about to hit Cyrus again. You weren't smiling and you weren't scared, you were just this firecracker of energy and I'm watching you, stuck on the bench, and I thought, now how do I get her to like me?"

"That was how I got your interest?" She laughs again. Fuck me, that laugh sounds like a melody. "Why didn't you just talk to me that night?"

"Other than the fact that you were pissed off and attacked my best friend?" She rolled her eyes and waited for me to continue. "I tried getting up once and Coach made sit right back down. So I spent the rest of that night half watching the game and half watching you. Then senior year comes and soccer season rolls around that new semester and there you are, walking down the hallway with Cyrus. I talked to you that time."

"Mhm," She smiles in remembrance of the rest.

We spend the next few minutes talking over the past and how we got to now. A knock comes at the door and Cyrus, Natalie, and Adam all shuffle in one after the other.

Natalie brings in her muffins she baked that we all dig into. Adam scoots into the bed with Rowena and holds her close. Cyrus aggressively reminds him to be gentle and then they bicker.

Everybody goes back to how they were before. We forget about Jeremey, we forget about the article, Prom, and our last game of the season.

It's just us right now, and just for tonight we worry about nothing else.

A/N: it is 3:10AM rn why am I like this.

Fav friendship duo?

Going back to Rowena's POV from here on out (:

Thanks for reading ofc <3