"The chief beauty about time is that you cannot waste it in advance.The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoiled, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in all your life. You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose." 

― Arnold Bennett   

  When Zoey Graves woke up she wasn't expecting to see the face of Issac Stints. She tried sitting up, wanting to decide whether or not she was in Heaven. But she had these tubes wrapped around her, and then there was the ventilator.

  She was so confused.

  What happened? She hadn't committed suicide, right? She'd wanted to do so at one point during this week, but she was too scared to ever succeed in doing it. All she remembered was walking across the street to meet someone. It was after school, and she was in the ritzy part of town, and she'd been happy. Happy to see someone. Had it been Lawson?

  Had they made up? Had he realized how much of a mistake it'd been to drop her for Larissa? Had he realized how much he hurt her?

  Did he?!

  Zoey shook her head, so unsure of herself. She felt so woozy, yet aware.

  But then there was this: Issac Stints lying next to her in this small hospital bed. He had his arms wrapped around her, and he was sleeping soundly.

  Slightly panicking while keeping her composure, she stared at his face. Trying to reason with herself that this wasn't reality. Definitely a dream.

  It just had to be.

  She even, lamely, did the pinching your own self thing, just so she could get out of this dream. When the harp wasn't heard and she didn't find herself back in her bed in her room. It kind of dawned on her, that if she just so happened to be in a dream, then why the heck did she feel a couple aches all over her body, and was that a bruise—she removed the hospital comforter away from her leg—all over her leg?

  "What happened?" She questioned out loud.

  Zoey then looked at the jock next to her, still in disbelief that he was lying next to her, right now. She wasn't exactly sure if she'd even spoken to Isaac Stints. If she remembered who her ex boyfriend was, and who Isaac Stints was. Why couldn't she remember how she ended up in the hospital bed?

  It was all bits and pieces.

  But for some reason she felt compelled to just stare at Isaac. If she couldn't answer her own questions right now, yet still remain utterly calm, she knew things would still be all right. They just had to be.

  Why was Isaac, here, right now, laying beside her asleep? Did he come in here because he had really wanted to see her, and he'd been a nervous wreck, wondering if she'd make it or not? It's not like she had been going to die or anything, right?

  So much darn questions.

  She continued to stare at his face in wonderment. 

  Then he woke up.

  When Isaac Stints woke up he was just as surprised to see her. After being driven home by Tucker Leeds, and falling asleep on his own lawn, he didn't really know how his body ended up on her hospital  bed (the bed wasn't all that big).

  Lawrie Odin must've had something to do with it. Or maybe, Isaac thought, he sleep walked himself here way early in the morning (managing to get past the hospital working staff and all) and lie next to Zoey, hoping and praying she'd wake up.

  "Zoey?" He whispered. "Y-you're awake."

  He sat up quickly and looked at her. "You made it!" He smiled a big smile this time, and swore that he was going to cry, but he slowly started to tear up. "You're awake. Thank God, you're awake. I thought for a minute that you were going to die regardless..."

  He continued to speak on about how happy he was to see her, and Zoey just looked at him dumbfounded. Did she miss something?

  Before she started to feel creeped out, it suddenly all started coming back to her. She'd gotten hit by a car, and she had been meeting up with Isaac. Why him though? 

  Where was Lawson?

  But who was Lawson exactly?

  He was just somebody who hadn't given a crap about her from the beginning to now.

  "Good morning," Zoey croaked out quietly, smiling at Isaac. She then started to have a coughing fit.

  She needed water.

  Isaac grew alarmed, and told her, "I'm going to go and tell a nurse or doctor that you woke up."

  He was getting up from the bed.

  "No, wait!" Zoey touched his hand, strangely enough the shock came as it went, always when their hands touched.

  Isaac didn't know wether or not she remembered everything. But Zoey wanting him to stay meant something.

  "Why?" He asked, "Don't you want the doctors to know you're feeling better?"

  She shook her head. "No. I just want you to stay with me. I want to know why you're here..." She glanced at the window. It was very sunny for an early morning. "...and oddly for some reason, I want to look out the window."

  She gave Isaac's hand a squeeze before walking over to the window, wincing subtlely at the sudden pain she felt in her hip that was most-likely a bruise. "I don't know why I feel like..."

  Isaac felt compelled to ask, "Like what?"

  But he knew this was her moment, so he didn't say anything. She just woke up, and that didn't seem like it was ever going to happen awhile ago. But God willing, it did. 

  Thank God.

  "...I've just gone through war, but now it's over. And things seem like they're going to be looking up from now on."

  Isaac smiled, and stood next to Zoey looking out the window as well. "Same."

  They both looked at each other at the same time and smiled warmly, and sweetly. He grabbed her hand to hold, and she once more gave it a squeeze. And they continued to look out the window, keeping the faith, and hoping life would get better from here on.

  Aeons ago, you couldn't have told the two, that things would've been like this in this moment—right here, right now.

  You couldn't simply note this time, nor moment as the start of a relationship between a jock boy and a nerd girl. It was much more than that.

  Zoey Graves was a girl suffering from depression, who had saved Isaac from himself.

  Isaac Stints was a guy who had practically gone through a lot to get Zoey where she needed to be.

  No, a hospital room hadn't been expected. But there was a life that was living in this hospital room, this instant.  

  The life that was living also had someone to hold onto.

  Would Zoey ever know what Isaac did for her? 

  Maybe he'd figure out it'd all been some dream.

  Or maybe she already knew.