Michael carried me for a few meters before my head felt heavy and the world started spinning. I started screaming at him.

“Stop spinning me! Stop!” I cried as I reached for my head. I heard him speak but his answer was muffled and every word that he said sounded alien to me. I continued to ask what until my surroundings started to fade out… Everything went black, but the last thing I remembered were flashing lights.

When I woke up, I was somewhere strange. The whole place was a bright white, and it practically burned my eyes. I realized immediately that I wasn’t at my house, I wasn’t at JJ’s house (thank God), nor was I at Michael’s house. I was at a hospital. Which one, I didn’t know, but I didn’t care to say the least. What I really wanted to know was why was I here?

Suddenly, I realized that someone was gripping onto my hand. I slowly turned my head over and smiled as I followed the arm up to the face of the person.

“Michael?” I asked weakly. Michael raised his head, and I could see his tear streaked face.

“Peyton? Peyton! Oh thank God! I thought you’d never wake up!” he cried as he kissed me on the cheek. I smiled, but then I wondered how long I had been out for. It didn’t seem like long, but then again I had passed out… I wouldn’t know.

“How long was I out for?” I asked him.

“Too long,” he replied romantically. I smiled softly. I would have laughed but I just didn’t have the energy to do so.

“Cute,” I said, “But seriously, I mean in hours,” I specified. Michael frowned.

“Hours? I dunno that, don’t make me do all of that math. You were out for four days though,” he told me. My eyes widened. Four days?! That long?! Good grief! What had happened to me? I hardly even remembered anything… All I remember was JJ dragging me into a car, we were going really fast, metal crunched, glass shattered… That was when Michael pulled me out and that was when I had my last few moments before I blacked out completely.

“There was a car accident, right?” I asked him. He nodded.

“Yeah,”

“What exactly—“

“JJ was trying to take you away. He was majorly speeding, ran a red light, and a car hit JJ’s car headfirst. The car rolled with you two inside. I’m so thankful that you’re alive, Peyton! I thought I was going to lose you! Hell, I thought I had lost you! When you blacked out, I was so scared and afraid that thought you had stopped breathing. Thankfully, it was just my own fear embedding that into my mind, but for a long time I thought that that was it. I waited here in the hospital for you to wake up. Every moment that they allowed me to be in here, I was. I’ve been holding your hand the whole time. I wasn’t sure if you knew that or not when you were passed out, but I was hoping that somehow it would send signals to your brain to let you know that I’d be with you every step of the way…” Michael told me, almost crying again.

I wanted to cry myself. The way he explained it made me feel like he was so devoted to me; to us. And to think that all of this time I’ve been fooling myself, claiming that I was in love with JJ when I wasn’t. At least, I thought was in love with JJ… I couldn’t believe it. How could I have ever even thought that? Especially when someone like Michael (a much better candidate) was standing right there in front of me, just waiting for me to open my eyes.

Well, now my eyes were open; wide open.

“Michael… why did you stick by me? After I continued to push you away?” I asked him.

“Because,” he told me as he inched closer, his voice still soft and quiet, “I love you, Peyton. And when you’re in love, you can’t just walk away as if nothing ever happened. I couldn’t fool myself, nor my heart when it came to you,” he spoke sweetly. I smiled at him.

“You’re amazing, Michael. I don’t deserve you,” I sighed. He chuckled a bit.

“Despite what you might think, you deserve me more than anyone else ever could,” he whispered. I smiled warmly, but my smile vanished when a question popped into my mind.

“JJ… or, Noah… where is he? What happened to him?” I questioned as I looked around the room, half expecting to see him in a bed next to mine. Michael gulped.

“He uh… well… when the emergency personnel got to the scene, after I had already gotten you out, JJ was trapped inside all of the debris. He was alive, but he was beaten up pretty badly and he was in a tight spot. Eventually, they were able to get him out of the car and into an ambulance. He was rushed to a hospital, but he died on the ride there…” Michael sighed sadly. I frowned.

Even if he was my enemy. Even if I did hate him. Even after everything that he did to Michael and I back when we were 16, and back to when I was 8, it still hurt to know that he died. It hurts to know when anyone died. I mean, obviously the pain is worse depending on who the person is, but I still felt a little bad… but only a little.

“Oh,” was all that I could say. Michael nodded slowly.

“Yeah…” he sighed. There was a long silence as we both sat there together, him still griping onto my hand tightly.

More time elapsed, and Michael was told to leave since visiting hours had ended. Michael protested, and so did I, but eventually he got out. The doctors ran some tests, hooked up a few things, took some blood, but I really wasn’t thinking about that. All that I was thinking about was how I screwed everything up.

Before I had gotten engaged to JJ, Michael and I had a bright future. He was probably going to ask me out sooner or later, and everything would have been fine. We could have moved out together, started a family, maybe even gotten married... but no! I just had to go and get engaged to him! God… I was so stupid!

Thankfully, things had finally cleared up. Yes, there will always be the hurt and pain from when we fought. There will always be the hurt and pain from this accident. But we’re overcoming all of that; we’re overcoming it all together. That’s all that matters.

We’re together now, and the only way we can go from here is up.