Please Be a Nightmare
When consciousness finally came swirling back to Josh, everything hurt - a sharp reminder that what had happened was very real. Breathing in hurt like a bitch, he realized right away. Definitely a few cracked ribs. His shoulder burned like someone had stuck a branding rod to him, and as if summoned by the thought, a flash of Joslyn’s father pointing a gun at him and the resulting echoing gunshot jumped to the front of his mind. He winced, and his cheek smarted from the movement. He was sure he looked real pretty right now with his black eye. He’d been careless, done too much talking. If he’d just gotten to the point instead of taunting the sick fucks, he could have arrested them both without the hospital bill. Joslyn was going to kick his ass.
The thought caused his still hazy brain to jolt awake. Oh God, Jos… She was his emergency contact - they had to have already called her. Almost reluctantly, he turned his head to the side and blinked blearily into the bright lighted room. There she was in the chair beside him, her cheeks tear stained and her shoulders tense. Guilt pooled in his stomach for doing this to her. He wondered if she knew about her parents yet, that he’d shot her dad. “Hey,” he rasped, his voice rough from the tube they’d had down his throat during surgery. Glancing down, he saw that his fingers were intertwined with hers, and he gave them a tentative squeeze. “Not exactly how I was planning on spending the evening.” He admitted sheepishly. “How…” He started, but stopped himself. He wanted to know how much she knew, but that would come later. He settled on, “How long have you been here?”
It feel like days had gone by as she sat there holding his hand between her two smaller palms, all she wanted was for Josh to wake up. It seemed like at this point, the clock had stopped moving. It would feel like time had gone by but she'd look at the clock again for it only to have ticked a minute. Her breathing was heavy, and broken, nurses came in to check on Josh and to also check on her. Part of her felt sick to her stomach, like she was actually going to pass out or throw up on something but she couldn't bare the thought of getting up and leaving him alone for even a second. Her head was down, her eyes closed when she heard his raspy voice and her head snapped up, "Oh my god, Josh." she blubbered, more tears falling down her stained cheeks. "You're awake, you're ... you're going to be okay." she reached up gently touching his cheek. "I was so scared, you -- you can't do that to me." she murmured. Joslyn had no idea how this had gone down, or that it had involved her parents.
Joslyn shook her head, "I don't even know." she said before another sob came from her throat and a bunch of choked out breaths as she tried to reign in her being calm, when all she wanted to do was break down. "They called me and said you got injured and they made it sound like you weren't going to.." she closed her eyes, her hands shook against his one hand, and she didn't even realize it. "What happened, you've never been hurt before." she looked up at him as her phone buzzed again. "Dammit." she grabbed her phone tossing it away. "I'm not answering the phone again, last time I did I thought I was losing you." she said, ignoring the number that almost matched identically to the hospital number but that was off by one digit.
