Nick sat there stunned for a few seconds. He looked away without saying anything, feeling his heart raze. She couldn’t be serious, could she?

“I’m sorry Nick…” Cass cried, covering her face with her hands.

“Why are you doing this?” He whispered, without looking at her. He knew if he did, he would start to cry.

Cass didn’t answer.

“You don’t mean this Cass. I know you don’t. Please say you don’t…” He was trying to fight back his own tears, but he knew there was no point.

“Cass?” He placed his hand on her arm, but she quickly removed it.

“Please just leave…” She said, trying to sound convincing.

“No,” Nick raised his voice a little to get her attention. This made Cass cry even more. “I’m not leaving until you look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t want me to be here!” He was crying now, but he didn’t know if his tears were out of anger or hurt.

“I want you to leave Nick…” She whispered, looking directly at him.

“I don’t believe you.”

“JUST GO!” She yelled with all the strength she had left.

Their eyes locked for a few seconds, before Nick stood up and walked out of the room. 

Nick entered his house after driving straight home from the hospital. He kicked off his shoes in the hall and walked slowly over to the kitchen. He seemed to be doing everything as if he was in a trance, and he knew that he had been lucky not to hurt himself or someone else when he was driving back from the hospital. It was a sunny day, but he could see only darkness and rain when he looked around.

“FU**!!!!” He yelled as he grabbed a glass on the counter and threw it against the kitchen wall. It shattered into small pieces. Tears were forming in his eyes again, and he leaned his back against the wall to let himself slide down on the floor where he pulled his knees up to his chin and covered his face with his hands.

The next day, Aj was sitting in his living room, once again trying to call Nick. He had tried calling the hospital too, to see if something had happened to Cass, but they could only tell him that Cass was fine and that Nick wasn’t with her.

Aj sighed as he hung up again, still no answer from Nick. He stood up and decided to drive over to his house to see what was going on.

One hour later, he was standing outside Nick’s house, knocking on his door. There was no answer. In a way, he wasn’t even surprised.

The door was unlocked so Aj decided to take the risk and enter the house. Once he was inside, he stopped and looked around. He’d only been there once after Nick had bought it, but the house wasn’t too big, so he knew his way around.

“Nick?” He said, quiet at first. There was no answer.

“NICK!” He yelled a little louder, as he started walking down the hall and into the living area.

No Nick…

“Where is he?” Aj said to himself out loud. He continued to check every room on the first floor before he decided to walk upstairs to check Nick’s bedroom.

Once he was there, he stopped outside the door, no sound coming from the inside. He knocked carefully. “Nick… you in there?”

No answer.

Aj sighed and slowly opened the door to enter the room.

Nick was laying on his bed, fully dressed, his back to Aj. There were empty beer cans lying on the floor, and on his bed next to him.

“Holy Christ…” Aj muttered under his breath as he walked over to Nick’s side of the bed.

He was staring straight into the wall with a blank expression on his face and his eyes were puffy from crying.

“What happened man?” Aj asked concerned. 

“She broke up with me…” Nick whispered without looking up at Aj.

“What?”

“Cass broke up with me…”

Aj looked shocked. “I heard you saying that. Why?”

Nick shrugged. “I don’t know.” He was still looking blankly at the wall.

“Nick, look at me! What did she say?”

No answer.

“Nick, you look like crap.”

“Thanks man…” Nick looked up for the first time.

“Wanna talk about it?”

Nick shook his head. “Not really…”

“Want me to talk to her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Nick, seriously! You can’t just stay like this forever. I’ll drive to the hospital right now and talk to her if you want me to.”

Slowly, Nick nodded his head. “Ok…” He whispered.

Aj took a few steps towards the door. “I’ll come right back here after I’ve talked to her. Then we’ll talk.”

Nick didn’t answer, so Aj just walked out of the room.

Two hours later, he was back. Nick was still lying on the bed, almost in the same position as he had when Aj had left. When Nick heard Aj enter the room again, he sat up, nervous about what his friend had to say.

Aj approached the bed and sat down next to Nick, staring at his friend for a few moments.

“You know, you look worse then she does…” He said.

“Well… she dumped me, not the other way around.”
”No… she has nurses to take care of her, you don’t. She’s as miserable as you are Nick. All I can say is that you have to go and talk to her.”

“She doesn’t want to see me.”

“Yes, she does. She asked me to tell you to come.”

Nick looked up. “She did?” He said, almost out of bed before Aj had time to answer.

“Yes.”

“Will you drive me there?”

“Well, I’d be stupid to let you drive by yourself anywhere right now, so yes.” He answered, refereeing to the empty beer cans in Nick’s room. “And for god’s sake man, brush your teeth…”

“Hi…” She said as he approached her bed.

“Hi.” Nick didn’t know where to look. He wanted to hold her so bad, but he didn’t know what she wanted, or was about to say, so he forced himself not to touch her.

There was silence for a few moments. Nick knew that Cass was trying to figure out what to say. He knew her well, but right at that moment, he had no idea what she was thinking.

“I’m sorry Nick…” She whispered, her voice breaking.

Nick could tell that she was about to cry again. There had been a lot of tears being shed from both of them during the past two days, and Nick didn’t even know if he had any left.

He was about to say something, when Cass stopped him.

“I don’t know why I said what I said the other day… I thought that it would make it easier for both of us if we weren’t together. And I thought that it was just a matter of days until you would break up with me… so I figured I’d do it to save you the time.” She paused and looked at him, tears rolling down her pale cheek.

“Cass… Why would you think that?”

“For god’s sake Nick. LOOK AT ME!” She cried, lifting her arms up only to let them fall helplessly back onto the white sheets. “I’m a freak…. I can’t walk; I can’t do anything on my own anymore.” She was sobbing uncontrollably now as she looked up at him for the first time. Nick could see his own pain in her eyes, and reached out to stroke her chin as she whispered, “I don’t want to be your burden.”  

Nick looked at her, tears filling his eyes. “Oh god… Cass.”

He stood up from the chair and sat down on the side of her bed, pulling her close to him. He stroke her hair gently while she cried into his chest, releasing all the pain that she felt.

“You would never be a burden to me… I don’t care if you can’t walk. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I love you. I can’t believe you would ever think that I was going to leave you because of this.”

“I’m sorry…” She cried again, shaking as Nick held her, rocking her back and forth.

“Promise me you won’t ever scare me like that again.”

She lifted her head, and nodded. “I promise. I love you Nick.”

Nick smiled and wiped away a few of her tears with his thumb. “You still want to marry me?”

Cass laughed a little a nodded.

“Good, cause I’d have a hard time planning a wedding on my own you know…”