Two: Convalescent

"Shar?" Lee asked, laying on my couch, his eyes shut.

"Yeah?" I asked back from my position at the bar-style kitchen next to the living room, making two cups of hot chocolate.

We had left directly from the cemetary to my house, because I hadn't wanted Lee to have to deal with people quite yet.

"Is it alright if I go to bed now?" He asked softly, opening his eyes to look at me.

"Of course." I replied, exiting the kitchen and walking up to the couch, helping Lee up and walking him upstairs to my brother's old bedroom.

I live in my parent's old house. When I decided to go to a local college, they just gave me the house and moved elsewhere with my little sister while my older brother went to college out of state.

"Are you going to need anything?" I asked, stopping beside the bed.

"Not that I know of now." He replied, stripping down to boxers and climbing into the bed. "But if I do, I promise I'll call for you."

"Good." I said, smiling at him and tucking him into the sheets.

"I love you." Lee said, smiling weakly before drifting off to sleep.

The pain I felt in that instant was unimaginable. I swept from the room, walked downstairs and into the kitchen to finish the hot chocolate I'd started.

I picked up a mug and it burned my hand, causing me to drop it on the floor.

I watched with a sort of morbid, elementary fascination as the steaming hot mug shattered on contact with the wooden surface.

I just stood there, looking at the shards of glass littering the ground, the formerly boiling liquid spilt all over the floor, and I fell to my knees, the pain of the day catching up to me.

It's all my fault.

She died because of me.

I know that now.

---Three months earlier---

"Can you believe I got these pants so cheap?" I exclaimed, eyeing them in the mirror, Tessa splayed across my bed, her head hanging off the edge of it looking at me upside down.

"Yeah." She replied boredly.

"Hold, please." I intoned, my eyebrows raising. "Incorrect response, care to try again?"

"No." She replied, just as bored.

"Good job." I said, smiling brightly at her.

She then shifted until she was sitting indian style on my bed.

"Why exactly are you getting all sexified anyways? You're just going to Lee's house for your weekly movie pig out session." She asked curiously. "You aren't going to aske him about the thing, are you?"

"Yeah...I am." I replied softly. "I think it's time. Besides, I don't think I could keep it in much longer."

I turned away and walked towards my closet, so I missed Tessa's eyes widening.

"What do you think he'll do?" She asked.

"Well, he's bi, so I know he won't hate me. It may be awkward, but we'll pull through no matter what. Best case, we start dating; worst case things get awkward." I replied, distracted by my wardrobe choices.

"I think I'm gonna go now." Tessa announced, flopping off of my bed and walking towards the door. "Good luck tonight with Lee."

"Thanks, hun." I replied, smiling up at her before returning to my hunt for the perfect pair of shoes.

---Present---

That was the night I was supposed to tell Lee I loved him.

It was also the night that Tessa beat me to the chase.

I can't really blame her though, they were happy together, and that's all that matters, right?

Isn't it?

My reverie was broken suddenly by someone walking into the kitchen.

"Shar?" Lee's voice questioned, and I saw him scan the room before he noticed me sitting in a pool of steaming hot chocolate and glass shards.

"It broke." I replied flatly, motioning at the debris.

"It's okay Shar. It's just a mug." Lee intoned quietly.

"Is it really? Is it ever just anything?" I questioned brokenly.

"Hey, let's get you up and into bed; and here we thought I was the one that was gonna need comforting." Lee said jokingly, and he picked me up, sweeping me off the ground and carrying me bridal style into my room.

"I'm sorry." I whispered as he laid me on my bed. "For everything."

"No worries." He replied, kissing my forehead before he walked off, presumably to his own makeshift room.

I stewed over what had just happened for a total of thirty seconds before I was unconscious.

I guess things just aren't that important when you're that tired.

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A/n: An update, at last.

Review replies:

AppLEaves: It's nice that someone's happy for me to be back. I'm not quite back yet, but I'm trying really hard.

Graphi: You should find this song, I love it. I'm doing an assignment for my World Lit. class based on this song. (We have to choose and analyze a song, and present it in front of the class for our poetry project.)

Satanic-cupid: I try.

downward-rising: More is presented to you now.