There was a rather large commotion in the hospital that morning. News had gotten around that I wore up much earlier than they had expected me to. The staff began to tell me what happened, not realizing that I had heard much of it while I was supposedly out cold. Still, it was helpful to hear it for real. The staff told me that I had a mild concussion, one fractured rib, a dislocated shoulder, a battered knee, and a lot of bumps and bruises.
They told me I was lucky.
It was defiantly a lot to handle, and after a morning full of that, I was grateful for some time to get some true rest. I slept for real this time, and I was greeted with a pleasant surprise when I woke up. The first thing I remember was that my eyes were still closed and that I felt a hand holding onto mine, one that I once said was too soft and delicate to belong to a real man.
I opened my eyes and found myself staring into Richie’s chocolate brown eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Florida right now?”
“Your dad called me and told me what happened, and I actually was able to catch a plane back that night. You just missed him by a few minutes, I think. He just left.”
I just missed him?, I thought to myself, I seem to be doing that a lot lately. Shaking off the strange memory of the night before, I turned my attention back to Richie. “I’ll see him soon enough. Do you have any idea when they’re letting me out of here?”
“Soon, I think. They were just waiting for you to wake up. You surprised everyone by waking up after only three days. It’s incredible.”
“That long?”
He raised an eyebrow in skepticism at my reaction. It was then that he realized that he was still holding my hand and quickly pulled his back, his blush standing out like a neon light. Things like that were very typical for Richie, and I had missed that during the time he had been gone. As a matter of fact, I had missed that a lot for the past few months.
That got me thinking. “Hey, Richie?”
His blush quickly faded and he looked at me with dark circles under his blood-shot eyes. “Yeah?”
“What have we been doing?”
“What?”
“You know. What have we been doing for the past few months?”
He let out a low whistle. “A lot of things. Why?”
“You really think we did that much? Name one meaningful thing we did that entire time.”
“Oh,” he said, a bemused look on his face. “You meant meaningful things. In that case, then no, we haven’t done anything at all.”
“Yeah,” I sighed, sinking my head further into my pillow. I stared at the ceiling. “I miss my dust bunnies.”
“What?”
I glanced back in him strangely; I hadn’t realized I even said that. “This place is so clean that there are no specks of dust floating around like there are in my room. We’ve been running around so much lately that I haven’t been home, and even when I am at home, I never have the time or energy just to stare at the ceiling to count the dust bunnies. I sort of miss that.”
“Is that what you used to do whenever I texted you saying I was bored?”
“Yeah. Don’t you miss anything like that?”
Richie paused for a moment and his blush returned. “You’re going to think it’s cheesy.”
“Well, it’s too late to hide it now. You might as well just say it,” I smirked.
“I just sort of miss hanging out with you. I miss sitting around talking about nothing at all and eventually just falling asleep on the couch or something. I just sort of miss the days when it felt like we had all the time in the world.” He finished his statement by flashing me one of his million-dollar smiles.
He had a point. When was the last time I saw one of those smiles? I know he had to have smiled countless times within the past few months, but when was the last time I actually took notice of one? When was the last time we were able to just sit down and talk until we got so tired that we stopped making sense? When was the last time I even got a good night’s sleep?
“Hey,” Richie whispered softly, touching my shoulder and snapping me out of my trance. “This accident’s really gotten you thinking, huh?”
“It really has.”
“You’re not the only one, you know.”
I smiled gratefully at him, acknowledging the silent promise we made to make better use of our time from now on. Something about what he had said struck me deep, however. My mind travelled back to the night before and the strange visit I believed I had.
Yeah, Richie, I thought silently. We’re not the only one thinking things over, are we?
