-He's in hospital. He's alive.

She let his words play over and over in her head. She didn't know what to do after that. She was surprised she even made it to class. Taking notes, listening to the professor but as she looked down at the notes she had written, her notebook instead was filled with words which didn't mean anything in handwriting she couldn't even read. What class was she in anyway? Her hands shook and she couldn't concentrate. She wanted to run out and scream and cry and see for herself if his words were really true. He didn't talk much because he said he didn't want her to miss class and that he had to go back to hospital anyway because Chris was expecting him.

"The day he gained consciousness, his first word was your name"

A note in her hand told her where he'd be. His father had written in out in clumsy handwriting, a handwriting so much like his. If it was anyone else, they would think it was written from the same hand. She covered her hand over her heart. It was pounding so much she wondered if anyone can hear it.

For nearly two months after his funeral she went to bed thinking about all those fucking memories she knows she can't relive again and because he was gone, a part of her was gone. A year ago, she was doing fine without… someone. She had her music, she had her future, she had plans she made out on paper and she accomplished everything on her list except for two.

#1. To be accepted into The Royal College of Music

#2. To find the love of my life.

She didn't even know why she even wrote the second one down as one of her goals for she didn't consider herself a typical prissy girl whose only goal in life was to find the perfect "Prince" and live Happy Ever After. To her it was just very cliché. She'd be fine with someone who just made her laugh and loved her for being her. But that kind of person was a little hard to find in Bristol, at least that was what she thought back then.

In circumstances she didn't really comprehend, her ideals of meeting someone away from the boring streets of Bristol soon ended when Chris had kissed her by the college greens. All she really wanted from him was to do better, to believe in himself, and to stop giving up so quickly and in turn she was willing to let her hair down for he said she always said no. At the time she didn't really think about him as someone who filled #2 on her set of goals she made for herself. He was mental after all.

To her, he was a good friend, whom aside from Michelle, she was closest to. But Michelle was in a world of her own after Tony's accident and because of that, she found herself hanging with Chris more and more, which wasn't so bad because he was always so interesting to be with despite the fact he was usually always on pills. But with a mother and a father who didn't give a shit about him, she wanted to really drill on him that he had so much to offer if he only just fucking tried. She can put up with his mindless teasing about her being "unstudied" or not being sexually experienced but she also stood her ground when he was being an idiot.

Everything was going so wonderful but then Angie happened and she figured it was just as well. She didn't cry. She wasn't weak. She was hurt and angry but not at him really. She was mad at herself for believing in him too much and was blinded by the fact that Chris was still Chris and he was never going to change. Next time she shouldn't let her guard down, shouldn't trust so much, or maybe she shouldn't be so happy because it was always going to fail in the end. She cried about the baby though because she was lost. She didn't know what to do, she never expected it and maybe if she just studied more and played more, maybe none of the things that were falling apart was really happening. She can always think about it another day.

Chris called later in the afternoon when she found out she was pregnant and asked her to come see him. She sat on her bed and glanced at the word "yes" he wrote on one of his rolling papers laying on her nightstand. She thought of not going, she had ignored every one of his calls for a week but if it was "yes" he wanted then she may as well go and listen to what he had to say.

She sat on his sofa listening to him explain his whole life to her in child like drawings wearing clothes which made him look grown up. To her, he looked like another person but he fucked up and he hurt her and she just couldn't forgive him anymore.

But… but that all changed when he told her he tried for her because she was the only one who cared, the only one who gave a shit and so she was the only one worth trying for. She didn't expect those words from him. She didn't expect those silly promises he said he'd do if she just asked. He would have gone on for more promises if she didn't tell him to stop. It was then she realized how much she really did care for him and deep in her heart she knew he meant everything he said. When he said "I love you" however, she felt that was the starting point of whatever it was she never felt before especially after she looked at his serious face, wanting her to understand him, that he was sorry for everything.

She thinks that was the day she really fell in love with him as the last of her tears had fallen from her eyes, when he wiped her nose for her. It was hard at first to admit because she had never fallen in love with anyone before and didn't know what it felt like but every time she was with him she felt a lot more like herself, where she didn't need to put up a wall, where she can say 'fuck it' and it was fine.

And soon there were times during class when she'd flip open her mobile and a text from him would show up on the screen and even though what he wrote was silly and cheesy she'd smile because it was not only silly and cheesy it was cute and though she hated admitting she liked cute things she couldn't help but read them over and over again with a big smile on her face.

Oh, and how she missed him whenever she closed her eyes, whenever she passed through places they've been to or when she opened her mobile and his face was staring back at her, back when he was so perfectly fine. After the funeral she waited for the day when she was able to go to London, to get away from all the memories which made everything around her feel so empty. She wasn't going to cry, not anymore. She cried enough during the funeral and hours after, when his father for some reason chose to stay the whole night with her at the cemetery until she stopped crying. Until she told him she had to go home.

"You would have liked me," she told him. He tried to say something comforting but since he realized that nothing he was going to say would get her to stop her feelings of loss and emptiness, he instead told her things about Chris he remembered from long ago, way before she ever met him and in turn she told him about many other things about his son and for some reasons she didn't know, because he sounded so much like Chris, she told him about herself and what University she was accepted to.

Her list of goals was complete except for #2. But she knows that goal was accomplished too, except she thought she was never going to see the love of her life ever again until the she too was going to be swallowed up by the whale. But the note in her hand told her everything was going to be different.

His father said he was going to be released in a day or two but what he really meant was a week. He still wondered why his father came every day, after six years it was hard to imagine he even had a father at all who was willing to visit him in some hospital he stayed too long at. When he was alone he tried to think about what happened to him exactly but some of his memories have gone completely shit along with his vision. He still couldn't see very much unless it was close enough for him to touch.

During the night when most of the hospital was quiet he would thank the Almighty for sparing him again. He thought a lot about things during the quiet of the night, like his friends who still believed he was dead, wondered what kind of bloke this Charlie was who was buried in his coffin, or why his father was giving him a choice to stay at the house he wasn't welcomed to before. He thought about saying no, he had his own flat after all and he can certainly take care of himself but for some reason he felt like he trusted his father even when he can feel his father's nervousness and uncertainty. It almost felt like when he was a kid again before Peter died when everything was good and he was happy.

Most of all though he thought about Jal – he always thought about Jal because if it wasn't for her, he didn't really know where he'd be. She was the only one who saw him for him, who understood him, who accepted all his faults and he had a lot of faults, he had to admit (especially having a stupid hereditary disease he couldn't help). He would do anything for her if she asked. He was thankful his memories weren't lost when it came to her.

The doctor said he wasn't exactly fixed. He was given pill after pill for everything that was wrong with him. He took more than 25 pills a days, more blood pressure pills, more pain pills. He took more pills to make him right again than when he took pills to make him all wrong to make him feel right (if that made sense). He thought it was pretty ace actually but at the same time he wished that everything was back to the way it was when he wasn't feeling any headaches, when nothing was wrong, when everything was just fine.

"How are you feeling?" His father asked, sitting on the chair beside his bed later on in the evening looking disgruntled and tired.

"Just fine, Dad, despite everything." He answered.

He was still not sure of how to make sense of the fact his father was still in his presence but he really didn't mind. Everything was changing around him anyways. He didn't mind the pills anymore, didn't mind the staples on his head, didn't even mind the male nurse who was assigned to him.

"Listen Chris. Right, I don't know how to say this exactly or to make it better… because I've never been in this… well anyway, some people aren't cut out to be fathers and I'm one of those." His father's words as always went out on tangents. Chris closed his eyes to listen. The pills made him feel a little hazy, not tired really because sleep didn't take him yet but he felt like if he didn't close his eyes to listen he would have lost his father's words and he didn't want to forget them. "When you died I thought… I thought about it right… and I wanted to change it all if I had a chance… and then they told me about you… It's a bit of a change you know. I don't know what to do to make it better but I'll try. I should have never been a parent. I've been a shit parent. I thought it was easy right. But nothing in life is easy. There's no such thing as "easy" as a grown up or a parent or a father. But I'll try to make it work. It's not too late is it? To make it work."

It didn't take a genius to know it was his father's way of apologizing for all those years of being absent. Any normal person would say it was too late for apologizing, too late for trying to make it work because after all those years it seemed like sorry just wasn't enough. Any normal person would tell him to leave because life just doesn't work like that. He wanted to say, why after all this time? Why did I have to die… to die twice for you to be here to finally be a fucking parent when I don't really need you anymore because I don't really have nothing anymore. For the most part, before he found himself in hospital again he had everything and though he got expelled during the last year of college, he got up, he tried, he got a job, he got a flat, and most of all he found her and everything was cool. If he went for years without a father, he can go for more years without one.

But he wasn't normal exactly. He was Chris Miles. He was always optimistic no matter what kind of messed up shit came his way he always found the bright side of things and this was what he was feeling listening to his father talk to him in sincere but tangent speech. He too was trying wasn't he? He too was trying (if he never did before) to look at the bright side of things and it wasn't so bad being with your father in some hospital room. It wasn't so bad to finally be looked after.

"Nothing is ever too late. If shit gets in the way, just kick it before it starts to smell like shit cause if you do that then everything will be all right. That's what I always say."

His father nodded, seeming to understand everything he was saying. "Right, now that we go that settled…" he said, "I want to tell you that I went to find her earlier this morning. That's why I'm late. I didn't actually realize how long it would take to find someone in a big University like that."

"What are you talking about Dad?"

"I found your girlfriend."

It took forever to get to sleep, thinking about what she would say or do once she saw his face. She didn't tell anyone. For now, she had to see him, all of him first. In the morning she took the bus to Bristol after more than two months of trying to hold herself together, trying not to cry because again she was stronger than that and if she did, she knows she was never going to stop.

Jal found herself in the hallways of the same hospital where, just a few months ago, she witnessed Chris's untouchable self give way to an illness he never told her about. She cried then too, for the first time in a long time. He wanted to talk to her then even waiting for her outside her doorstep in the early morning but she didn't expect it would end up all wrong. She didn't expect Chris, who always toughed it out and usually put up a smile when everything was shit, on a hospital bed still trying to make the best of his situation.

Room #45 – She stepped back for a moment trying to focus, trying to get her bearings. "Chris?" she said softly, when she entered his room. "It's… me."

He turned his attention to where the sound was coming from. His father said she was coming soon and he was waiting since last night. He couldn't sleep from thinking too much. Though he can't see her well, he felt much better knowing she was finally with him. "The whale has spit me back out again, Jal." He said smiling. "The Almighty spared me."

And there was his voice and though it sounded less cocky and too soft, it was his. "It's really you," she said, walking up to him, touching his face, touching his nose, touching his eyebrows, his ears…

"It's really me, Jal. You don't have to touch me to know that."

"I want to," she said.

His eyebrow arched, a sly look on his face. "Ahh.. that's what I'm talking about. If that male nurse only knows what you're doing to me, he might get jealous…"

"Very funny, Chris," she replied, still touching his face.

"I was afraid you wouldn't show up Jal. I waited last night for you. I was afraid you'd be scared or something or my dad probably scared you off."

"I'm happy I'm here. I'm happy you're here."

He kissed her. When was the last time they kissed before he found himself in this situation again? Was it the night before she left to go home to think about things, the night where they really talked? He couldn't remember.

"You know what, babe? I'm guessing the great Almighty saw you down here, yeah… and he said, 'Christopher you better not let that woman go, you better get back down there and take care of her right… or someone might just take her away because you'll never find anyone like her up here', and so here I am Jal. Even the Almighty knows he can't keep our love apart."

Jal smiled again. "You're so… romantic."

He was glad she was close so he can see her smile like that. He has to let her know one day that she always managed to look even more beautiful when she smiled. He especially liked it when she showed all of her teeth and closed her eyes for just a bit. It was an amazing sight. He can look at her like that for the rest of life and he'd be the happiest person in the world.

"I'm sorry for not telling you," he said later. "I thought if I'd just block it out it wasn't really happening to me. I was afraid if I told you, you wouldn't be with me anymore. And I know I wouldn't be happy without you. But, yeah… right, I know you wouldn't run away because you fucking love me don't you, Jal?" He was so afraid back then, though he tried to make it seem like he wasn't. It wasn't in him to be scared after all because life was too short to be afraid of shit. You just have to take the shit and get on with it.

But he was unsure of himself. He wondered sometimes why Jal was with him out of all people. She was everything he was not. She was a lot stronger, certainly a lot smarter, beautiful, tough, talented, she was going to be famous… while he was nothing more than a broken boy who wasn't exactly like the way he used to be.

On the day he was released from hospital the doctor told him he had to be careful. "You can keep on cheating death Chris but sooner or later there won't be anymore answers for you to cheat with, so you have to take care of yourself. Seriously this time."

It was time to be an adult where nothing in life was easy. So there were no more spliffs or getting pissed or taking the kind of pills where he stuck the packets to the wall. It was time to grow up and if he wanted to see himself someday as a true man, he had to do everything to live.

Jal knew he didn't want her to see everything that was wrong with him, he didn't want her to see him hurt or to see him weak but through it all, she stayed. She stayed until she had to go back to London for classes and then she was back again. She witnessed the whole ugly side of his illness she was still trying to understand. She stayed when she witnessed him vomiting every minute, every hour, she stayed when he went back to hospital to fix his insides because the pills he took to make him better ruined his stomach, she stayed with him when he passed out in the bathroom from seizures. She stayed because he is the only one who filled that #2 on her list. She stayed because she loved to listen to him talk even when his speech was slow and he wasn't as quick as he was with comebacks. She loved listening to his voice, she loved looking at his face, she loved everything about him.

"Are you scared because I've turned out this way?" He asked one day.

She shook her head. "Give me all your troubles Chris because I'll never be scared."

"You don't mind that I don't look pretty anymore."

"You never were pretty Chris. Pretty mental, pretty vacant, but that's all. You certainly can't compare to Justin Timberlake or someone." Oh, it was good to joke. It was good to be somewhat normal.

"Ah Jal, but Justin Timberlake can't compare to my charming personality. That's why you love me." He smiled again because he made her laugh. They were safely inside the duvet cover she bought him in a room which his father provided for him.

He was serious again when she looked at him with that face he only let her see. "I can't listen to much music anymore, I can't listen to anything loud, I'm a little slow, I always have to rest, I still can't see fully, my memory is sometimes shit, I can't do much…"

"Blah, blah, blah…" She said. "Do you want me to quietly play the violin for you? That's all I have to say. Nothing of that matter to me."

And after awhile, she laid her head on his shoulder and said. "I'm sorry about the baby, Chris. All I thought about was you being sick. I wasn't ready and I was scared and I thought we can have another chance. I thought there was always some other day once were older. I just couldn't have a baby when I didn't know how to be a mum just yet especially since my own mum didn't know how to be a mum. And then… and then…"

He put his mouth against hers before she could go on. The past was the past after all. There should be no regrets. That was his philosophy because there was always tomorrow. There was always another day. "Fuck it, Jal. It's all right. We'll have a bunch, yeah. When we're ready. When you'll be famous and I'll be fixed and I'll be… I'll be…"

"You'll be the best dad in the whole world."

"I'll break the fucking record for best dad… and we'll have lots."

"Not too many though." She said.

"Nah. We'll be like 'the Miles Bunch' or something."

"The Miles Crew."

"The Fazer-Miles," Chris added.

"The Miles Pack."

"The Million Miles."

"Million Miles?" She lifted her head from his shoulder and gave an amused look.

"Nah, six is fine."

"Six?"

"Six Miles. Doesn't sound bad does it?"

Jal just laughed. It felt good to just laugh. She laid her head on his shoulder again, she can feel his bones from underneath his clothes when he closed his arms around her but she didn't mind this either.

"Can you promise me one thing, Chris?"

"If I can Jal, I can promise you the whole ocean."

"Can you promise me even if it was just for one second… can you promise to outlive me? Because I don't think I can see myself without you beside me." She sighed. "That's a bullocks promise isn't it?"

"I'll try. I promise. After all, love conquers all doesn't it, Jal?"

"It does Chris."

And again for so long she didn't cry, for so long she tried to be strong. For so long she tried to block the memories away because she thought again that if she cried she wouldn't be able to stop. But everything was different now… everything she thought would never happen happened. Everything…

"Chris?"

"Yeah, Jal?"

"Can I cry now?"

"Yeah, Jal"

And so she cried. And she cried because she was laying her head on the love of her life's shoulders, she cried because the grass was green, the sky was blue, and everything was cool. And she cried because….

"Jal, you have snot on your face…"

Because the love her life was not only wiping the snot off her face, she cried because…

"I fucking love you, Chris."

"Ah Jal, that's like music to my ears…"