AN: I was gonna post a part two to the previous chapter but this little drabble came to me first. I'll post the part two another time? Drop me a line and lemme know if you love it, hate it, indifferent?
Reviews are golden and much appreciated.
-Nica


She appreciates his presence, the way he places the cup of inky, bitter coffee in her hands so she has something to do with her hands other than ball them into fists so hard that her short jagged nails mark her skin with blood in the shape of crescent moons.

He way he drapes his big leather jacket over her shoulders when she doesn't notice she's shaking and even the way he forces her to move away from his bedside to eat. She even appreciates the fact that he doesn't try to engage her much in conversation because she'd be unable to speak to him. She'd be unable to formulate the words to express how deflated and broken she felt.

He loves her and she loves him but the man lying in the hospital bed in a coma is her past; he litters all of her childhood memories. He is older than her but he is also her best friend and she recalls crying for him to come teach her to ride her bike without training wheels because she was afraid that her Grams' dry, aged hands were too frail to keep her from kissing the asphalt but she had never doubted the fact that the dark haired boy who lived across the street would never let her fall. He was her hero for many of her early years.

The man lying in that hospital bed is her present. She recalls his voice on the phone just days before making some snarky comment that she rolls his eyes at. He's the devil on her shoulder and she's the angel on his. He's the one who encouraged her to be more adventurous during high school; to ditch her old style and revamp her wardrobe and maybe even try out for cheerleading. Something that not even Caroline had been able to not so gently urge her into. She valued his opinion because he never fed her bullshit and called it chocolate pudding. She was the one who talked him down the ledge over and over as he contemplated doing something stupid and self destructive. He respected her.

Sometimes the way the too kind man stands at the doorway and stares at her unmoving form on the chair, as she stares at the brunette who broke her best friend's heart, makes her feel guilty. Because it's unfair to him, for her to love this comatose man so much. The pain that radiates in her chest makes her clutch at it, the tears starting before she can get her shit together and tell herself to stop.

She had left the hospital finally, dragging her boyfriend who had refused to leave her side back to their apartment. She showers and lets him fuck her on top of the baby grand piano (they had gotten it last year because it was sort of their thing to try to master a new instrument every year and the many instruments that litter their apartment is telling of their many years together) because his hands on her skin always makes her feel special, precious. The way his eyes takes her in, makes her feel sexy. During sex is the only time she's ever truly his because she had never been with him. It's the only thing memories of him does not taint. She wishes she could let her sweet, amazing boyfriend possess her heart as much as he does her body. But her heart was given away too long ago for her to just take the bruised object back and regift it.

He dies in the night when she's busy losing herself in another man's embrace and she shatters silently. Her patient, gentle boyfriend is there for her when she she finally breaks- loudly- at 3AM, several days after the funeral, sobbing on their bathroom floor, clutching her chest.

He never gave her her heart back.