Chapter 10

{Jade's P.O.V.} Opening up to Dave has really helped her keep her senses together. Christmas approaching soon and being with him making the warmth of the season feel twice as warm. The lights twinkled downstairs in the lobby as a beautiful tree was put up and decorated to the brim. Jade sat in the rec room with Dave who was on one of his favorite ramblings about Christmases past and she just listened.

She couldn't help but notice that he was getting better and that he looked better and that striked a fear deep in her stomach, cause she knew what happened if he got better. Jealously loomed over her stature as she leaned her body forward, her mind clouded with selfishness that she tried to not let consume her.

"Jade?" Dave's tentative voice worked it's way into her cluttered thoughts. And she abruptly looks up, pushing her glasses up on the bridge of her nose.

"Yes?" Eyes blinking slowly from behind her glasses as she tries to re-establish her focus back to him.

"You just seemed a little down a minute ago, s'all."

It's a few minutes of Jade reassuring him that nothing is wrong and soon the two are conversing about tales from better times.

The time idly passes the two by with the sun slowly setting on it's blinding crimson horizon. Marching up the stairs to their rooms, approaching Jade's room first she leans on the door, the smile still placed upon her lips from the previous joke and soon she couldn't help but notice the air change and no words between them were shared, just eye contact and all too noticeably her heart throbbing and beating rapidly against her rib cage, as if it will soon pop out. It's so loud she could almost swear he could hear it.

{Dave's P.O.V.} Lying down in his bed and staring up at his ceiling, Dave could feel the weight of the world gently pushing on his stomach. Just to say "I'm here, I'm never gonna leave you, you dumbass!". Groaning as he rolls on his side and squeezes his eyes tight and listening to the gentle whip of the wind outside of his window. Reflecting over the moment at Jade's door, he could've kissed her. Hell, he should've kissed her. That's what he'd normally do anyway. His confidence and impulsiveness were him and that's what he would have done. But staring intos those sad, bright green eyes, her thin and pale pink lips that were chapped from the cold, he lost all of his confidence. Why didn't he just kiss her?

Groaning and rolling onto his other side to try and push this memory away. The night was going to be long as it was too cold to not have a blanket yet he was always too hot with it on.

Rearranging his position on the bed again he heard the particular footsteps stopping in front of his door once more. Tempted almost to hop out of the bed immediately but pausing as he heard a cough and the continuation of said footsteps.

Pulling out his iPod and squinting through the dim light he noticed the time being 1:22 in the morning, Jade always walked and whispered their code at midnight approximately. Registering this information he came to the wonderful conclusion that this girl was asleep.

This was either good or bad seeing as her schizophrenia made her have night terrors. Delving into the girl that is Jade Harley was really interesting. Dave learned she had auditory schizophrenia which means she hears voices. Hearing her describe them was an expedition in itself; they're constantly whispering in her ears non-stop and loud sounds normally trigger them, giving her bad headaches. Like most patients, she's bad at taking her medicine but she explains herself by saying it suppresses her creative flow and she gets depressed while on it.

Dave crinkled his brows at this one memory, picturing Jade as being depressed seemed incredulous. She was vibrant, she was wild, and she would never change that. I guess everyone else saw her as shy but really, Dave knew her and he secretly liked that fact. He knew her. Not Roxy, not the doctors, not anyone is this damned place knew who she was except for him. To them, Jade Harley was just another sad teenage girl, a number in the system of which they are provided to fix, a simple ten lettered name that was the smallest detail they ever received. Not to Dave. That ten lettered name was the equivalent to a utopia for him, the epitome of what makes him feel alive again, a girl he's known for a few months but is completely and wondrously infatuated in, and he can't have her.

That morning Dave felt as if he had slept for all of five minutes. Groggily pushing himself out of bed and heading into the shower to prepare for the day.

As he made his grand entrance into the hall, a nurse by the name of Kelly smiled at him and informed him he would be having a session this afternoon with his psychiatrist.

Heading toward the cafeteria to eat breakfast he caught sight of Roxy and Dave knew this was his moment of glory, he had to know more about this accident she was in.

"Roxy." Dave said as he sat in his once familiar spot in front of the blonde girl who was glaring at him with such intensity as if she was trying to make him spontaneously combust.

"What do you want, Strider?"

"Just have a few questions, if you're willing to answer."

That earned him a look of amusement and skepticism. "Ask away."

Dave didn't beat around the bush, he told her that her mother had given him some insight that the reason Roxy was a controlling little bitch was because she was in a car accident.

"So that's why you are this mega control freak right? Cause you couldn't control the accident?"

She met him with a blank expression. "The accident you're referring to is one you don't even know."

"Enlighten me then."

Roxy seemed to tense, popping her knuckles before folding her hands/

"Alright. I was coming back from a party with my sister. Mom was yelling at me on the phone cause I wasn't supposed to be there due to underage drinking and all that fun shit. So I was pissed, drunk, and driving when my lil sis decides to lecture me as well. She was all nervous cause I was speeding and a little drunk, she tried to grab the wheel and we crashed. She hasn't talked to me since."

The silence between them was definitely uncomfortable. Dave stared in deadpanned expression with his sunglasses on at the girl who basically told him her tragedy.

"Your little sister's name?" He finally asked to the amazement of Roxy.

"Really? That's what you're asking?"

"Yes."

"Alright, her name is Rose."

"How old is she?"

"Thirteen."

"Why don't you ask her to visit you?"

"I have but mother won't let her."

Slowly,realization dawned onto Dave.

"How old was she during the accident?"

This made Roxy uneasy. " are you grilling me, Strider?"

"Roxy, how long ago was the accident.?"