"No, let me sleep mum, I don't care about school" he groaned in pain and blinked as his vision cleared. The memories of his confrontation with Justin were hazy and warped, he thought he remembered there being other people there but it was too hard to concentrate through the pain. he tried to get up and found he couldn't move, a sense of panic overwhelmed him,
"Where am I?" he demanded,
Hissing from the pain he yanked at his arm then noticed the restraints keeping him down. His head snapped to the side as he took in his surroundings, it looked like a hospital room, he sniffed, and it smelled like one too. Clenching his teeth he wrenched at the restraints again.
"Get these off me," he yelled, wincing as pain shot through his mouth.
A door to his left opened and a young man in nurse scrubs hurried inside, closing the door behind him. Ethan felt the blood rushing to his face and looked away for a moment. The nurse looked to be nineteen or twenty and was probably older than he looked but Ethan couldn't help looking at him. He had bubble gum pink hair and bright hazel eyes with contrasting flecks of grey. He was very feminine and when he caught Ethan's gaze Ethan blushed and looked away.
The nurse shook his head looking amused,
"Mr Metshap I am afraid that I can't do anything while you are distressed, you need to calm down and then I'll remove them. Given your injuries, you are going to be more comfortable lying down anyway"
Ethan stopped struggling at the sound of his last name and glared at the nurse "Mr Metshap is my father, my name is Ethan" He looked around then looked back at the nurse who was studying him thoughtfully,
"How long was I out?"
"We don't know for sure but Dr Gambier estimates about thirty-six hours"
Ethan rolled his wrists, flinched from the pain and let them rest back on the bed. He ran his tongue along the inside of his teeth and breathed a small sigh of relief; he still had all his teeth. The nurse smiled as he removed the restraints, Ethan wriggled his fingers, and his left hand seemed to have less pain so he ripped the needles from his arm. The nurse sighed in exasperation and raised the restraints "Ethan please relax, I don't want to have to sedate you"
Again, Ethan stopped struggling "Why can't I get up?"
"You need rest and lots of it. We very nearly lost you and you have multiple injuries that need time to heal"
"I already rested for over a day; do I have any long-lasting injuries?" Ethan demanded, choosing to ignore the fact that he could have died.
The nurse frowned "We haven't finished the tests. Some of them require you to be conscious and as I said, I will sedate you if you try to get out of bed."
Ethan scowled "You didn't answer my question" but he reluctantly stayed in bed
"My name is Blake or Nurse Stevenson and I just started this shift, the log shows you have a fractured nose, a concussion, a broken jaw, several fractured fingers, two broken ribs and a lot of cuts and bruises. You also lost quite a lot of blood. You even had internal bleeding for a while there"
Ethan laughed which hurt but he did not say anything, Blake raised an eyebrow and waited patiently.
"Besides the inside bleeding, None of these injuries are new to me, I've played rugby league since I was six years old," Ethan said quietly
"Ah, the nurse who I took over from mentioned scars, is that how you got them?"
Ethan flinched "Uh, yeah," he said a little too quickly
Blake's eyes narrowed but he didn't say anything for a moment, "I will go speak to the doctor, get his opinion, and see when you can leave. He may not need to do the other tests," Blake said with a friendly smile "No promises though"
Blake walked out and closed the door behind him; he was gone for several minutes; Ethan flexed his fingers, examined his body and frowned at the bruises he could see knowing there was more that he couldn't. He was beginning to get restless, the bedsheets were making him itch, the hospital gown was uncomfortable and he felt dirty. Finally, Blake returned and he had good news
"You will be able to go in about an hour. Luckily, the break in your jaw doesn't need plates to let it heal. You're not to do anything strenuous for the next six to eight weeks and no hard foods, only soft things like mashed potato and custard. Now, I'm going to have to wrap and splint your fingers, the doctor already checked your nose and was satisfied that it would heal normally" Blake glanced at the chart again "There wasn't anything we could do for your ribs, so it will be rather uncomfortable to breathe for a few weeks"
Ethan smiled, "Thank you, I can't wait to see the look on my mum's face when I tell her I have to eat custard and ice cream" He laughed, closed his eyes and shut his mouth. Of course, Blake noticed this,
"Is your jaw bothering you? I can add some more painkillers to the drip for a bit if you want or if you are feeling up to it you can have the tablets."
Ethan nodded weakly and Blake immediately grabbed the medication and added it to the drip. It turned out to be nearly two hours later that Jean and Max entered his room and he forced himself to suffer through his mother fussing over his injuries. He deliberately forced a topic change whenever either of them asked him how he was injured and eventually they gave up on getting the truth.
Ethan stopped once he was outside, he could feel the breeze on his face and the cold temperature soothed his injuries. Then after being loaded into the car, his family ventured to the nearby takeaway shop and presented him with a steaming tub of mashed potato and gravy which he attacked ravenously at first but was quickly forced to stop. A burning pain shot through his jaw like fire and he rubbed the spot where the pain had started.
"Is it not soft enough?" His mum asked "I told them specifically to make it extra soft so it wouldn't hurt your jaw"
Ethan shook his head "It's not that, I just forgot and it hurt." To stop her fussing he took another spoonful but instead of using his teeth, he softened it with his saliva and then pushed it against the roof of his mouth with his tongue to break it into pieces. Jean appeared satisfied and turned back in her seat, Ethan sat the tub down as his hunger faded. He scowled at his reflection in the window and could feel the tears hiding just below the surface. He had tried for so long to convince his family to stop treating him like a child and now he would have to be babied for weeks which undid all of the work he'd tried to do and the tiny amount of progress he'd made. His expression hardened and even though it hurt, his jaw clenched as he silently vowed to get back at Justin.
Ethan forgot all about his phone when he got home, he felt as though he had not slept in days, his body shook with the effort that it had taken to walk up the stairs and tears welled up in his eyes against his will. His breathing was laboured as he felt the pressure from his injured ribs. He sat down heavily on the bed, put his head on the pillow and fell asleep.
Ethan awoke to the buzz of his phone and noticed for the first time the number of messages he had received over the past two days. He realised his friends would be worried about him and so he opened the messages meaning to respond but then he stopped, Nate and Jacie had both sent messages that were clearly yelling at him and cursing him.
It took him nearly twenty minutes to locate the reason for their reaction when he scrolled through the messages and he let out a sob of frustration at the horrible things that Justin had said while pretending to be him. Of course, Ethan had already known that Justin wasn't a nice person but it had not occurred to him that Justin could be dangerous nor that he would deliberately do something to hurt Jake or the twins even if they didn't know it was him. Ethan curled up painfully as his ribs ached in protest. He stayed in that position even as the tears spilled onto his cheeks and streamed down his face, he stayed like that, just crying silently until the tears stopped and he fell asleep.
Ethan knew Lucy wanted to know what had happened and had tried to get him to speak to her multiple times but he'd refused. He couldn't let her get that close to it or she'd figure out about his feelings for Jake and that wasn't an option. Despite him not sharing the information with her, she had been good to him by coming back to check on him during her study sessions at school, helping him if he needed to move around and even doing his medication when his mother couldn't do it. His mother wasn't busy doing anything, she just couldn't bear seeing him so hurt and so when it was really bothering his mum Lucy would take over.
Ethan made good time healing and he was practically back to normal after four weeks. He was going back to school tomorrow and it would be the first time that he would see Jake or the twins since the night he was attacked, he'd never responded to their texts mainly because he didn't know what to say. When Lucy realised he was planning to go back to school so soon she caused a fuss and even fought with their parents.
She had argued that he shouldn't go back until he told them who had attacked him and what he was upset about but with no success. Ethan suspected she had relied on their mother being on her side but the police had been to see Ethan several times but each time he had denied that he recognised the person who attacked him and reminded them that he didn't want to make a statement and his mother understood that. Finally, Lucy had relented, she knew he would either deal with it himself or tell her eventually because after all, they were family and there weren't many things that Lucy wouldn't forgive him for.
* * * * *
It was a Sunday night and the twins had tried to push him to hang out with them but instead, Jake was slumped in his desk chair staring sadly off into space, he had never really felt this level of sadness before and he did not understand why he felt so upset. He scrolled through the messages again knowing they wouldn't have but hoping they had changed, he was so confused by them because Ethan had never struck him as a particularly hateful person but to blame the twins for their parents' deaths was such a low tactic and it made Jake's blood boil when he thought about it, but then he would read the messages Ethan had sent him telling Jake how ugly he was. Jake traced the scar with a finger, he knew he was ugly but Ethan had said that not only did it terrify him and that he cringed at the thought of it or when Jake came near him but also that Jake belonged in horror movies.
The tears came back with a vengeance and Jake wiped them away "What happened after you left that night Ethan? What did I do to make you hate me so much?" he whispered.
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