I looked to my right in shock to see the nearing form of Sam as he ran towards me. For a moment, I couldn't even believe it, questioning what I was seeing and whether it was just a figment of my imagination. Yet no matter how long I stared, he showed no signs of disappearing, instead getting nearer and nearer with each passing second. Before I could awaken from my stupor, he came to a stop in front of me, hunched over his knees as he gulped down breath after breath of oxygen in a rapid fashion.
For close to a minute, as Sam caught his breath, I stood motionlessly with my mouth agape, unable to think of anything to say, especially after how we had left things before. Thankfully, it seemed I didn't have to,
As the moment he barely caught his breath, Sam turned his attention towards me and opened his mouth to speak, a serious and panicked expression on his face that piqued my curiosity. Yet such an expression promptly disappeared as he finally noticed my current condition, his eyes becoming just as wide as my own as he stared at me in bewilderment. As if he wasn't sure what he was seeing was real.
"Holy fuck. What in the hell happened to you?"
I'm not sure why. Maybe it was the comical expression on his face or the way his voice rose three pitches as he spoke, but as I stared up at him, I found myself bursting out into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. The incredulous look he showed as I did so, doing nothing more than to make me laugh even harder.
"Uhh, Adam? What the hell is up with you? You alright?" He asked in worry.
"Never been better." I replied, after finally getting my wheezing laughter under control. To which Sam just carried on staring at me in confusion and wariness, as if I was a crazy person.
"Ok… So, are you going to tell me what the hell happened to you? You know, that led to you looking like a car crash victim?"
Immediately, the atmosphere was encompassed by a tense and oppressive silence. One that was only broken a few seconds later as I leaned backwards against the tree, hiding the winces such an action prompted as I did so.
"...You were right," I eventually replied with a sigh. "Those guys I had been hanging out with, turns out they're crazier than I first believed."
"They did this to you?" He asked, shocked. "Why? What happened?"
"It doesn't matter. All that does is that I did the right thing." I replied, a small smile on my face as I looked towards the mesmerising stream below with a far away gleam in my eyes.
If Sam was confused by what I said, he didn't voice it, letting the surroundings once more become engulfed in silence. A silence that lasted as I heard him suddenly sit down beside me without a word and join me in looking at the beautiful scenery. A state we stayed in for a couple of minutes until his voice once more drifted from my side.
"So I was right, huh?" As I turned towards him, I watched as a large grin appeared on his face. It was at such a sight, as he knocked his shoulder playfully into mine, that I felt the subtle tension that existed between us finally disappear.
"Yeah." I chuckled. "You were right. Don't get used to it, though."
"I don't know, it feels kinda nice. Maybe I'll do it more often." He joked, earning another small chuckle from myself before we both fell into silence once more. Until I finally said what I had wanted to for weeks but had never had the courage to do so.
"I'm sorry Sam. For everything." I professed, immediately feeling myself beginning to get emotional. "Nothing I said before was true. Especially about, you know, what I said before about, about us not being friends and all tha-"
"I know mate. I know. Don't worry about it. It's okay." He interrupted, placing a light hand carefully on my shoulder while still staring blankly in front of us.
Hearing how easily he forgave me, for the shitty way I had behaved and treated him this past month brought a strangled cry out my throat that I failed to suppress. My shoulders began to shake as I started to silently cry, the only sound able to be heard being that of my laboured breaths and the splattering of tears that fell onto my legs. The myriad of emotions I was feeling was almost indescribable. A mix of relief, happiness, and thankfulness all into one, as well as a continuous feeling of guilt for my past actions, despite Sam's apparent forgiveness. We stayed like that for a while before, just as I was able to get a tenuous grip back over my emotions, out of nowhere, Sam jumped up onto his feet in one quick motion, scaring the shit out of me and shouting.
"Crap, I totally forgot why I was even looking for you!" He looked back to me, his eyes wide with panic.
Seeing his clearly frazzled appearance and remembering how he looked when he first saw me, sweaty and exhausted, I felt a sense of foreboding form within me over what he was going to say next. Unfortunately, whatever he said, it was nigh unintelligible, with him speaking at close to a hundred words a second due to his frantic panic.
"I was on my way to your place because you kept ignoring me, and I was sick and tired of the pity party you were throwing yourself and thought that it-"
"Mate." I interrupted, "Breathe, there's no rush, everything's okay, so just take a deep breath and calm down." I replied slowly.
For a second, Sam looked like he wanted to argue, ready to continue his near incomprehensible speech. Thankfully, he decided not to and instead took a few calming breaths before beginning to speak again. This time at a normal, understandable pace.
"As I was saying, I was on the way to your place so we could finally have a proper talk, but as I got there, I ran into a bloke who was knocking loudly on your door. When I asked him who he was and that I was mates with you, he said he was a workmate of your dad and that he needed to drop off a message to you. When I told him I would pass the message along, he told me your dad was taken to the hospital after passing out during work."
"What!" I loudly yelled in a panic the moment I registered what he said, coming to an immediate stand. "What do you mean he passed out? What happened? Is he alright? Has he woken up yet?"
"Adam, I don't know. Your dad's workmate didn't know anything else. Just that your father went to the hospital after an ambulance came and picked him up." Sam gently interrupted, placing his hands on my sides to try and calm me down. " That's why I've been rushing all over town for god knows how many hours looking for you."
Before I was even given another chance to respond, Sam spoke again, his anxiousness and agitation back again at full force. "That's another thing, do you ever use your phone or it merely for decoration! I mean, I know you were ignoring me, but surely you must have been curious as to why I called god knows how many times." He panted, out of breath from the tirade he had worked himself into.
At the mention of my phone, I remembered the broken pile of metal it had been turned into from my beatdown. "Shit! It fucking broke during the fight." I muttered as I began to pace along the hill, the thought of my dad and the worry of what had happened agitating me further.
"Adam, calm down. Your dad is probably fine. His workmate said that it seemed he just passed out from overworking. Apparently, he had been clocking in even more hours than usual." Sam said, trying to calm me down but only succeeding in making me feel even more guilty than I already was, with there being no doubt in my mind that it was my fault he had been working so much. Most likely having to do with our fractured relationship and the bombshell I dropped on him about my condition.
"I need to go." I all but whispered, afraid that if I put any force into my voice, I would break the tentative hold I had over my emotions and become a crying mess for the second time that hour.
"Of course… Message you later?" Sam tentatively asked, his voice suddenly sounding extremely vulnerable as he did so.
It was then, as I turned back towards him and saw the nervous look he was currently doing his best to hide, that I realised that the last month was probably a lot harder for Sam than he was letting on. After all, just like Sam was my only friend, besides the short stint with Clark and the others, it was the exact same for Sam, with me being his only friend. A fact that again only made me feel like more of a piece of shit for the way I treated him.
"Definitely." I solemnly replied. "I'll message you sometime tomorrow after I buy a new phone."
With that said, I prepared to sprint straight to the hospital. However, before I could do so, I still had one question I wanted to ask and that had been in my mind ever since I had first spotted him from underneath the tree.
"Hey Sam. How did you know you would be able to find me here?"
The moment I asked, for some reason, Sam looked as if he wanted to hit me round the head. Which he probably would have done if not for the state I was in. "I bloody didn't," He angrily muttered, waving his hands in the air. "But after spending god knows how many hours checking every bar and club in town that I could find, I was running out of places to look. For the last thirty minutes, I've just been jogging randomly along the different streets. I don't even know where else I could check if I hadn't found you around here!"
A smile burst onto my face as I was suddenly filled with a sense of warmth when I thought about the amount of time and effort Sam had put into looking for me, despite how awfully I had treated him the past month. It was at that moment that I promised myself that no matter what, for as long as I had left, I would do my best to be even half the friend for Sam that Sam was for me.
"Thank you Sam. For everything."
With that said, without even waiting for a response, I all but sprinted my way to the hospital, trying to remember the path I took when I left the hospital over a month ago. I gritted my teeth and stifled the multitude of groans I inadvertently made as I ran, ignoring the warnings and protests my body made in an effort to stop me from overexerting in my current state. By the time I made it to the hospital, you could barely call what I was doing a run. What with the obvious limp of my left leg, my atrocious pace and the way I wheezed and gasped with each step taken. Still, despite my condition, I didn't stop.