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You felt a tear hit your cheek. Your eyes cracked open and met Midnight’s closed ones. Her long hair barely tickling your face as she leaned over and ran her fingers in your hair. Huh. You felt the need to apologize.
“Hey, don’t cry. I’m sorry.”
Her eyes opened and locked with yours, watery-brown meeting pained-blue.
A scoff — or sob, you couldn’t tell with her right now. “Why are you sorry? You saved my life. I’m the one who fucked up by not paying attention.”
As if. Out of everyone in this group, she was the one you felt like you could depend upon the most. Hardly as much of a fuck-up as you are, anyway.
“No you didn’t, darling.”
She mumbled a protest, but it fell apart to tears escaping from her eyes and she took her hand from your hair to rub her eyes. Your mind went back to today.
~
You could feel your write-up burning a hole in your pocket. All of your nerves were fully aware of it and were twisting and turning in worry. You hated being shouted at by anybody, and your boss loved to find excuses to shout at you.
When the clock flipped over from 4:59 to 5:00, you quickly clocked out and left your work. You didn’t wanna think about what happened today.
Getting into your car as fast as possible, you leaned back against your chair and let out a long sigh that you didn’t realize you had been holding in. Just like that, your neck and shoulder muscles relaxed and you couldn’t help but let out a long and shaky groan.
<< ring ring ring >>
You jumped. Your phone started ringing, its tone sending a spike of panic through your body. Looking at the caller id, you saw it was from your mom. Banging your head against the steering wheel, you shakily answered the call and pressed it against your ear.
“Hello?”
“Will, get here quick,” your brother’s voice came through in a hurry. You sat back up in your seat, your heart delving into your stomach.
“Charlie, what’s wrong.”
“Mom had a heart attack.”
~
Your recollection came to a halt as you felt soft hands touch your torso, sending a stab of pain into your sides. You couldn’t stop yourself from coughing and forcing out a curse.
“Fucking hell, what the heck was that?”
Midnight’s hands continued to play with your hair, one hand moving to take your hand in it. You gave it a weak squeeze. Still, hands continued to touch your stomach, probably belonging to Bishop, although they were more gentle.
“Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to hurt you more,” he said out of the corner of his mouth as he opened a can of some off-brand soda and knocked it back quickly. Even in your haze of pain, you could see him perk up a little. “I’m trying to see how bad you are, and it’s bad, so I know how strong of a heal you need.”
Makes sense. You gave him a half-hearted nod before losing yourself to your thoughts. Slowly, you felt pain you weren’t aware about slowly shed away from your midriff. You couldn’t help but sigh. Thank whoever for Dia spells.
The Liberal Lens: Finding Life in the Moment 
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