After the trip  to the hospital, you found that your apathy about everything had suddenly lost its potency.

            You were able to go the library now, and stay focused for a good few hours. Something you definitely weren’t able to accomplish before. You weren’t able to stay driven for the long amount of hours that you used to be but it was close enough. You were able to study for a period of time that at least were able to grades up a bit before midterms, which were in a week.

            Something about the trip to the hospital sent a burst of fire under your that disintegrated any lack of motivation you had previously. With the last two projects in art, you were able to turn your D into a C. And pull your low C into almost a B.

            You were getting tutoring now. You had gotten behind in a lot of your classes. And all of the information that you didn’t learn, you still needed to know for midterm exams.

            You were being tutored three times a week. And even though you felt extremely stupid being the only sophomore in the tutoring center (most of the students there were struggling freshman). You just had to eat up your pride and do it. You preferred to be completely degraded than sit by idly and be forced to watch your GPA plummet.

            Slowly, you started to eat again. Your appetite was coming back and most days you were eating at least two meals a day now. Which your recovering body was extremely thankful for. On top of that, when you did eat your stomach didn’t hurt as frequently. It still hurt sometimes but it wasn’t present in your everyday life, as it used to be.

            But most importantly, you were sleeping. Oh thank God, you were sleeping. Something about your stay at the hospital put a kind of peace in your mind. At night, you were no longer tossing restlessly, unable to settle your overactive mind. You were able to sleep!

            And getting a sufficient amount of sleep was also contributing to the struggle against your grades. Now that you weren’t sleeping during class anymore, you now could actually listen to the material you were being graded on.

            You wondered what the sudden change was. You needed to know whatever it was, became damn, it worked good.

You ruled out it was the healing of your wounds as a factor. That was purely physical problem. And even when your grades were suffering and your motivation was down, you didn’t remember them being a result of of your physical problems. It was your mental state that was suffering. So something must’ve happened to create a shift in your mind.

But it definitely had something to do with the hospital. Ever since the hospital, that’s when these changes started happening.

            What was it about the hospital that made your state of depression lesson? Maybe it was the fact that you had people taking care of you.

No, you figured, that wasn’t it.

            Maybe it was the fact that you got a lot of fluids in you?

No, that would be physical. It would be a miracle if a bag of saline caused a turn around like this.

            Well, you did have that Chinese food, maybe-.

            You stopped yourself. Chinese food. Joshua.

            Yes!

            That’s it. You talked to Joshua all day. That was the change, you had talked to someone. It was the interaction and communication that was the pick me up.

            It made sense. You had been starving yourself of a basic human need: communication. Now that you thought about it, you remembered seeing articles about how prisoners in solitary confinement often would try to talk to the guards, no matter how mean or abusive the guards were.

            When you started to deprave yourself of interaction, it was only natural that you had started to degrade. You had gone down a gradual slope called depression. And when you talked with Joshua you had recharged yourself.

            Sure, you had talked to Woozi, but he was different. The only communication you were getting from Woozi was negative. But when you were with Joshua, he was nothing but nice to you. And you could admit that talking to Joshua like that was refreshing.

            When this came to mind, you also realized that the recharging you experienced with was Joshua was starting to wear off. Your motivation you had gotten back was slowly dwindling away. This is probably due to the fact that you starving yourself again.

            If you wanted to keep his motivation up… no, if you wanted to save your grades, you needed to interact with people. You needed to keep recharging yourself.

            You looked up to see Woozi slouched over his laptop. You threw a crumpled up piece of paper that hit him in the head. He turned around and pulled of his headphones looking annoyed. “What? I’m working.” He snapped.

            “So…You’re Joshua’s friend-” You started hesitantly.

            “Wow, nothing gets past your senses.” He said dryly and he reached for his headphones.

            “Let me finish, gosh.” You hissed. “Lets just say… metaphorically that I wanted to apologize to Joshua-“ Woozi scoffed at this. “-I’m not saying that I am, or that I am even considering it. I just saying that if I were, which I’m not, what would I….say?”

            Woozi grinned. “Why should I tell you?”
            You slammed your hand on your desk. “You told me yesterday-!”

            “Take a joke.” He said harshly, the grin disappearing. “If you want to apologize you should just be honest. Joshua can smell a bull excuse a mile away.”

            “So just tell him the truth?” You asked nervously. “Like what?”

            “Just tell him why you were ignoring him and then say something along the lines of ‘I won’t do it anymore.’ Joshua is the type of person that he needs to understand people, if he doesn’t understand why you did it, it will be harder for him to accept it.” Woozi sighed and leaned back in his chair.

            “But how do I do….it? Apologize?”

            “I mean, you’ve apologized before. Just do what you’ve done before”

            “Actually… no. Never, like, seriously.”

            Woozi leaned forward in his seat. “You’ve never seriously apologized to someone before?”

            “I’ve never needed to. That must come to a surprise at someone like you, who probably needs to seriously apologize to someone every other week.”

            “Won’t deny that.” He said arrogantly

            “That’s not sometime to proud of.”

            “It’s an art of persuasion.”

            You bit back a retort. You needed this from him, you needed to be nice. “Then teach it to me.”
            “I don’t know!” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You just apologize.”

            “You said you would help me if I asked.”

            “But I assumed, like any normal person would, that you had some experience in formal apologies. I can’t really describe it, you just apologize….”

            “But what does that mean? Give me an example or something.”

            He set his over-the-ear headphones on his desk, and fiddled with the cord of them. He let out a sigh. “Like this-” He cleared throat but then winced. As if the thoughts that he was thinking were painful to him. He moaned at set his head in his hands for a quick second before raising his head back up.

            “Like this.” He repeated and took a deep breath in “I’m sorry for what I said that night about Hoshi and DK. Even though it was true, and I don’t regret telling you the truth, I do regret the way I went about it. I was tactless, and rude. I let my emotions get the best of me, and in the end I hurt you more than I meant to. I’m sorry and next time I will be sure to be more considerate, of your actual emotions before I insult you.”

            You sat stock still, in shock of his words. “Woozi….”

            He threw the piece of paper back at you, looking slightly angry. “Wipe that stupid look off your ugly face, I didn’t actually mean it, you .” He rolled his eyes. “That was just the lecture that Coups gave me.” He laughed sourly. “Those weren’t even my words; you think I could come up with something like that? No. Those are Coups words on how I should apologize to you, word for word.”

            You scoffed. “Well, you were believable.”

            “Because that’s what apologizes have to be! I’m giving you gold here.” He added in a side note. “God, why did you make me say that.” He smacked his lips together with his expression morphed in disgust. “Even saying those words gave me a sour after taste in my mouth”

            “Stop being so dramatic, get back to the original point. So I just explain it to him, and follow it with an apology?”

            “Follow it with an apology and promise it won’t happen again.” Woozi corrected you. “And by the way, don’t misconstrue my intentions and think that I am doing this for you. You mean nothing to me. But sadly, you mean something to Joshua and I’m obliged as his friend to reassure his happiness.

            “Thanks for the reminder.” You spat back dryly. You turned your back to him, assuming your conversation was over. You got out your textbook from your bag, about to start studing but Woozi’s voice interrupted you.

            “I would call him now. The longer you wait, the harder it will be.”

            “Okay.” You breathed, taking out your phone.

            “Don’t be nervous.” Woozi had his headphones on now, his back turned to you. “Joshua’s a pretty forgiving guy. I mean, if you think about it, he would have to be with me as his friend..” You heard him turn on the music, the muffled beat echoing from his headphones. “Don’t stress.”

            You stepped out the of room and called Joshua. He picked up. “Sup?”

            “Hey its me.” You said only to be greeted with silence in response. He obviously did not pay attention to caller ID. “I want to meet up… and talk about stuff.”

            “About...?” His voice was cautious.

            “Just pick me up.” You said. “When can you get me.”

            “I’ll be right over.” He hung up.

            “He sounded pissed.” You told Woozi, but you turned around to see that he was oblivious to what you said. The music was playing on full blast through his headphones, he was nodding along the music, unaware.

            You grabbed your jacket and headed out. You waited nervously on the steps outside.

            Joshua pulled up around twenty minutes later, he honked his horn and opened the passenger seat’s car door. He didn’t greet you, when you got in. He didn’t even spare you a glance when you clicked in your seatbelt.

            “So, where do you want to talk?” You asked, it was getting dark now.

            He didn’t respond but started the car anyway. The minutes dragged by as the both of you sat in silence. He ended up pulling up to an empty parking lot of a closed supermarket store. When he put the car in park he didn’t hesitate to get out. You followed suit.

            Then you were both standing there in an empty parking lot. Joshua was still waiting by the drivers side of the car so you crossed over the front of his car to talk to him. Joshua just looked at you expectantly.

            “So….” You started awkwardly. You could feel your heard start to race. Now that you were looking at him, you couldn’t think straight. There was too much pressure. How were you supposed to do this? What if you messed up? Then what would happen?

            Joshua just glared at you. He was leaning up against the driver’s side of the car, his arms crossed over this chest.

            “I think I owe you the truth-” You started, trying to remember Woozi’s words. “And that is that I’ve been avoiding you because of my own selfish reasons.”

            You glanced up, Joshua’s face was solid. “So I won’t do it anymore, okay? Are we good now?”

            Joshua’s eyebrows lowered, but he said nothing. “Aren’t you going to say something?” you urged him, nervous for his response.

            “Oh, am I allowed to talk now?” Joshua said placing his hand on his chest mockingly.

            “Yea….” You tried to sound kind but when it came out you sounded more annoyed than anything.

            “Wait, was that an apology? Because I think I missed the most important part. Start over.” His eyes narrowed.
            You stared at him. Oh please, no. “Seriously? Okay fine.” You were frustrated now and even more nervous now. “I’m sorry, okay? I was an and I won’t do it again.” Even as you said them, the words that came sounded robotic and forced.

            He raised an eyebrow. “Nope.” He said. “That was the worse apology ever. You sound as if someone is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to do this. Did Woozi put you up to this?”

            “No, he didn’t I swear it’s just… I’m not good with these things.”

            “Well, I’m not good with friends who ignore you for weeks at a time.” Joshua retorted, adjusting his thick framed glasses coolly.

            You wanted to scream. “Don’t make me do this! I’m horrible with these kind of things. Come on. What do you want from me?” You threw your hands up aggrievedly.

            “I dunno, an actual apology. But you can’t even do that. You aren’t even sorry, are you?”

            “I am. Its just that… I’m not good with…these things.” You grunted the words, repeating them again. Apologies had a vulnerability to them, something that your very soul was screaming against.

            “Woozi definitely put you up to this, didn’t he?”

            “I told you, he didn’t.”

            “Then why did your apology sound so similar to almost every time that Woozi apologizes.”

            “He gave me pointers…” You blurted out.

            “On apologizing?” Joshua said, very confused.

            “I know it sounds weird, but I’m not good with-“

            “I’m done with your excuses.” Joshua said and turned his back to open the driver side door. His hand grabbed the handle.

            “No, wait please.” You grabbed his arm to stop him. He started to turn around to look at you but you pushed your hand on your shoulder to prevent him.  “Don’t look at me while I say this.”

            He stayed still. You noticed your height difference when in this position. Your nose was inches from his shoulder blade which your hand was still resting on. You had pressed his front up against the car, his hand was still resting limply on the car door handle. “If I’m going to apologize, I’ll do it my way. I won’t be the best but it will be… genuine…I hope.”

            You took in a deep breath “You want the truth? Fine, here it is. That night that we all had dinner, when you left Woozi told me about Hoshi and DK. About them having pity friendships with me because I have no friends, and about them up to me for Woozi. And after I heard that, everything was put into a perspective for me.”

            “And that night, I made myself a promise to keep everyone at an emotional distance. To prevent this stupid cycle from continuing, I swore to myself that solitude was better than wrecked friendships. Because you see, Joshua that’s all I’ve ever had, is bad friendships.

             “So I became convinced that I didn’t need anyone. And the easiest way to go about this was ignoring everyone. And that included you. It especially included you because I knew that if I started to talk to you… it would be hard to maintain that emotional distance. And every time I saw you, I wanted to talk to you. I really did. I just couldn’t, and it was eating me up inside.

            “But then you went to the hospital with me, and everything was okay. And we were talking again, and I felt happy again. But I told myself It was just a cheat. Like how some girls cheat on their diet every once in a while, but I was cheating with talking.

            “And everything I said that night, about you not being my friend. About me not needing anyone…That was a lie. And you knew it was a lie, too. You even called me out on it. And I know that now. I know that I can’t live my whole while hiding under a rock pretending to be mute. And after that night, talking to you at the hospital, I know that I can’t.

            “Let me make something clear. I’m not saying that I’m breaking my promise to myself, because I’m not. And I’m not saying that I won’t shut you out from time to time because that’s just what I do. I don’t trust people with my emotions. But that’s just because I can hardly trust myself with my emotions. I don’t even understand what I am feeling most of the time. And when I do allow myself to be emotional, I have the emotional breaks resembling a three-year olds tantrums.” As you said this memories resurfaced of you punching Woozi.

            You could feel the rise and fall of Joshua’s breathing underneath your hand.  Your hand was still placed gently on his shoulder blade. When he breathed in you could feel his rib cage expand under your touch.

            “So, I’m sorry. I really am sorry. I didn’t know that not talking to you would hurt you, and I’m sorry. You really did nothing wrong, its just this stupid game I’ve been playing with myself. And after we talked in the hospital, I realized that I do need someone. And if your still up for it…. I’d like that person to be you.”

            Joshua stiffened up. “You can be like my permanent cheat. But I’m not breaking my promise to myself. I’m warning you now so you don’t get hurt later, that I will still be an emotional arm width away at all times. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be friends, if you get what I’m saying here.”

            When you stopped talking, your words lingered in the air amidst the silence. Joshua waited a few moments before he started to turn around but you pressed your hand back up against his shoulder to delay him. “Just before you turn around. Know that I’m really sorry, so just don’t look at me too harshly, okay?

            You let your hand drop. Joshua turned around and you took a step back from him. You had been standing awfully close to to him.

            “Why do I feel that there’s a catch?” Was the only comment he had.

            “…I have rules.” You said stiffly. Your resolve hardening once you were face to face with him again. “No physical contact, no emotional baggage and no expectations.”

            “So, not really friends?” Joshua asked.

            “No, I mean. What we had at the hospital, how that felt. Doing that again.” You said. “We would still be friends, just… with limits.”

            He ruffled his hair and gave a you a pained expression. He paced up and down the length of the car for a minute, him ringing his beanie in his hands. Then he stopped to face you.

            And pulled you into a constricting hug. “I’m breaking one of the rules. But yes, apology accepted.” He was so tall that he had to lean over to hug you. His chin rested on the top of your head.

            Hesitantly, you brought your hands up and rested them on the sides of his stomach, which was an attempt at hugging him back. But you were awkward when it came to physical touch. You weren’t used to it, and honestly you can’t remember that last time someone hugged you.

            “You are horrible at apologies; you know? You start off well, all meaningful and then you follow it with rules I have to follow? Bull.” He laughed, pulling you tighter against his chest.     Your face pressed forcibly against his t-shirt. You could smell his cologne… it smelled…rustic. Very hipster of him.

            He kept squeezing you against him, and your limbs feel limb at your sides. “You don’t have to be alone, you know? With me-“

            You wiggled yourself from his grip and pushed him away with a force. “You’re breaking so many rules right now.”

            Joshua laughed and scratched the back of his neck.

            “What’s going to happen with Hoshi and DK? Are you still going to ignore them too?” Joshua asked.

            “I don’t know yet. But I won’t be buddy-buddy with them either.”

            “You know that they did start to actually consider you their friends-“

            “No, no, no!” You yelled outstretching your arms shaking your hands, as if you were try to ward him off. “The rules were just established and you are breaking so many of them right now! Emotional distance!”

            He just laughed in your face. “I never agreed to any of those.”

            “Well you better!” You punched him him the shoulder and he winced.

            “It isn’t even five minutes after you apologized to me and you’re already abusing me.” Joshua opened the car door and climbed in the drivers side. “Come on, its getting dark.”

           Yay for the update. I love you guys. I hope you like the resolution. Let me know what you guys think :)