Page 2 of Accidentally Falling For My Best Friend (Chicago Awakenings #2)

OAKLEY

ELEVEN YEARS OLD

“ Y ou okay, man?” I ask, worried for my best friend. “You barely reacted when that guy shot you.”

School is finally done for summer break, and we’re hanging out at Parker’s house playing video games. He’s usually a lot better at them than he seems to be today, though.

“Huh? Oh yeah, I guess I’m a little tired or something,” he replies slowly. He does look like he could use some sleep.

“Want me to go so you can nap?” I offer reluctantly, not actually wanting to leave.

“Nah, just let me run to the bathroom again and grab another snack before the next round, I’m starving,” he says.

“Didn’t you just pee before we started that game?” I ask with a laugh, and he shrugs, heading toward the bathroom.

I go to the kitchen and grab a bag of his favorite chips and another sports drink for him to snack on. I’m full from what we ate earlier, but Parker has been growing a lot recently, and he looks way slimmer than he did a few months ago, despite how hungry he always seems to be.

I love hanging out at Parker’s house .

It’s so quiet. I have four brothers, and I can’t remember the last time I heard actual silence at home.

I know Parker thinks that my place is cooler because it’s fancy or whatever, but I like spending time here. He also wishes that he had siblings, but he has me, so he obviously doesn’t need anyone else.

We’ve been pretty much inseparable since we met on his first day of school.

I’m so lucky he moved here and that I get to have him as my best friend.

Parker’s really funny. I know a lot of people say I’m funny, but I don’t think they realize how hard I’m trying to be funny, ya know?

And when I am trying to get people to laugh at my jokes, I know they’re actually funny if Parker laughs.

I always make sure to look at him when I say the punchline to gauge his reactions.

Parker, on the other hand, is just effortlessly funny. He has the worst filter sometimes, and some of the stuff he blurts out will have me snort laughing.

He’s also super smart, and for some reason, he doesn’t mind helping me if I don’t understand something in class.

I’ve done way better in school since meeting him.

I’m even getting higher grades than my older brother, Beckett, did in some classes, and he’s the golden child who set the standard way too high for the rest of us to live up to.

Parker and I are both pretty competitive, and we try to outscore each other on tests and assignments. It’s all for fun though, we don’t actually care who wins. We’re just as happy when the other succeeds in something as we are when we accomplish it ourselves.

Seriously, I must have won the best friend jackpot or something.

I bring the chips back to his living room where the video games are set up, and he thanks me, but doesn’t eat them yet, saying his stomach is feeling off now.

We start another round, but Parker seems extra quiet today, slouched back on the couch like he’s falling asleep, breathing kind of heavy. Maybe he’s getting sick and I should let him nap.

Just as I have that thought, his character stops moving on the screen and out of the corner of my eye I see his controller fall to the floor.

“Parker?” I ask, turning toward him, where it looks like he fell asleep right next to me on the couch. But if he was asleep, my talking would have woken him up, right?

“Parker!” I say, a little more urgently. I shake his arm a bit, trying to make sure he’s okay.

He doesn’t respond.

“Parker! Come on man, this isn’t funny.” I think I’m shouting now, but my racing heart is beating way too loudly for me to hear anything else.

“Judy!” I scream his mom’s name when he still isn’t responding, and she rushes into the room, joining me in trying to wake him. She yells for his dad, telling him to call 911, and my vision blurs as his dad enters the room with their cordless home phone.

Am I crying?

I feel like I just finished a rough hockey practice with how I can’t seem to catch my breath. I think his parents are talking, asking me what happened, but it all sounds far away, like we’re under water or something.

I try to tell them that we were playing video games and then he fell asleep mid-game, but my throat is too tight to let out all of the words.

Two paramedics rush into the room and start touching him, holding his wrist and counting his breaths.

One pokes his finger with a needle, and it starts to bleed before they stick a small machine right up to the blood.

They seem to react to whatever is on the machine and draw up some medicine into a syringe before stabbing him to push it into his body.

They tape another needle to his arm and connect a big bag of fluids to it.

Then Parker’s moved onto a stretcher and rushed outside. I chase after them, determined to go with him, to stay by his side until he wakes up. I was there when he fell asleep or passed out or whatever is going on—I don’t want him to think that I left him when he needed me.

I’m his best friend. I’m not going anywhere.

But his dad grabs my shoulder when we’re outside, holding me in place and preventing me from climbing into the ambulance with Parker and his mom.

“Only one family member is allowed to ride with him,” he says gently.

A part of me knows his mom should be that one person because I know my mom would want to be, and I’d want her there, too.

But another part of me is way louder and is very freaked out right now because my best friend just passed out next to me, and honestly, I feel like I should be that one person. I know I’m not technically his family, but I’m his best friend, so that definitely counts.

I think I might still be crying, but all I can feel is a bone-deep, paralyzing fear.

“I’ll drop you off at home on my way to the hospital,” his dad says, sounding far away again as he moves toward his car that’s in the driveway separating me from my best friend, who obviously needs me right now.

I feel frozen in this spot. My breathing is still too fast, and my heart is trying to beat out of my chest.

What if he doesn’t wake up? What if he isn’t okay? What even happened? Is there anything that I should have done differently? Is this my fault for not noticing something was wrong sooner? Questions won’t stop racing through my mind.

“Take a deep breath in for the count of five,” Mr.Leighton says, gripping both of my shoulders and leaning down a little so that he can hold eye contact.

I try to do what he says, breathing in with him and out when he instructs.

“Oakley, they said that Parker will be okay,” he assures me.

“I don’t think they’ll allow extra visitors at the hospital right away, so I’ll let your parents know as soon as you can come.

I promise I won’t let anything bad happen to him,” he adds, looking into my eyes like he really wants me to understand.

Parker’s dad is a super tall, muscular man who seems to fill a room when he enters it. When he makes a promise, it’s really hard not to believe him.

“Okay,” I manage to get out as my breathing starts to slow.

I’ve always liked his parents. They’re really nice people, and I think it’s cool how much time they try to spend with him on puzzles and extra school stuff that he likes to do.

They’re so excited to have me over all the time, too. After we’d been friends for a while, Parker explained that he didn’t really have friends before moving here because of how often he changed schools, and because he can be kind of shy.

So I guess they’re happy that Parker has me now. Well, so am I. Parker is the best. They’ve all felt like my second family over the last two years, and I’m so happy that they got to stay in Chicago instead of moving around like they used to.

I’m relieved that Parker’s parents were here. I don’t know what I would have done if we were alone. I did not handle that whole event well.

I had to wait at home for a whole freaking day !

When I should have been in the hospital, waiting for Parker to wake up, I was stuck at home, alone.

Well, with my giant family. I’m not sure what’s driving them crazier, my endless pacing or my nonstop questions about what happened to Parker—if he was awake yet, and when I could go see him.

Finally, my parents got a call from Parker’s parents saying that I could come to the hospital, and I’ve never gotten into a car so quickly in my life.

The hospital is gigantic. I think it’s the same one we came to visit my mom and Lincoln in when he was born, but that's the only other time I’ve ever been to a hospital. I don’t remember it seeming so scary.

My mom and I have to check in at the front desk and tell them who we’re here to see and get visitor passes.

Security has to scan the badge and hit the correct floor in the elevator for it to work.

Then we’re walking down a long hallway, past all of these sick kids in big hospital beds peering out of the glass doors of their rooms.

Parker doesn’t belong here. I can’t believe that I let this happen, that I didn’t know anything was wrong until he looked dead next to me on the couch.

We get to the room number they gave us downstairs and slide open the door. He looks so sick. Pale with huge bags under his eyes, and he’s wearing one of those weird hospital gowns with snap buttons up the sleeves and a pattern that looks like it belongs on a movie theater's carpet.

We were just playing video games and joking around yesterday.

Now he’s in a freaking hospital bed, surrounded by monitors and wires.

Bags are hanging on a pole next to him with tubes connected to his arm.

Things are beeping and I want to know what they all mean.

To understand what happened and know that he’s okay.

His parents are both there, sitting on the couch that’s on the other side of the room, and they smile as we come in.

“We’ll go grab you some more water and give you guys a minute,” his mom says, standing to leave with my mom.

His dad squeezes my shoulder as he walks past, whispering,“Kept my promise, he’s all right,” just for me to hear.

I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding and approach Parker, not sure what to do or say.

“I’m fine, Oak,” he says, rolling his eyes.

“You don’t look fine,” I grumble, moving a chair as close to the bed as I can. “I thought you were dead,” I admit even more softly, afraid to put that idea out into the universe.

I can’t imagine my life without Parker in it. I don’t even want to try.

“I’m so sorry you had to be there for that,” he responds. As if he has anything to be sorry for.

“Are you kidding me?” I ask, grabbing his hand and looking at him, waiting for him to look at me too before I say anything.

“Parker, don’t you dare apologize for anything.

I’m the one who should be saying sorry!” I tell him desperately.

“I should have known something was wrong, I should have gotten help before you were passed out next to me. I should have called 911 sooner.” I voice some of the regrets I’ve had in the last day, thinking of everything I did wrong.

“If I didn’t even know something was wrong, how could you?” he questions.

“I’m your best friend, I should have known,” I insist, and he laughs like I’m joking.

I’m not.

I don’t care what I have to do, I’m never letting whatever happened yesterday happen again. “So, what did happen?” I finally ask.

“Apparently I have Type 1 diabetes; my blood sugar was super high, and it made me pass out. They’ve given me a lot of fluids and medicine to bring it down, but I guess my pancreas doesn’t work, and I’ll have to give myself insulin shots now,” he explains.

“What’s a pancreas?” I ask and he laughs.

“I don’t know, but the doctor said mine doesn’t make insulin like it’s supposed to, so I’ll need to give it to myself with shots,” he says with a shrug. “And I’ll need to start paying more attention to what I eat and just be healthier so that it doesn’t get high like that again.”

“I’ll help,” I quickly add. “I can be healthier with you. Whatever you need. I promise you’ll never end up back here,” I say confidently, wrapping my pinky around his where I’m still holding his hand.

“What are we, five years old?” he says with a laugh.

“Dude, everyone knows how serious pinky promises are, don’t laugh,” I deadpan.

He twists his mouth to the side like he’s trying not to smile. “Fine, I think they said the diabetes educator nurse will be coming by soon to teach me everything. You can stay and learn it too, in case I forget anything or need help.”

“Sounds great!” I agree, relieved to finally have some direction.

I drop his hand and open the backpack I brought with me to pull out the Rubik’s cube I bought back when he was trying to teach me how to solve one, and hand it to him.

I got it a few times, but I always needed his help remembering how to actually do it.

“Oh awesome, thanks, Oak,” he says, his whole face lighting up as he immediately begins moving the sides around.

“Anything for you, Parker.”

I hope he understands how much I mean that.