Hey! I may stand corrected, but I don't think anyone has attempted an imprinting story like this. I hope you like it! lurrve xxxx ;)

Chapter One

I lay immobile in the uncomfortable hospital bed, staring straight ahead of me, not seeing anything at all. I wanted to remain stationary. I was, however, unable to keep completely still; my chest moved as I breathed, and my eyelids blinked. Despite these involuntary movements, I was motionless.

I tried not to think. I wanted my mind to escape into a fuzzy cloud void of logic and clarity, where nothing was clear, and nothing made sense. I hoped to distract myself from the shocking, harsh, unambiguous reality of what had happened to me.

But I couldn't escape it. I was unable to forget it. How could I? How could I think of something trivial? How could I ever be sufficiently distracted? What could possibly distract me from this pain, this regret? They were both part of me now, and couldn't be ignored.

I felt regret, for not trusting my instincts, for not thinking. I didn't think, not really. I just assumed everything would be OK. Nothing would happen. Everyone would be fine. Yeah, sure, it was a risk, to climb into a car with a driver who was drunk, along with your intoxicated friends, who didn't put their seatbelts on.

But nothing would happen to me or my friends. Car crashes happened to other people. Tragedies like this befell the people on the news, but there was no way anything like that would ever happen to us. We would be fine.

How foolish we were. How unbelievably stupid. What was I thinking? I was sober! I knew so much better! I knew it wasn't safe! I can only blame myself for what happened. No one forced me into that car. I could have refused. I could have stopped them from driving it, and convinced them all to call a cab. But I didn't. I blindly hoped everything would be OK, and now look at what has happened.

My eyes scanned the sterile white room around me. I hadn't been in a hospital since my birth. I had never broken my arm, or my legs or anything like that. I was overwhelmed with a crazy desire to laugh. I wish I had broken my legs. Anything else other than reality. Anything.

I didn't want to think about that. I didn't want to think about the reason I was here. It hurt too much - it made it painful to breathe. It made my head hurt.

I focussed on the one thing that made the pain recede just a little. The one thing I could think about that wouldn't trigger the overwhelming regret. The one thing that gave me hope.

Paul.

I barely knew him. I didn't even know his last name. I would probably never see him again. Because he wouldn't want me, now. No one would want me, ever. Not when I was like this.

But just thinking about the conversation we had had, made me feel a little better. A little calmer. It numbed the pain, just a little. It was better than nothing, and it was all I had. For maybe the millionth time since the accident, I ran over that conversation in my head again…

"Oh, sorry!" I apologised. I had turned around too quickly and bumped into the person directly behind me.

"Watch it," he snapped, without looking at me. My patience disappeared. I had been at the bonfire for an hour, watching my friends get steadily drunker, refusing to join them, and I wasn't having a very good evening. I felt like I was babysitting without getting paid. The last thing I felt like putting up with was this half naked idiot in my face getting offended because I had accidentally bumped into him. Why the hell wasn't he wearing a shirt, anyway, I thought in annoyance. The night air wasn't that warm.

"I said sorry, didn't I?" I snapped back, as he pushed past me. "What do you want, a freaking letter of apology?"

He rounded on me, glaring. His mouth opened, no doubt to say something smart, but his expression changed completely the second his eyes locked onto mine. He stared at me in shock. I raised my eyebrows. He was looking at me as though he recognised me, even though I had never seen him before in my life. He continued to gaze at me, and I frowned.

"Right, then," I said, and turned away from him. That was strange. I wondered what I had done for him to look at me like that. I hoped there wasn't anything on my face.

I squeaked in shock when suddenly, a warm hand seized my arm. The guy pulled me towards him and held my chin, forcing me to look up into his face. His hands were gentle, and he hadn't hurt me - I was more surprised than anything. In fact, I was in complete and utter shock. I stared at him in alarm. His expression did not frighten me; he looked strangely overjoyed, and his eyes traced over every inch of my face. They appeared to be completely rapt, and I didn't understand it.

We gazed at each other for an immeasurable moment. It slowly began to dawn on me how gorgeous this guy was, and how I never got enough opportunities to gaze directly into a gorgeous guy's face. My eyes drank him in appreciatively, before I came back to earth. I should not really be ogling this guy. I didn't know him at all, and he had suddenly just grabbed me and was now staring at me. That wasn't normal behaviour, surely?

"Excuse me," I mumbled, my jaw slightly restricted from moving due to his scorching hot fingers holding my chin, "but would you mind letting go of me?"

He seemed to realise what he was doing for the first time, and his eyes widened.

"Sorry!" he exclaimed. He let me go, but he didn't move away from me. I eyed him uncertainly, bemused by his behaviour. He gazed back, the corners of his mouth now turning up into a smile. I found myself ogling him again, and forced myself to stop.

"What's your name?" he asked me suddenly.

"Leona." I felt compelled to answer him.

"Paul," he grinned, and held out his hand to me. I shook it, still completely bewildered by this exchange. But I found myself unwilling to walk away from him. He was fascinating me.

"Hi, Paul," I said, smiling at him shyly. There was a short pause, and he continued to gaze at me. "Was there any particular reason you stopped me, or…?" I trailed off, waiting for him to answer.

"There were a couple of reasons," he said, continuing to grin. "The main one being that you stunned the eyes off me the minute I saw you."

I blushed furiously, not expecting that at all. I rolled my eyes, trying to cover it up. "If that was supposed to be a chat up line, it was supremely awful," I said, laughing. He laughed too, a deep, gravelly sound.

I stared at him as he laughed, thinking the whole situation to be completely surreal. Guys didn't randomly grab hold of me and then proceed to chat me up every day. This was definitely a first, a guy this hot being interested in me. I wasn't much to look at; I was small, scrawny, pale skinned, curly mahogany hair piled on top of my head, my brown eyes hidden behind black-framed glasses. Guys wanted my best friend, Georgia, with her blonde hair and long legs and perfect eyesight.

"So I'll pick you up at noon, then?" he asked, grinning widely at me.

"What?"

"Noon. Tomorrow. You and me. Lunch."

I stared at him. "Are you serious?" I asked, before I could stop myself. Damn. I should have said something witty instead.

"I'm deadly serious. I'll be devastated if you turn me down, Leona." I jumped as he said my name. Hearing it spoken through his rough, deep voice sent unexplainable shivers through me.

"OK," I just about managed to choke out. Maybe I did get drunk after all, and this was just an hallucination. This wasn't really happening, was it?

"Excellent," he said. I gave him directions to my house when he asked, still not quite believing this was happening to me. Because things like this usually never happened to me. I had fully expected to remain boyfriend-less forever. Georgia was not going to believe her ears.

"Paul! Would you hurry up, man?!" There was a shout from across the beach, and we both looked over to see another half naked guy holding out his arms exasperatedly. How were they not freezing? The hoodie I was wearing was not enough to stop the chills that were beginning to seep through it. Paul sighed.

"I have to go," he said, looking as though he really didn't want to. I must have misread it though. He couldn't be that interested in me. "Tomorrow," he said, grinning at me meaningfully. "I'm looking forward to it already."

I nodded helplessly, transfixed by the intensity of his eyes. No one had ever looked at me like that before. He brushed a lock of curly hair off my cheek, and added it to the mass of hair behind my ear. I swear I had too much hair; it was the bane of my existence. My skin burned under his casual touch.

I watched him walk away and join his friend, and my heart skipped a beat when I saw him look back at me.

I briefly thought of what happened after that, trying not to think about it too much. It was basically me gushing about Paul to a totally smashed Georgia, who I doubt even heard me, and then spending the rest of the bonfire watching everyone get drunker still, and daydreaming about Paul. He had been too good to be true.

And then I made the very bad decision to get into the car with Georgia driving. She told me she was fine, and hadn't really had that many. I knew better, but I didn't argue. I had no other way home. That wasn't the case. I should have thought. I could have gotten a taxi. I could have called my mom to collect me. But no. I got into the car, along with Darren and Julie, who were also completely wasted.

And now Darren was dead. Georgia was in a critical condition. Julie had managed to escape with a couple of broken ribs. She had been the luckiest out of the four of us. She would recover in a few weeks, maybe months. Darren couldn't. I couldn't. I was terrified for Georgia. And it hurt.

It hurt to breathe again. I had to stop dwelling on the crash. It was too overwhelming. It was too painful, and I didn't want to have another panic attack. Think of Paul, think of Paul.

I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was one. My heart twisted with pain. What must Paul have thought, when he arrived at my house at noon, to find that I wasn't there? Would he have thought I had given him the wrong address, maybe? That I stood him up, because I wasn't interested? Did he even know about the crash? And if he did?

I tried to puncture the hope. He wouldn't come visit me. Maybe he had been interested in me for a while, but like I said before, he wouldn't want me now. No one would want me now.

I listened to the noises around me. The clock ticking. My heart monitor beeping. Faint noises coming from other rooms. I was alone. I had convinced my parents to go home and get some sleep. They were heartbroken, and I hated it. I couldn't handle them in the same room as me, worrying about me, when I knew I was the one to blame for their suffering.

Suddenly, I could hear a load of shouting disrupting the quiet. I frowned, extremely grateful though for the distraction. Maybe it was a crazy patient. Or someone threatening to sue. I tried to imagine some kind of drama, that would take me away from my current situation.

To my surprise, I heard the shouting getting closer. I listened intently, doing my best to make out what they were saying.

"WHERE IS SHE? WHERE THE HELL IS SHE?"

"Sir, if you'll calm down and stop shouting -"

"DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN! JUST TELL ME WHICH BLOODY ROOM SHE'S IN!"

"As I've said before, you aren't her family so you can't -"

"LEONA! LEONA!"

I gasped, my heart speeding up. The monitor struggled to keep up with it. That wasn't Paul, was it? No way. But who else would be calling my name like that?

"Paul?" I said aloud. It wasn't even loud enough to carry around my room, but the shouting stopped immediately, and I could hear footsteps stomping closer and closer to my room. My head was swirling. It couldn't be Paul. He can't have heard me just then. It was all an elaborate dream. It couldn't be reality.

My door crashed open, and my eyes widened as Paul stormed in. He was breathing heavily, the tendons in his neck standing out. His hands were clenched into tight fists; they were shaking violently, and he looked as though he was about to explode. The moment he saw me though, all his anger just seemed to fade away to nothing, and he slumped, his eyes horrified.

"Leona," he said, his voice saturated with pain. My heart twisted excruciatingly again. I knew he could see me, lying so frail and vulnerable on the hospital bed, the left side of my face bandaged. I must have looked a complete mess. It hurt me, because it hurt him.

A female nurse and a burly bodyguard bustled through the door after him.

"Sir, you need to leave immediately," she ordered him, and the bodyguard flexed his muscles. They didn't look that threatening though, compared with Paul's. He wasn't wearing a shirt again. He looked a little inappropriate, but I didn't care.

"No, let him stay," I said.

"I'm not going anywhere," Paul growled at the same time. The nurse shot me a stern look, and I glared back at her.

"Let him stay," I said again. She looked as though she was trying not to roll her eyes with extreme difficulty, but she left, bringing the bodyguard with her. I turned my attention back to Paul, the minute they had gone. He was gazing at me, his eyes an anthology of too many emotions.

I smiled weakly at him. "Sorry I missed our lunch," I said, trying to sound light-hearted, but it fell flat. I sounded desolate; exactly how I felt. Once Paul found out, he was going to leave and never come back. He wasn't going to want me. He shouldn't. Who would?

In three quick strides, he was over at my side and sat in the chair next to my bed, the one my mother had claimed ownership of, and grasped my hand in his, holding it gently. It was so warm. It felt hugely comforting.

"I didn't think you were going to visit me at all," I told him, now desperate to distract him, rather than me. He looked just like I felt, only ten times worse. His expression was breaking my heart, and I couldn't stand it.

"Why not?" he demanded, looking shocked at the very thought.

"I don't know…" I shrugged. "You barely know me. I barely know you. You don't have to be here."

His eyes were intense, and mine were trapped within his gaze. "Yes, I do have to be here. And I will be here."

I gazed at him sadly. I wanted to believe him. But I didn't know how. He still had no clue of what was wrong with me. There was no way he would stand by me through this; I wasn't worth the effort. And it was funny, because I barely knew him, but the thought of never seeing him again made the crushing pain in my chest a whole lot worse.

My eyes began to fill up with tears. I hadn't cried yet. It was about time. I didn't cry when I found out about Darren, or Georgia. I didn't cry when the doctors told me what had happened to me. It was like I had been stuck in my own numb bubble. It seemed that Paul had wore all those defences down, and I suddenly couldn't stop my tears.

"Oh, no, Leona, don't cry," he said, stood up and pulled me into a gentle hug. I clung to him, burying my head on his shoulder, breathing in the scent of his bare skin. He had a very earthy, musky scent. It calmed me.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, feeling a little embarrassed for breaking down in front of him.

"It's OK," he said in a hushed voice. "You're going to be fine."

I had to tell him. I couldn't keep it from him. He had to know.

"No, I'm not," I said. He pulled away from me and held my chin in his hand, just like the way he did the first time we met, his eyes blazing.

"Yes, you are, Leona. You are going to be OK," he said fiercely. He was beginning to look scared by the dead look in my eyes. I was trying to shut my feelings off again, so that maybe it wouldn't hurt as much when he walked out of the door.

"I'm not, Paul," I said, a little louder this time, so maybe it would sink in.

"Leona," he said, and he was starting to sound angry. "Do not start any crap with me. You are not giving up. You are fighting, because you are staying on this earth with me. You are going to walk out of this hospital, and you will be fine."

I laughed wryly, which seemed to scare him even more.

"I'm not walking out of this hospital, Paul. I broke my spine. I'm paralysed from the waist down."