Eucalyptus & Honey |H.S.|

Chapter 43 - We're Just Two Ghosts

She knew.

How the fuck could she possibly know?

There was a part of me—a really fucking large part—that didn't want to believe her. That hoped, in a really fucked up kind of way, that this was some sort of elaborate lie out of spite that I had been spending so much time with Harry rather than her.

But this was Margot. And I knew her as if we shared one mind. I knew when she was telling the truth. And her pleading, tear-filled eyes told me everything I needed to know.

I expected my stomach to drop to my toes or my gut to twist with nausea at the realization, but I felt neither. In fact, I didn't really feel anything at all.

They say that when your body goes into shock, your blood essentially travels to your core as a way of protecting your vital organs, leaving your extremities without proper blood flow. This can be life threatening in situations where it is unnecessary.

I think that was happening to me.

My heart was building a wall of blood and rock hard avoidance to protect itself, and the rest of me was left without proper functioning. Including my mind.

The racing questions that had been there only moments ago seemed to seep from my mind and wrap around my heart, securing its protection.

The only question I could seem to think of now, despite the ridiculousness of it, was, Did the show start without us?

"Steves?" Margot asked, voice coming out weak and shaky as she took a step towards me. "Stevie? Please say something. I'm so fucking sorry, I never wanted to hurt you. That was what I was trying to avoid. Please understand, Stevie, you have to—"

"What?" I asked, shaking my head dismissively with a smile. But the smile felt twisted and wrong for reasons I couldn't quite comprehend. "No, let's just go. Harry and Niall are probably looking for us by now, and if I miss a live version of 'The Chain', I'm not sure if I could ever forgive you."

I grabbed her wrist and went to drag her out of the bathroom with me, but she planted her feet into the floor. I sighed, feeling the beginning levels of irritation at the fact that I was missing the concert for a conversation no part of me wanted to have.

"Stevie, what the fuck? Did you not fucking hear me? I basically just told you I'm the shittiest fucking friend, and you have no reaction to that, whatsoever? You should be screaming at me! Calling me a liar and a selfish asshole, not dragging me back to the show as if nothing happened!"

My jaw tightened and my fists clenched as I turned back around to face her. Of course I fucking heard her. I wasn't delusional. My mind knew that I should be screaming at her and bombarding her with questions, or at the very least, crying about the unsealable rift this just created between us. But my heart was stuck in the highest tower of that castle made of blood and avoidance surrounded by a moat filled with monsters and all. And I couldn't deal with this right now. None of it.

I'm not sure I could ever deal with it.

Irritation seeped into my words as I spoke. But I could tell, as if hearing myself from a distance, that my voice sounded forced. Wrong. "I'm going to find Harry, Margot. Come with me and have a fun night, or stay and sulk in the bathroom. Frankly, I'm not gonna miss a once in a lifetime opportunity just to comfort you and your guilty conscience," I said, sounding almost bored as I spun on my heel and yanked the bathroom door open, uncaring of whether or not she followed.

The words felt harsh and unnecessary even as I said them, but I knew that my anger had barely even scratched the surface. I wasn't ready to face any of this at the moment, and the emotion that did come out was merely remnants of what wasn't swept up into the entrapment around my heart.