Snow and the Wishing Well (Fallen Tales series)

Chapter 19

Chapter 19
Justin
I felt like crap. I don't think I had ever gotten this low, well not since I was a teenager.
I had always known that I was adopted but growing up, I wasn't handling it all that well. I acted out in the most horrible way.
I got expelled from three boarding schools, all in the same year. I got into drugs, and spent most of my Friday nights drinking in a cemetery outside of Carlisle with a few friends. Blake was among them too. Like me, he wasn't handling the idea of being an estate owner. But he didn't have that little voice inside his head telling him that he wasn't the true heir.
My parents did their best to try and get me out of the depression, but it only made it worse.  I acted out against them. I would yell. I would scream. I would spend nights away, just because I knew it made them worry. I was trying to make them pay for something they didn't even do.
I can't even remember the day when I woke up. I just remembered the sound of birds.
But today, there were no birds, no sun shining. Just a bottle of rum and an empty hotel room.
I remembered who Abbigail Hornbrook was. She was the woman that left me in the Servant's Hall at Lockley Manner twenty years ago.




Chapter 20
Sarah
I hadn't seen Justin in three days, and I was getting worried.
I headed up the steps of the Cottage Hotel, and with my head held high I stormed down the lobby. I ignored all the looks from the people behind the desks to the elevator, till I was on the fourth floor and in front of the door that had the number seventy-six on it.
I knocked but there was no answer.
"Justin, it's me," I called waiting for a response.
"Go away, Sarah," said a voice from behind the door. It was Justin's but it wasn't. The voice was tired and over it. But he had forgotten. I had a key.
The first thing I smelt was rum. The first thing I was saw, was the broken Justin, hunched on the floor, beside the bed.
"That key, is for emergency," he stated again.
Looking at him, I would say this was an emergency.
"So what, you're drinking now?" I asked, seeing the bottle in his hands.
"It takes the edge off," he stated.
He was drunk, or hung over, or both.
"What are you doing here, Sarah?" he asked staring at the bottle.
"I'm seeing if you were okay, and by the looks of things you're not."
His laugh was bitter making me frowned.
"That's rich, coming from you."
I stepped forward as if I was challenging him to say another word.
"Excuse me."
He turned his body, facing me. I could now see the dark circles under his eyes and his messy floppy hair was all over his face. He really was a mess.
"You don't have a right to judge me, you're the one that sleeps around for money."
His words were like a slap in the face. My heart started to race as a lump formed in my throat.
"I do what I have to do to survive," I stated.
He laughed bitterly again, "Do you even believe that yourself?"
Sometimes I didn't.
"Justin, this isn't you," I said shaking my head.
"You don't even know me. We are strangers. It's time we face up to that."
He turned back around leaving that thought in my head and tears in my eyes. He was calling it quits.
"Turn away, Sarah. It's as simple as that," he told me.
He was right. We were strangers, we barely knew each other, he was just a name.
I turned around and shut the door.

"I'm lost Billy," I stated staring up at the ceiling.
"What's happened, Princess?" he asked me.
I didn't know what was happening. First, I thought I had a friend and now I didn't. And I didn't even know why.
"Well, it's not me really," I sighed, "It's a friend."
"What's wrong with him?" he asked.
I frowned, looking at him, "how did you know it was a he?"
He shrugged, "You're not the type to have girls as friends."
I chuckled knowing how true it was. I had known Billy for two years and he already knew me better than people I had known for all my life.
"What's going on with him?" he asked again.
I sighed shaking my head, "I don't know, I really don't know."
"Well you know, when you were lost, you came here."
My mind went straight back to that day.
"If he's lost, then you show him the way."
I nodded taking that in.
I wasn't going to lose the only friend I had left.