Crave You -N.H-

Chapter Twenty Seven: My Blood [EDITED]

Chapter twenty seven: My Blood

A lump forms in my throat as I stand staring at the wall waiting for him to come through the doctor's office door. He knew I would be here, what was he going to say to me? Did my mother even tell him I knew the family secret? Do I even care? I want to, I want to be furious and upset. I want to be twisted up inside over the secret that has been hidden for almost nineteen years.

All I could think of was that I had gained Bradley from this, I wasn't losing anything.

I would get better in light of this secret, emotionally and psychically I can move on trom this, start over from all this shit I was going through. As the doorknob turns I close my eyes tightly waiting for it to swing open and having him standing there.

It was so different this time, he is my father's best friend. He has eaten dinner at our table more than a dozen times, he had comforted Jean when she broke her leg in the first grade. He was as close to a father as our own...but he is mine. He was there, at the funeral, he had wrapped his arms around me to comfort me in a time of darkness.

I guess it has always been obvious, the way that he had treated us was too good, too fatherly but we never noticed. He was just doing what we expected.

"Sarah," his voice is low and altered from his normal stern tone. I cringe slightly as he extends his hand to mine which is tightly tucked into the crook of my elbow, my nails digging into the fragile skin harshly.

"I know that this is a lot of news, but for now let's worry about making you better." He says retracting his arm back from me after I don't reach out to him.

He looks exhausted like sleep has left him for days and wasn't returning. His eyes were sunken and rimmed with shades of purple and blues. I wait just standing there staring at him until my name is called, she smiles at me and leads me back; happy as always.

Niall had driven me and insisted on coming inside, but I had talked him down. This was something I needed to do alone. Watching Roger getting tubes placed in his arms for the testing, I sigh and relax in the chair across from him.

"Why do this?" I ask and he looks up from his arm to me "Why risk ruining your family, just for me?"

"Sarah," he says seriously, giving me a look I haven't seen in a long time. "I have waited so long to tell you, and it hasn't been a secret. Your father knew, my wife knew we agreed that is was best to keep it from you, all of you. But it doesn't change the love I have for you."

He looks beat and drained just saying the sentence, but at the same time something crawled to the surface showing his emotion in his eyes. Love, regret and thats what it is a mixture of the both. My heart slightly aches for him but the anger is heavier.

"You should have thought about Brad first," I whisper just barely able to make the words through my tight lips.

"Who do you think I'm thinking about Sarah?" He says raising his eyebrows and shoving his free hand in his jean pocket retrieving his wallet.

He hands it to me instructing me to open it, when I do there in the front plastic window is a cracked and worn photo. I pull it out slowly and flip it up in my hands looking down at it. It is from our first day of school, Brad's bright smile is destroyed by missing teeth and a milk moustache. My head rests in his shoulders and his eyes looking down on my dark hair that is pulled back into awfully high pony tails.

I smile wide remembering the day like it is yesterday we had walked to school ourselves and he tripped into a mud puddle wrecking his clothes before we even arrived.

"Sarah if Brad loses you," he starts shaking his head "I will lose both of you."

I never had thought about the love between us but that was because the love we had, the love that Brad and I had grew into something that was impossible to break. He was always there, he is always there and all this time I was worrying about losing him but I forgot about him carrying on after I was gone. He wouldn't.