Caged Birds ✔️

Chapter Twenty-Three

"How did everybody react when I left?" I asked her, my voice low.

I didn't know if I actually wanted the answer but a part of me needed to ask, to put my mind at ease.

"The same way they reacted when Alec left...It was like you never existed in the first place" Diana explained.

"And what Kiley?" I question.

By that point, I hadn't said my sister Kiley's name out loud since I had left. She was so young the last time I saw her, I wondered if she hated me too.

"She's confused" Diana announced slowly.

"By that, you mean that she hates me" I rolled my eyes in disappointment.

"She'll come around" Diana assured.

It was about an hour later when we left the carnival and found a cab. It was then when Diana screamed out in pain, her hands around her stomach.

"What's wrong?" I narrowed my eyes as she slid into the cab. I looked down at the seat to find a liquid running down her legs and onto the back seat of the cab. "Holy shit"

The Cab driver drove us to St Clare's hospital. I sat beside Diana, anxiously squeezing her hand tightly in fear. It must have been terrifying for Diana, knowing her fate and having no control over it. Even though she wouldn't admit it, I'm sure she was afraid. From the cab, Diana called Noah and Kiley to meet us at the hospital but they didn't show up until after she had given birth.

I wasn't allowed in the delivery room due to it being a complicated birth so I was forced to wait in the waiting room. I didn't know at the time what made her labour so dangerous and complex until it was too late.

Kiley was the first to show up to the hospital. She stood ten feet away from me, refusing to even look I'm my direction. She was taller then the last time I saw her and had a thick layer of makeup across her matured face. Soon after Kiley arrived, so did Noah and to my surprise, he brought Matt.

"How is she?" Noah asked as giving Kiley a hug than slowly pulling away with fear.

"I don't know...there not saying anything," Kiley told him honestly, struggling to hold back her tears.

Matt looked at me as though he were about to kill me with his bare hands. He had that same look in his eyes that my father used to have before he beat me.

"Sam" Matt started. "What the fuck are you doing back in town?"

"Samantha" a nurse with bleached blond hair and green eyes exited Diana's room. "She's calling for you"

I nodded before following the nurse into my sister's room. I instantly pulled out my camera snapped a shot of Diana holding Daniel. She was pale and frail. The nurse told me that she has a severe form of preeclampsia. When I entered her room, the baby laid on her chest and the doctor stood beside her. My sister's eyes were close.

"Hail princess, Diana," I said.

The doctor looked over to me and shook his head. I looked back to my sister and realized that she was no longer breathing. I wrapped my around myself and let out a long scream.

She'll never see her baby grow up.

She'll never get married.

Never get reunited with Henry.

Never see Paris.

Never meet my kids.

She's forever young.

Gabriel will never know how great his mother is.

I walked slowly towards her as the nurse pulled the baby from her arms. I couldn't hold in my tears. I couldn't be strong at that moment. I've never been strong. I kissed Diana's cold forehead slowly.

I don't want her to go. I don't want this to be the last time I see her. Cold and pale in a hospital bed, lifeless. That's my last memory of her now, right? Unresponsive and lifeless. I want my big sister, the girl her comforted me when I felt the most of alone. I failed her. I let her die alone.

I stormed out of the room where I found Matt was standing beside the door. He just looked at me speechless, he saw my tears, along with all the pain that had been hidden inside of me for years. 

"I'm sorry" I screamed, "I know why you're here...you wanted to see me in pain...the same pain that I made you feel...well here I am...I'm hurting...you got your wish, now will you please leave me alone!" I begged, walking in the opposite direction quickly.

"What's the matter with you?" Matt asked.

I turned around in anger. "Excuse me?"

"Look I get that's this is a bad time but what the hell is the matter with you? You steal my car, you steal my thirty grand, you pull my own gun on me and then you just leave without any explanation"

"I told you I had to do whatever it took to get out of here!" I yelled before shaking my head violently, "you know what, forget it, I don't have to justify my actions to you!" I walked away from him with salty tears still running down my cheeks.

"Was that the last time you saw him before tonight?" Jenna asks me slowly.

And just like that, I'm back at my best friends wedding, sitting next to the bridesmaid.

"God no" I shake my head, finishing my glass of wine. "I wish it was..."

"Than what happened?" Jenna lowers her voice, wiping away her tears.

I went to my parent's house early the next morning where I collected all Diana stuff. I knew that we were selling the house so I figured that I should take her stuff before me and the baby went back to Manhattan.

"Kiley" I called, wandering up the staircase with the box filled with items. When I entered my sister's bedroom, I found her in bed with Matt. "Jesus Christ!"

I immediately turned around and began walking out of the house. Kiley and my ex-boyfriend fucking, the day after Diana died.

"Sam!" I hear Matt's cry behind me as I jumped into my Range Rover Evoque and placed the box on the passenger seat. "Sam, wait!" he begged.

"Why? Oh, so you can explain why you were fucking my little sister, the day after Diana died!"

"God damn it Sam will you just shut the fuck up!" Matt cried, wearing only his boxer shorts. "Why am I suddenly the bad guy here?"

"Because you slept with my sister!" My eyes widened in fury as I started up the car.

"Oh, so you're saying that I am the only person that you've fucked?" He cocked a brow.

"But I didn't sleep with your fucking dad the day after your fucking mum died!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, tears streaming down my face and my teeth ground together.

"Yeah but instead you've been sleeping with everybody else!" He retorted.

"Goodbye, Matt," I said as driving off.