SLEEPSONG (BoyxBoy)✔️

Chapter 146

We'd needed it after the unexpected and horrible bomb she'd dropped on us that night.

I'd talked to her about my sister, about my grief, and we'd done our best to communicate and work through our questions and issues with her help. She'd been fully supportive, offering sound advice about what each of us should do during moments when we felt depressed. 

Specifically, Sebastian, but that... well, yeah.

But all of that had come after the fight that had broken out between her and Sebastian when she'd told me that she fully intended to come stay with us for a while with the full intention of being turned. I won't try to pretend that I handled it well, because I didn't. 

I hadn't been able to handle it, period.

I was still grieving for my sister, and still wishing things had ended up differently, and I was still angry at Jasper for doing what he'd done... and most of all, I was in shock over why, how, and when she'd told us. Every second since the moment I'd found out that she had the same illness that had killed my sister, I'd been hearing echoes of that argument in my head.

Replaying our words over and over and over.

It never got any less shocking or painful. I kept expecting it to, but it didn't.

"What will Aerin do if you die, Woman?!" Sebastian had bellowed, practically foaming at the mouth as he'd paced around her hologram in aggravation. "You think you know what you're getting yourself into, but you don't! You really fucking don't, do you understand me?! Your rib cage is too narrow! If you attempt to let yourself be turned there is a very high chance that the shifts in your body will kill you! And how could you think of leaving behind a normal life--"

"Normal?!" she'd screeched. "What the hell do you know about my life?!"

"ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT BECOMING ONE OF US IS NOT WORTH LOSING EVERYTHING THAT YOU PRESENTLY HAVE!" he'd roared, deafening me. "WHAT OF YOUR BROTHER?! WHAT OF AERIN?! WHAT OF THE PEOPLE YOU HELP WITH THEIR LIVES?! IS THAT NOT ENOUGH?!"

"It doesn't matter!" she'd shouted, looking shockingly helpless and exhausted. "Not anymore! You just don't understand anything!"

"THEN TELL ME!" he'd spat, leveling a finger. "GIVE ME ONE DAMN GOOD REASON WHY I SHOULD ALLOW YOU TO BASICALLY RUN A SUICIDE MISSION ON YOURSELF! LOSING YOU WOULD DESTROY HIM, WOMAN! IT WOULD BREAK HIS ALREADY BROKEN FUCKING HEART!"

"I'M GONNA DIE EITHER WAY, THEN! HE DOESN'T HAVE A FUCKING CHOICE!" she'd wailed, and to my to my shock she'd burst into tears; Sebastian had halted immediately, and I... well, I'd pretty much gone catatonic with horror since I'd never seen her lose her composure like that. 

I'd known, even before she'd raised her hand and had ripped her wildly curly hair right off her own head, that she'd been dead serious, but in that moment it all became real... too real... so real that my heart had shattered all over again.

Louise was bald, completely bald, and Sebastian's breath had shuddered out.

"Fuck," he'd whispered, stunned. "Fuck..."

"Now do you understand?" she'd sobbed, rubbing her forehead and shaking, bald scalp oddly pale under the light. "I've had cancer on and off pretty much my whole life and for almost three years we thought it was completely gone, but near the end of last year I had an unexpected relapse and this time it's in my fucking brain. The doctor gave me a year, at most. I need this!"

"Lou!" I'd wailed, horrified. "Why didn't you tell--"

"Do you really have to ask that?" she'd interrupted, looking up at me with a harsh stare. "With all the frightening shit that was happening to you these last few months, the last thing you needed to hear about was my own health problems. You were living through a fucking nightmare far worse than something like cancer. At least I know what the end result of this is gonna be."