sweets || bryce hall

Chapter 35: I Dare You

Mia POV

Rory just stares into space, as we both sit on my bed, not answering anything I say. Her hands are shaking heavily and tears are falling down her face.

"Rory, come on, talk to me," I say, getting scared.

Suddenly a scream escapes her mouth and she crumbles down into the bed. "RORY!" I yell, shaking her shoulders, but she doesn't respond, just keeps crying.

"Rory?!" I hear Bryce's voice from down the hall, and a lot of running footsteps. Bryce, Jaden, Blake, Chase, Nick, and Thomas run into the room, and I see Alex and Kouvr stay by the door, some people standing behind them.

"Wh-whats going on?" Chase asks, his face draining further when he sees the crying Rory on the bed. Bryce walks towards me, so I get off the bed, making room for him to sit where I am. He carefully brushes the head out of her face, before saying,

"She must've had a flashback to something. We were being loud." he waits a second, watching her to make sure she's okay, before looking at Chase, the glare in his eyes deep, as he adds, "You caused this, all of this. This is your fault!"

-

Rory POV

I suddenly become aware of a hand on my thigh as someone starts yelling.

"I DON'T CARE IF THE FLASHBACK ISN'T ABOUT YOU, YOU CAUSED IT!" I hear Bryce scream, as I realize it's his hand on my leg.

"Oh fuck you man," I hear Chase's voice crack as he yells back. I sit up, looking around as Bryce springs up. I see Mia on my other side next to me, her eyes wide as she, like everyone else, watches Bryce walk towards Chase.

"Say that again. I dare you." I sit up, catching the attention of everyone in the room except for Bryce and Chase, who, even I can see, look like they want to kill eachother.

Jaden moves across the room over to me, sitting on the edge of the bed. He wipes away a tear from my cheek before looking back to the rest of the boys. I see Blake go to stand behind Bryce, Thomas moving between the two boys as Nick stands behind Chase. The two of them are just glaring now, breathing heavily.

"Okay, okay guys you need to cal-" Thomas trues to end the encounter but Bryce interrupts him, yelling,

"You don't protect him! He fucked up, he's a liar and he doesn't deserve protection! Who the fuck do you think you are Hudson?! Telling the world shit about my girl that I didn't even know!" I look down, feeling tears fall down my face. It's a mixture of the shame I'm feeling and also the fear of hearing the person, my person, who makes me feel safe normally, about to hit one of my friends.

Or someone I thought was my friend.

Jaden pulls me towards him, tightly holding me. I'm not sure if it's to keep me from getting in the middle, or to comfort me, but I'll take it.

Suddenly, Bryce moves to take a swing at Chase, making Chase and Nick jump towards him. Jaden jumps up and joins Thomas and Blake in trying to separate the three boys. Everyone in the hallway is yelling, clearly not knowing what to do.

I feel the tears keep falling as Mia jumps up and runs out the door, probably to talk to Kouvr.

I look down at my vibrating phone, seeing Charli's name, but I know I can't answer. Not right now. I let it ring out as I watch my family fighting.

I have to do something.

"STOP!" I yell, still sitting on the bed, probably looking super weak. Everyone freezes, their heads snapping towards me.

"Sweets..." Bryce starts, his jaw clench but I stop him.

"No. This isn't how this needs to go." I take a deep breath, sitting up fully looking around the room. Alex, Kouvr, and Mia stand in the doorway, clearly not knowing what to do. Thomas stands between Chase and Bryce, the rest of the boys scattered around. I shakily breath in once more, feeling all the tears that are still falling down my face, before starting,

"Bryce. I love you, so much, but fighting isn't the only solution. Chase was right, when I was suffering you were just out getting in fights and only cared about revenge." His eyes have softened a lot, and I want to walk over and hug him, not leaving his arms, but I know I need to do this.

"Jaden, your pride isn't everything, and I know you only ever want to protect yourself and everyone around you, but the solution to that isn't going live for the world to see in front of your house. That did no good." He shakes his head, looking down ashamedly.

"Josh," I call out, which makes him push himself into the room from the hallway, glowering at Chase before looking at me, softening his gaze as I say, "You don't have to like him, you never did. I get that not everyone in my life is going to get along, especially in this space. But that isn't an excuse to beat him up. Neither is him and Nessa hooking up. You aren't dating Nessa. You two broke up. You... you need to chill out okay? I know he kind of attacked you-"

"Kind of?! He-" Josh goes and almost explodes but Jaden slaps him on the back of the head, stopping him, so I continue,

"No matter what he did, this isn't the end. You both want to have these careers in the same space, so you have to coexist." I turn to Chase now, shakily standing up.

"Chase, no matter what, you messed up with all the tweets, and with Charli. I was with her. No matter what you say, that's the truth. You messed up." He hangs his head, and I feel horrible, but I know, even as my voice begins to crack, that I have to finish this, "But in regards to me, Chase I trusted you. I trusted you to be my friend, to care about me. My mental health isn't you guys' fans' concern. It's just not. I don't know how you found out about my relapse, but to be honest it wasn't anyone's concern but mine. But now... Now the entire world knows about it, and no one can undo that. I'm not even on social media, and yet I already get hate, and threats, all of it. And I get it, you wanted to hurt the boys for attacking you, you wanted to bite back. But instead you hurt me. You put me in a horrible position. You shoved me into a spotlight I never wanted. I just wanted a fresh start, and then I just wanted to fall in love. And now I'm here. I did nothing to ask for any of this! Not getting assaulted, not the attention, not the hate, not my broken arm?! And I never did ANYTHING to you. So why am I here?" He opens his mouth, trying to respond as he lifts his head from where it's been hanging but I stop him with my hand. The tears are flowing down my face, and I feel my voice begin to give out as I shakily say, "Actually, please don't. I can't do this anymore. I can't. I'm d-done."

I go to walk out, but I turn and add, "Bryce, fighting isn't the only solution. So don't just do that. If I matter at all to you, don't lay a hand on anyone here. But you didn't care much about me earlier anyway when Elle was there, so just... don't follow me." As I finish, I fall down to the ground, only being caught as Alex runs over, holding me up, as he was the closest one to me. Mia glares at Bryce who just sadly watches me, as Kouvr hugs me, holding me up and taking me out of the room, and down the hallway, away from everyone.

-

hi. this was instense, i'm sorry. i have the next chapter... sorta planned out. i hope y'all liked this one.

i'm still not doing very well, i'm really struggling with my mental health. if you guys want more of my writing i have another book i'm also going to get pretty active on i think, and i'm pretty active on my imagine book. it's more of a short stories book so you might like it!

i'm going to keep writing this obviously, it just takes a lot of thought and i don't always have the energy.

let me know what y'all thought with the comments and votes, and also let me know what you think is next.

also thank you for 215k reads xx

i love you guys, thank you so much as always for reading.