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Friday, November 15th
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I've never been deep inside the dark neighborhood of Florence until now. I was awkwardly waiting inside Dimitri's car while he was inside some sketchy looking trap house. It had been an hour and it was almost getting close to midnight. My dad must've been texting me, wondering where I was and why I haven't come home yet.
I wasn't looking forward to the scolding or if I was going to be grounded. It's not like I have been going out to parties or anything this entire time. All of my free time has been spent at the hospital with Ambrose.
I finally see Dimitri's figure emerge from the small run down house with a black bag in one of his hands. He opens the back door behind me and tosses the bag onto the backseat and finally comes around to the driver's side.
The car comes to life again and he starts to drive back towards Hollow Grove.
"What's in the bag?" I ask quietly. I was probably stupid for asking, but I was quite curious. I wanted to know why Dimitri was seen as a threat and what he had going up his sleeves.
"Drugs," he says bluntly.
"Drugs? What're you doing with drugs?" I ask, eyeing the black bag.
"Business," he says. He starts the car and doesn't say anything else.
I wasn't going to try and pry more information out of him so I let it be and let him drive me home. It was still raining pretty hard and I was grateful that I didn't have to walk home alone. We reached my house in no time and Varushka came out of the house holding an umbrella.
"Chto ty zdes' delayesh'?" Varushka hisses at him. (Translations: What are you doing here?)
I look at both siblings and Dimitri is standing there without a care in the world while Varushka is glaring at him.
"Bringing her home, what does it look like?" Dimitri rolls his eyes and Varusha averts her attention back to me.
"Your parents are sleeping so they won't know you came late," Varushka says.
I nod at her and she escorts me inside of the house while dodging the rain. I stand by the doorway before I turn to face Dimitri.
"Thank you for bringing me home," I say, nervous to even look up at his eyes.
"Sure," he mutters.
I leave both siblings to talk and shut the door behind me. I find both of my parents passed out on the couch with teacups sitting on the coffee table. I'm assuming Varushka had slipped some sleeping pills into their drinks in order for me to sneak by. I owed her one.
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Monday, November 18th
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I was surprised that Ethan didn't show up to school and nor was I surprised that Tiffany wasn't here either.
"What did you do for your birthday?"
I instantly felt the chills run up my arm as I remembered what it felt like to stand under the cold rain on what was supposed to be my special day.
"Just dinner," I say, giving her a fake smile.
"Tiffany said she wasn't feeling well so she skipped," Maya says as we walk towards the next class together.
I only hum as a response. I wasn't stupid. They were probably together after all and Ethan just thinks I wouldn't think that they were.
"I'm going to see Ambrose after school today, do you want to come along?" I ask.
"I have to take my little sister to her soccer game, otherwise I would," she says, giving me an apologetic look.
"It's okay I don't mind going alone," I say.
I rushed to my car when the final bell rang for the day. I took the familiar streets and turns and arrived at the hospital. By now the front desk recognized me and gave me my visitor's pass. Ambrose was alone in his room as his mom hadn't gotten out of work yet.
I took my place beside his bed and automatically went for his right hand that was closest to me. He was still hooked up to all these wires and tubes that were helping him stay alive. The neck brace was still on as he almost broke his neck and it was the only thing preventing him from becoming paralyzed.
"I was able to finish that one movie you talked about a while ago in one of our study sessions," I say, "I think I'll stick to my cheesy girly films you call them." I chuckle to myself and I get no response.
"My birthday wasn't all that fun if I'm being honest. It was pretty shitty and it rained all day," I say with a sigh, "I think my birthday would've been much more fun if you weren't stuck here."
He still lays motionless and there's not a twitch of movement of his muscles. His heart rate is the same and all the beeping sounds in the room all sound the same. I rub my thumb on the back of his hand just to feel the ridges of his skin and the familiar scars that I've become familiar with touching.
His poor self has only been in this realm for a short period of time and has experienced more pain than one should feel. If I could put myself in his place, I would do it in a heartbeat. Even while he lays there, I still feel like I've become a lot closer with Ambrose.
About two hours have passed by and I decided to get something to snack on while I still wait for his mom to come to the hospital. The vending machines were just down the hall so I walked the short distance. After looking at my options, I settled on a can of ginger ale and some pretzels. I grabbed the can and a small bag of pretzels and headed back to the room.
I watched as nurses rush towards the room I had just walked out of and I stood there frozen as they all yelled orders at each other. I forced myself to walk a couple steps and I heard the flatline coming from the monitor. I stood there at the entrance of the room in shock as they tried to revive Ambrose.
I feel my stuff drop from my hands and one of the nurses turns around to face me.
"I'm sorry miss you can't be here," she says with an apologetic look on her face. She pushes me out of the room and closes the door on my face.
I could just see from the small window on the door what the nurses were doing. They were trying to do CPR on him as well as the defibrillator. I feel the blood drain from my face as I watch the horror in front of me. Tears welled in my eyes as I watched them work on Ambrose until finally something popped up on the heart monitor.
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"He's stable now, but I'm not sure why he flatlined out of nowhere," the doctor says, "his vitals are good and he's still on the oxygen, but eventually we'll have to test how his lungs are working without it."
"Thank you doctor," Mrs. Woods says as we sit outside Ambrose's room.
The doctor walks away leaving us to digest the news. Ambrose was okay, his heart just gave out all of a sudden without a clear answer as to why. I was afraid that something like this could happen again, but we were assured that it wouldn't.
"You should go and rest," Mrs. Woods says, offering me a gentle smile, "It's been a long day for both of us. I can take it from here."
I shake my head. "No disrespect, but I would rather be here than go home. I don't want Ambrose or you to be alone in case it does happen again."
She hesitantly nods and opens the door to Ambrose's room again. We both take our spot next to Ambroses' bed like nothing had happened and we settle into a comfortable silence.
"He's not my son," she blurts out. Well the silence only lasted a couple seconds.
"What?" I ask, hoping that I didn't hear that right. Maybe the beeping of the machines had indented into my brain and caused me to go deaf for a second and didn't hear what she had said.
"He's not my real son. He's adopted. That's why we don't look alike," she says, wearing a sad smile on her face. There were tears in her eyes and one quickly ran down her face. "That's why it's been so hard to control him. We don't share anything but a last name."
Now that I look at them closely. Ambrose looked nothing like Mrs. Woods. The only thing he might've shared with Mr. Woods was their hair color, but even then there was nothing that he could've inherited from both. He was so different from his parents.
"Who's son is he?" I ask.
"Some poor teenage girl who had twins and gave them up for adoption after the babies' father was sent to jail," Mrs. Woods says, "she didn't want anything to do with the children. I couldn't have children and Aaron always wanted a boy. So we decided to adopt one of them. The other stayed in Oregon."
"Why not both?" I ask, as if that was the most important thing to ask.
"Because the girl lied and said she was only having one child," she says, "So we quickly signed the papers, moved to Texas and then raised him as best as we could. We should've known that his attitude was hereditary and that everything erratic he did was because his father was exactly the same."
"Will you ever tell him?"
"I can't tell him now. He would run away and never come back. I'll tell him when the time is right," she says.
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Thursday, November 21st
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I sat in the library trying to work on the last minute college applications that were to be due by the end of next week. Unfortunately, it was during Thanksgiving break and I would have to put in overtime to get them done.
My first choice of schools were waiting for me to submit my applications for an early decision and I couldn't mess this up. Not only would I regret it in the long run, but all the other schools didn't come close to Harvard.
"Have you been avoiding me?" I hear Ethan's sickly voice from beside me. I almost jolt out of my skin when I hear it.
I look up from my laptop and turn to face him. He's standing there with a gym bag on his shoulder and a stern look on his face.
"I think you've been avoiding me," I point out, "You left me, remember?"
He sighs and pulls a chair out from my left side. I moved a couple centimeters away from him like he was the plague.
"I thought you would've known to reach out to me so that we could talk about it and discuss what went wrong. Isn't that what happy couples do?" He asks, like it was some sick joke.
"Ethan, are you okay?" I raise an eyebrow.
"What do you mean?"
"You left me because I didn't feel comfortable with you touching me. Did you forget what you've done?"
"I don't think this is working between us," he says, "you're not like your old self and it's getting kind of annoying."
He thinks this isn't working? I wanted to laugh and I did.
At first it was a scoff and Ethan only stared at with a serious look on his face. Then I let out a giggle and then a full blown laugh.
"So you're breaking up with me?" I ask, still laughing at how he thinks this is all my doing.
"You need help Evangeline," he says, looking at me with a concerned look on his face. "I can't be with someone that has issues."
Issues? He thinks I'm the one with issues?
"Sure, we can break up," I snort, turning back to my laptop screen.
"I know it's going to be tough, but you'll be okay right?" Better than ever I want to shout out.
"I won't cry over you if that's what you're asking."
He seems to let out a sigh of relief and gets up from his seat. He turns slightly towards me before he leaves, "We can always be friends."
I'm left dumbfounded in my chair as I watch Ethan leave. I feel my shoulders shake my silent laughter before I feel the tears streaming down my face. I wasn't crying because I was saddened. I was crying because it all felt like some shit show. Where were the cameras and production crew?
I felt weight had been lifted off my shoulders and I no longer had to be keeping up this facade with Ethan. Why did he want to break up all of a sudden? That just didn't make the slightest sense to me. He was so serious that I would forever be his and wouldn't let me out of his sight just a month ago.
How can someone change their mind in just a month?
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Friday, November 22nd
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I was surprised to see Tiffany standing at my front door when I was on my way to head out to the hospital.
"Tiffany, what're you doing here?" I ask.
"I heard you and Ethan broke up," she says, failing to hide that slight smirk that's trying to curve up on the right corner of her lip.
"Uh, yeah," I say, "it was out of the blue."
She pulls me into an embrace and I feel suffocated with her sickly sweet perfume. "I'm so sorry, Evangeline. I know breakups suck, but hey at least you can now fully focus on Ambrose, right?"
I pushed her away. "I didn't break up with him because of Ambrose," I say, furrowing my brows at her. "He broke up with me."
"Well regardless of who did it, it still doesn't change the fact that Ethan won't feel neglected," she says.
"Neglected?" I scoff, "That wasn't the full reason why he broke up with me."
She cocks her head. "That's what he told me. You were never at his games and you rarely showed up to his practices. He wanted someone by his side, someone to help with his workouts, and keep him on track with his training."
"I had my own stuff to do. Do you think I was just chilling at home or spending most of my time doing stuff that didn't matter?" I feel anger rising in me as the conversation continues. "At least I'm working towards my future too and not standing around waving pom poms!"
"Standing around?!" She scoffs, "I'm going to nationals with my team! I have my future planned out in case you didn't know." Her words seething with anger.
"What future is that? Continue being a homewrecker?"
She's practically glaring at me and she's shaking from anger. "Says the one who continued to run off to another man while having the best boyfriend at her side."
"Best boyfriend?" I scoff in her face, "Ethan raped me."
Her mouth gapes open and closes it. "That's not possible."
"Believe me I tried to convince myself that it wasn't, but he did."
"When?"
"Right after he lost the game."
She shakes her head. "Ethan would never do that. He loved you."
"I thought he did too until he forced himself on me," I say. I feel a tear run down my face, quickly wiping it away.
"No, that didn't happen," she shakes her head, "Boyfriends can't force themselves onto their own girlfriends. You probably just regretted the sex, didn't you?"
My heart shatters in my chest. Tiffany doesn't believe me. This was one of the main reasons why some people don't speak up, they fear that their feelings would be rejected. If I told my parents, would they believe me? or say the same thing Tiffany is saying?
"Did you know that most rapes are done by someone that the victim knows. It makes up the largest percentage of all perpetrators. I know because I did research when I was debating about telling someone."
"Did you tell someone?"
"Only two people," I say quietly, avoiding her shameful eyes.
"Yet you still wanted the comfort of another man?" She snorts, "See if I was raped, I wouldn't want another man to be near me or to even look at me. Yet you still hung out with Ambrose and even went as far as to go visit him at the hospital. Were you actually raped? Or are you just crying wolf?"
"Get the fuck out," I mutter.
"Say that again."
"Get the fuck out!" I raise my voice at her. I straighten my back and stare right at her.
She takes a step back and gives me one last final glance, shaking her head at me. "I did fuck your boyfriend in the summer," she says, a devilish smirk lingering on her lips, "actually since before the summer. Trust me whatever you guys did that night, will never compare to the nights that we had."
"Did he give you a promise ring too? Or have you always been a 2 a.m. booty call to him?"
Her smirk falters and she clenches her jaw. I slam the door in her face before she even has a chance to react.
I wait a couple of minutes until I hear her drive off before I get out of the house again.
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I walked into Ambrose's room nonchalantly like I hadn't just argued with someone a few minutes ago. Mrs. Woods was actually beside the bed for once before me and I took my seat beside her.
"They took out the breathing tube and he's been able to breathe on his own so far," she says as I look over at Ambrose. "They took it out early this morning."
There isn't a huge tube going down his throat anymore; instead, it's replaced by a normal oxygen tank. He doesn't look like he's in severe pain anymore and the neckbrace has also been removed.
There's only a few cuts and bruises that are still visible on his face.
"I'm gonna go let the doctor know that he's been doing good so far," she says. She gets up from her seat and trails out of the room.
I reach for Ambrose's hand and interlace my hand with his, automatically feeling comforted with just his touch.
"There's so much I want to tell you," I say quietly.
I feel a twitch in my hand and I close my hand. Ambrose's index finger moved about a centimeter. Then he does it again.
"Ambrose?"
There's a stir, a slight movement with his leg and then I look at his face. His eyebrows furrow a bit and then his eyes start to flutter.
"Ambrose, can you hear me?" I'm practically out of my seat from the shock. I'm standing over his bed, just watching him move.
He blinks away the grogginess and lets out a soft groan as he moves his fractured leg.
"Wait, don't move your leg!"
He finally opens up his light hazel eyes and looks up at me. He squints at the bright light.
"Oh my god! Ambrose!" Mrs. Woods gasps from the entry way as we both watch Ambrose wake from the coma.
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A/N: Hello 🧍♀️ it's me again.
I didn't realize how long I went without updating 😬 But I was still making sure I wanted to go down this direction with this chapter so here we are!
Anyways, this is another sign to read Infatuated since I did briefly mention a sub plot in this chapter and it does have to do with the characters in that book. The literary universe just expands the more I write. I swear it all come together and everything will make sense!
The next chapter will be in Ambrose POV (Finally) omg. It will be a lengthy chapter because it goes in DEEP into his past and the lore behind him and his "family". I hope the storyline isn't getting anyone confused, like I said before I will try to explain everything if I have to 😭
I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and I will see you guys in the next one. Don't forget to vote if you liked the update!
- N ♡