a/n - i know i know i know i know it's been eighty-two years, i get it.
school's been so hard guys, i'm sorry. i'm honestly struggling a lot and i've just been required to work especially hard lately, which is why this is so damn delayed. i've finally got it finished though, and it's a pretty event-filled chapter so i hope that makes up for it somewhat! the beginning is a bit ramblish, i noticed that. but pls hang in there, i really do think it gets better towards the end.
excuse any grammar or spelling errors, this isn't thoroughly edited yet, i just really wanted to make sure i'd get something up for everyone tonight.
also, muke gif for this chapter bc there's quite a bit of them in here, im laughing. (remember when luke didn't have a beard?)
thank you guys for putting up w my bs, it's an extremely difficult thing to do.
love and love and love, stay happy,
x bri.
-
[ cara ]
"How long until I can take them out?"
"About seven to ten days, beb."
"Can I scratch it?"
"Elena, no."
I groaned and brought the hospital blanket further up on my body so that it reached my chin. I glared at Calum who was sitting in a chair beside me with his head resting on the bed, and he stared back up at me with his eyebrows raised challengingly, and I grunted. "It itches, Calum!"
"It's a stitch, of course it's gonna itch." Ashton cackled from the other side of the hospital room, Michael swatting his arm but snorting along with him anyway into the back of his palm. There were actual two year olds in front of me. I rolled my eyes and shifted to lay on my side, whimpering in discomfort when the top of my head rustled against the pillow. I'll be honest, I'm a child when it comes to injuries. I'm a child in general, really, but injuries are befall my worst. I can't even handle stubbing my toe, never mind stitches.
Turns out that not long after Emma had walked out, or not long after I kicked Emma out, rather, I'd fallen somehow and bashed my head against the coffee table and it cut right open and bled like the top of your head was on its period, Ashton had said. The blood all over his gray shirt pretty much confirmed it. Michael had even told me that they were going to attempt to give me home-made stitches, "but I can barely work the toaster properly, so we figured we may as well just take you here," he pursed his lips sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck.
Calum must've noticed the large frown etched onto my face, quickly leaning in to press his lips onto my forehead, leaving them there for a while before pulling away. "You'll be fine."
"There are staples on my scalp, Cal."
"Hey, you're alive, smile." He whispered and grinned at me encouragingly before forcing himself to get up. He winced while stretching out his right arm and I felt terrible - he'd been sitting in the same chair for two hours after my surgery waiting for me to wake up, and he looked pooped. His skin was still as pale as it had been before I'd passed out and his black hair was branching out into all different sorts of directions and there were circles under his eyes that reminded me of a raccoon - and if I didn't feel so horrible, I probably would've laughed. Calum tucked his fuller bottom lip inbetween his teeth, "You're not on your deathbed, you even said it earlier. You had me worried though, you know? I-I thought it'd be worse, I thought you'd knock yourself out into a coma or something. It seemed a lot more intense than the other ones, you couldn't breathe or anything. I don't think I ever want to be in a waiting room again."
"It's tense." Michael agreed, nodding slowly and tipping back and forth on his toes.
"You need sleep," I shook my head. He was talking about me, he was worried about me, he stayed here in this cramped-ass-hospital room with me, he used his energy on me - he'd done so much for me in one day, all I really wanted was for him to go home, take a hot shower, and sleep. My parents were coming to see me in about an hour and a half, anyway - they'd gone to another press conference and were currently still stuck in Las Vegas traffic. "you guys should go home."
"We can't just leave you alone, El, the stitches are depressing enough, having no company would make it worse." Ash said, voice dripping with empathy. "I think we all need coffee, come with me, Cal."
Calum hummed and leaned down to kiss my forehead again, poking his tongue out and swiping it across my skin slightly, saying a quick I love you. I whined and used the back of my hand to wipe the wetness that was making my skin feel cool from the air hitting it, grumbling to myself as Calum laughed to himself and left the room with Ashton, leaving Michael and I alone.
"How do they feel?" the stop-light-fricking-red-haired-boy asked, chuckling quietly and walking over to sit in the seat Calum had once been occupying.
"Hellish, like the Nick Jonas song." I giggled, feeling satisfaction bubble inside of me at the sound of Michael genuinely laughing. "Where's Luke?"
Mike's eyes that had just seconds ago been lit up, fell, "He um, he ran after Emma."
"Oh."
"Yeah, I just, I'm sorry, I probably could've gotten him to stay but I was... I was frustrated, that he was even thinking of going after her, when there you were, bleeding, and I-"
"Would you have gone after her if you had the chance?"
"What? No, no of course not."
I rose my eyebrow. Michael exhaled defeatedly. "Maybe, I-I don't know. What happened with you guys, anyway? We heard screaming but we didn't really want to intrude."
"She likes you a lot, Michael, I can tell." I avoided his question, grinning at the sight of his eyes going wide and lighting up slightly again.
The boy looked shocked and uncomfortable and ecstatic all at once - it was difficult to explain. He kept a firm look though and looked back down at his feet. "Yeah, I don't think so."
"What? Why?"
Michael sighed again and scratched at his collarbone, looking up at me again tiredly. "I don't... I don't really know what happened, Elena. Like, ever since we watched that movie and I dropped her off at her house it was good, you know, like she didn't seem mad at me anymore. We would text and facetime and tag each other in funny Instagram pictures and memes and shit - and then it just stopped. Just when I thought she actually was starting to like me, it stopped."
"Mike..." I sighed and trailed off, pursing my lips together. I stared at the pale boy empathetically. He didn't even have a clue.
"She stopped like, answering my texts and whenever I called or facetimed her it would ring once before the line was cut. And then I woke up one morning to Luke brushing his hair and putting on gel and aftershave, Elena, aftershave. That's something men wear!"
I laughed loudly and for a second or two, so did Michael. It was comforting to know that even during times where someone as colorful and bright as Mike had to be a little more serious, he was still Michael. He didn't change as a person entirely. "That's mean, Mike."
"If Luke gets to have Emma then I get to have the right to sarcasm. I get to be a dick about it because that's obviously who Emma likes. " Michael said bluntly, his tone suddenly dropping and ceasing my laughter. "Obviously, she got bored and tired of me so she resorted to Luke who's got blonde hair and a lip ring and facial hair that isn't a mess and he's toned and he can sing and play guitar and here I am, in bed all day with-."
"Stop." I felt myself narrowing my eyes at him. I sat up in my bed and winced at the friction of the sheets against my head. Michael reached his hand out towards me but I shook my head dismissively, my silent way of telling that I was fine. I shifted in the crammed hospital bed to face him anyway with my legs criss-crossed. All of my limbs felt sore, and a part of me was screaming and begging for me to lay back down and bring the covers back over my head, but I wanted to look at Michael when I said this, I wanted him to know that I was being serious. "I've had my fair share of being compared to somebody else. I'd constantly compare myself to her, and I'd constantly be jealous because of how much better I thought she had it compared to me. I-I felt like she had every red apple on the tree and I was at the bottom of the stump, picking up left-over, rotten apples that didn't make it into her basket of ripe ones. I was always down here, and she was always up there. I thought she was so much better than me, Michael. Everybody loved her to death but nobody even knew my name. I felt like a zero amongst a twenty-seven."
He blinked, staying silent for a minute before nudging his chin and motioning for me to move over on the bed. I lowered my eyebrows confusedly but complied anyway, scooting over the best I could within the minimal space.
"Continue." He hummed, crawling onto the bed to sit beside me. I snickered as he placed his arm around my shoulders gently, careful not to touch the side of my head that was currently stapled together to prevent blood from gushing out.
I sighed and let out a breath that I wasn't even aware i was holding, sucking on the inside of my right cheek. "Now that I think about it, I still do feel like a zero compared to her. I've... I've learned, within the past couple of weeks, that she has so many incredible things in her life that I'm probably never going to have. It makes me extremely jealous, okay, I get how you feel. If I were a little more like her, or you know, a lot more like her, maybe I'd have everything she has that I want so badly. It sucks - feeling like you can't have something, or somethings, because you aren't good enough."
Neither of us said anything within the small hospital room for a while, the only sounds coming from the monitor beside me and the busyness of the hospital outside of the room. He was slowly rubbing my arm, like he knew that what I was talking about was an iffy topic, something that could make me cry if I focused hard enough.
I felt myself easing around Michael. It was selfish and horrible of me, but I was almost happy, or more so relieved, knowing that there was someone else out there experiencing what I'd been experiencing ever since I was like, nine. I connected with him, I got him, I really did. I understood him.
But regardless of how pissed I was at Emma, and how much I wanted Michael to stay down here with me for a little longer so that I'd feel a little bit less alone and a little more understood, I knew better than to be a bitch about it - there was truth to Emma's side that he needed to know about. I couldn't just let Michael throw all of the weight onto her.
"But the thing is, as much as our cases may be alike, they're also insanely different, Michael, you still have a chance." I looked up at the red-headed boy who'd suddenly peered down at me curiously. "You wanna know why Emma's always around Luke? Why she just stopped talking to you?"
Suddenly, it was like Michael's entire essence changed. He looked hopeful. "Wha- You know why?"
"Of course I know why. Even after what just happened we're... We're still best friends, you know?" I cleared my throat and forced the two sour words out of my mouth. Truth be told, I didn't exactly know if that was true anymore. Maybe in some sort of aspect since this project started, Emma and I had grown close enough to the point where we were somewhat best friends? Maybe? Maybe not? I don't know, the point is that none of that is even relevant anymore because at this point, I didn't even know if Emma and I were still acquaintances. For all I know, she might wanna set me on fire and throw me into crab-infested waters.
It sucked, too. Because I clearly remember the day Emma and I sat down together and she told me that even if everybody else, Calum, Michael, Ashton, Luke, Heather, Mali - even if everybody else left once I went back to being Cara, she'd still stay. She'd promised to become Cara's friend, and that was the only reason I had hope that everything would be okay once this was all over.
And now, I'm back to square one. I have no one to lean back on anymore.
I'm going to be back at square one again, sooner or later. I don't wanna go back there. I don't ever want to go back there - it feels so good to actually have people, a circle of people, even. I don't want to give it up yet. I don't want to give them up yet.
I bit my lip harshly and squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn't hate Emma. There was no way I could hate Emma if all she did was tell the truth. I'm being selfish. I was and still am being so selfish, attaching myself to things that don't belong to me. These people weren't my friends, they were Elena's friends. Calum wasn't my boyfriend, he was Elena's boyfriend.
Calum was not mine, he didn't love me. At all. I can pretend to be the person he really does love all I want, but at the end of the day, when I turn my lights off and get into bed - I'm still Cara. I'm the little fricking pimple-infused geek he was friends with at thirteen and is a complete stranger to him at eighteen, I'm the ground he walks on, I'm the gum stuck underneath his shoes - I'm nothing. He doesn't want to marry me in five years. He doesn't want to put up Christmas trees with me and cook breakfast with me and have kids with me.
I'd fallen in love with a guy who wasn't even mine to begin with.
I didn't even realize that I was tearing up until Michael reached over my torso to grab a tissue box from one of the bedside counters. He handed it to me with a small smile and I scoffed playfully, taking it from his hands and pulling one of the sheets of cotton out to dab at my eyes. "Look at you, gentleman and all. What a stud."
"I would've wiped your face for you but Calum has eyes at the back of his head and a shit ton of muscle." Michael laughed, squeezing my arm comfortingly. "You alright?"
I nodded. "I'm good, sorry. This is supposed to be about you and Em and I'm making it about me." He quickly parted his lips and crooked his eyebrows, like he was going to tell me I was wrong and that it was fine and that he was willing to listen to me complain or whatever, but I beat him to it. He had to know, that was the only way he'd actually be able to make things between him and Emma a little better. "She saw the picture you posted and thinks you like Camila, Michael. That's why she's so pissed and quit talking to you. She must've thought you were bored of her, man. I'm pretty sure that's why she's always around Luke, too."
"I don't like Camila like that at all, oh my God!" Mike dragged his hand down the front of his face, groaning loudly. "No, no, no. That's why? That's all?"
"Well don't react to it like it's nothing, it's definitely something." I crossed my arms feeling slightly defensive, watching as Michael crawled across the hospital bed so that he was sitting at my feet and looking straight at me. "If the roles were reversed and Emma suddenly jus posted a picture of Luke, you'd be ticked too, I guarantee it."
Michael grunted, sounding defeated and exasperated. "So what? You don't think she likes him, do you?"
"Who likes who?"
It was safe to say both Mike and I jumped a little at Luke's voice suddenly disturbing the quiet of the room. The red of Michael's hair swooshed around in the air looking like a big blur of color as he quickly looked over his shoulder at Luke who was standing near the door, and then back at me, frantically.
I cleared my throat loudly and smiled reassuringly at the blonde in the black hoodie. "This girl from a TV show we both watch, don't worry about it."
Luke jut his bottom lip out and nodded, inching closer towards the bed slowly. Michael coughed sounding uncomfortable, and moved back to his seat in the hospital chair.
"You're not, like, you're not mad at me, are you?" He asked quietly after a while to my right, silently. "For going after Emma?"
I shook my head gently, offering him a small smile. He genuinely felt bad. "You're fine, Luke. You were just worried."
"Yeah, but you-"
"She said it's fine." Michael interjected, rolling his eyes and exhaling loudly. "We don't want to hear about your experience with Emma."
Luke pursed his lips back together and stared at Michael for a moment or two with his eyebrows furrowed together. My eyes shifted back and forth between red and blonde - it felt like one of those moments between two people where it should only be those two people in the room. I felt like it'd be best if I weren't here right now but what the hell, I was attached to a monitor and the anesthetic from the surgery was still in the process of wearing off - I'd only make it two steps towards the door before falling over.
Luke finally sighed, quietly, and looked back at me sympathetically. He looked like a little child. "Does it hurt?"
"Like a bitch."
"I was just gonna check up on her and asked what happened between you guys. And you know, tell her that you hit your head on the table. So I followed her to her house but she got to the door too quickly and locked me out. "
Michael snickered and I turned to glare at him incredulously. I didn't understand what his deal was, why he was still being so rude to Luke; I'd already told him that Emma as into him.
"We're okay. Best friends fall out, it happens." I nodded at him reassuringly, keeping my gaze tense and firm. I looked over at Michael who was still staring straight ahead at the wall disinterestedly. "Sometimes, best friends fight over small things. But we're best friends, and we can't let things throw us off track. There's a tight rope keeping us held together that never snaps, even when things, people, try to break it apart. That's what makes us best friends."
Michael's eyes suddenly diverted to connect with Luke's, before they eventually met mine, not much emotion within them. He stared at me blankly, but a part of me knew that he was following me.
After that, the room was filled with silence - the slightly cringey, uncomfortable kind. Luke had moved to sit on the opposite side my bed and had started to scroll through his phone. Every now and then, I could see him peer up from underneath his eyelashes at Michael who'd buried his entire head into his arms.
Luke was confused. And Michael was still insecure.
Elena's phone vibrated from the counter towards Luke's side, and he was quick to reach over and hand it to me. I grinned at him thankfully, before unlocking the phone.
Hey! R u free later for dinner?
Diner burgers sound so good atm
i'm currently in the hospital with staples engraved into my scalp. burgers do sound hella good rn though, can i get a raincheck?
Omg, yeah! Of course
Wtf happened?
emma and i had a fight.
my head + wooden coffee table = blood + stitches
Say no more. That honestly sucks, El. Hope ur doing okay
Is she there rn?
no, the guys are though.
she probably doesn't care right now, we were midway through fighting when it happened.
chances are she's still pissed off at me.
But ur in the hospital ffs, she should at least be there for moral support. U feel me?
i do.
That really sucks... Don't worry about it ok? She'll come around
Everybody has eye-openers.
thank you. i'll talk to you soon? sry, the boys are here and they're taking time out of their day, i dont wanna be on my phone for too long.
Of course, feel better El! Really hope u and Em are good! x
i don't know anymore, heather.
Quickly, as if coming to realization of what I was doing, I bit my lip and pressed the power button of my phone. I reached over the arm of the hospital bed and placed my phone ontop of the counter just as Ash and Cal walked back into the room with multiple cups of coffee in their hands.
I never ended up pressing send.
-
"I don't want you talking to her. At least, not for two weeks. I need time to calm down."
I gaped at my Mom who was currently angrily pulling take-out boxes out of a plastic bag, slamming cartons and sporks and napkins onto the table. "You know it wasn't Em's fault, right? She didn't exactly know I was going to end up in the hospital, Mom."
Mom laughed humorlessly and pulled open the tabs to one of the take-out boxes she and Dad had grabbed before heading here, and stuck her fork into a piece of sesame chicken. "She still triggered the damn attack, am I wrong?!"
"That was supposed to be mine..." Dad exhaled frustratedly, shutting his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. He opened his eyes and rose his eyebrows at me sarcastically. "It's been a couple of days since we've all been together as a family and had a solid conversation with one another. Isn't it great that we're re-uniting with sesame chicken and deep conversation?"
"What do you expect us to re-unite with? Casual greetings and hugs?" Mom snapped and narrowed my eyes at my Dad, who immediately sunk in his seat. "She just went through surgery!"
"They're stitches, Marissa! She didn't have a face-transplant!"
"You sound like you don't care at all about what just happened to her, Mark! That's what you always sound like!"
"Is that criticism towards my parenting?!"
"Yes! She didn't just bleed, Mark. She didn't just have to get stitches done. She had an attack, another attack, and that is always something that we have to take seriously, every time it happens. One shouldn't be less important than the other. And you don't seem to realize-"
"Stop!" I groaned loudly, nearly in a shout. The patients on the floor below us probably heard every word said in this room within the past five minutes.
The minute my parents got here and shooed the four guys out, rather rudely, may I add, with narrowed eyes and red cheeks, I already knew I was in for it tonight. I didn't want to hear them scream over me anymore, though. I always thought it wold be comforting to have my parents fight over me, you know? I thought that it would show me that actually do care about me. Instead, though? It hurts. It's one of the most painful things to witness because I already know at this point. I know that my Dad doesn't care. I know that my Mom does, but only when I'm in a hospital with my skin sewed together and covered in faint blood stains. I know that I'm stressing them out. I know that I'm slowly creating a mess between them. I know. I even know more than that, damn it.
I know that I'm being a horrible sister. I know that I'm disappointing the few people who actually love me. I know that I'm not the person the person who I love, loves. I know that all of these things that I'm so infatuated with are only temporary. I know that I'm ruining my sister's life, piece by piece. I know that the best thing is probably to stop the project. And I know that I don't want to stop the project because I know that I've grown so fucking attached to loving El's life. I know that it makes me selfish.I know that it makes me a terrible person. I know. I know, and rather than consoling me it makes me wanna tear an entire room apart. It makes me want to tear myself apart.
I darted my eyes between the two people who'd raised me, yet ironically enough, I never felt like they actually did so. They were both staring back at me, quiet and shamefully. I felt like laughing, to be honest. "If you guys are just going to yell at each other and make my head that is currently being held together by thread ache, then leave, please. I'll call Calum."
Nobody said anything for the next few minutes. My Dad had pulled out his laptop and started working on something for El's case, from the very little he told me when I asked. Mom sat there in the seat closest to the TV with chopsticks still fiddled in her hands and a carton of take-out in front of her. As for me? I stared into space, thinking of how my Build-a-Bear at home was doing, if her white sundress would need to be washed once I went home. When would I go home? Dad had a point, these were just stitches. It wasn't a huge- I'm getting off topic, sorry.
I felt for lack of a less cliche word, alone. There was so much Emma had said that I knew I had to start thinking about sooner or later, I was just dancing around it all, to be honest. In a perfect world, ignoring something would make it go away. The problem is is that is not a perfect world, you know? It's rather the reciprocal. The opposite. Normally whenever I'm confused I talk to someone, and considering Elena's situation, lately, that person has been Emma. Another problem, Emma hates me.
I've never felt more shut out and locked in than I did in this moment. It was like I was back to being Cara again - there was nobody for me to turn to. I had two parents who I'd burned so hard, they went mute. Calum and the guys had all gone to that John guy's house to work on some more of their album. Again, Emma hated me. I didn't really feel like getting drowned in Heather's pity. Mali was more than likely busy with Jack. And Elena's missing, have you heard?
"Bloody hell." Dad muttered under his breath, catching my attention. It was the first time he'd said something within the last couple of silent minutes.
"I'm confused, I don't think I married a British man?" Mom brought her eyebrows close together around and a piece of broccoli. I was about to laugh and Dad's lips had parted widely like he was about to yell something out again, but Mom's cellphone ringing on the table beat both of us to it.
Her eyes were narrowed as she picked the phone up and stared at it for a moment, and only narrowed further after a few more seconds. She shook her head and then brought the phone up to her ear. "Hey, Paige. How are you?"
I turned to my Dad who looked anxious, his foot tapping against the tile and his lip tucked between his teeth. "Who the hell is Paige?"
Dad shrugged, mindlessly. Like my words pretty much flew in one ear and right out the other, his mind far focused on something way more important - it wasn't a new feeling. "Emma's Mom."
I winced - what if she was complaining to Mom about the fight we had?
"Um," my Mom stood up from her seat, eyeing me curiously with her teeth poking at her cheek. "no. No, she isn't with us. Why?"
"Any day, now," Dad rolled his eyes, looking frantically at his nails.
"What're you so worked up about?" I finally asked him with my eyebrows raised expectantly. It better be something good, because I was getting sick of him acting like he was pedestaled above everybody. Yes, he's my Dad. Yes, he's the governor of California. But at the end of the day, he was still a person. He was born a person, and years from now, when it's inevitably his turn, he'll die a person. He's not going to be "special" forever. He was just like all of us.
"I'm waiting for your Mom to hang up, it's something I want the whole family to hear." He said simply, yet a little too loudly, like he was trying to subtly throw a hint at my Mom. She only gave him a look.
"What? What do you mean?" Her eyes locked with mine, wide and startled looking. Something had happened, something had to have happened. My heart started to speed up. "I-I, no. No, we haven't, Paige, I'm sorry. I don't know what to say, oh my gosh. Yes, definitely. I'll let you know if anything changes, I promise. Call us if you need anything."
Mom detached the phone from her ear, her hands seemingly shaking. Dad, on the other hand, exhaled in relief, "Great, are we done? I have something important to-"
"Cara," Mom walked quickly to the end of my bed, and I sat up slowly, getting the hint a serious grown-uppish talk was about to go down. "Paige heard Emma screaming and crying a couple of hours after she got home. S-She thought something happened so she ran up there to check but when she opened the door, the window was shattered, there was blood on the carpet and her phone was cracked. They can't find her anywhere, they looked all over town and they called the police about an hour ago, and they haven't said anything back."
I squinted and clenched my hands into fists with hopes that they would stop fricking sweating, "So what are you saying?"
"They think someone broke into her room and took her. She's missing."