*Sabina's POV*
The car pulls up at my house. It feels weird coming back home considering I haven't been home in the past three weeks. I would have been discharged from the hospital earlier but because of the unnecessary screaming and shouting, my throat had started to swell up which complicated things. So I had to stay in the hospital a little bit longer so the doctors could monitor me.
Everything still looks the same except for the huge banner waving in front of the house, reading 'Welcome Home'. I feel a slight wave of embarrassment as I imagine people passing by, looking at my house and wondering who's being welcomed home.
"You ok Sabina?" Dad asks. I notice he's stopped the car and turned the engine off.
"Yeah," I mumble. Dad and mum clamber out of the car and the door on my side opens. "You didn't have to open the door. I could have opened it myself," I tell dad but he smiles instead.
"I know, but you're still not in the best condition," He says as I step out of the car and we walk towards the front door. "I don't want you to stress about anything. Just focus on getting better." I nod in response.
When dad opens the door, there's no one here. We step in and go into the living room where we're welcomed by a chorus of 'welcome home'. I don't have time to look at them at all when someone comes running towards me.
"Oh my gosh Sabina you're ok!" Alexa says as she hugs me tightly, almost making me topple over at the sudden gesture. She lets go and holds onto my shoulders to steady me. I smile at her. "How do you feel?"
"I feel kind of rocky but I'm fine. The doctor said to just rest and not to stress about anything," I reply.
"It's great to have you back. I missed my best friend," She says and hugs me again.
"Looks like Alexa's stolen your girlfriend Jack," I hear someone say and Alexa lets go to turn around. I look to see Jack G, Jack J, Cameron, Nash, Taylor, Carter, Matt, Jacob and Karissa smiling at me.
"Nah, Alexa wouldn't do that," Jack replies, smirking at me.
"Sorry, but I already did. Looks like you're going to have to find another girlfriend," Alexa says cheekily and she puts her arm around my shoulders.
"Hey! What about me?!" Jack J says, his outburst causing everyone to laugh.
"Hmm, I don't know," Alexa says with a laugh. Everyone comes up to me and they each give me a hug one by one.
"You're a tough girl Sabina. How'd you survive all that?" Cameron says as he ruffles my head, causing the beanie on my head to fall off. I shake his hand off and laugh, adjusting my beanie back onto my head.
"It's cos all of you guys are wimps," I say jokingly.
Cameron lightly punches me on the arm. "Oh please, Sabina. I've got more muscle than you. Have you seen my six pack?" He says and starts showing off his muscles.
Jacob stands next to me, nudging me. "So," He starts saying, watching at everyone becomes engrossed in some sort of game testing each other's muscles.
"What?" I ask.
"I found your secret box that was hidden very cleverly in your room. I guess not so cleverly since I found it," He says with a smirk.
"What secret box?" I ask, staring at him.
"Oh, you know that secret box filled with your secret stuff."
"Hey! That's an invasion of my privacy! Why did you even go in my room anyway?" I exclaim.
"So you do have a secret box then? Guess I'll have to find it now."
"Wait, what?"
"I was kidding sis. I didn't go in your room. But now I'm tempted now that I know you do have a secret box."
"If you do, I'll break your computer. I'm sure there's plenty of secret stuff on there," I retort and he playfully glares at me. I lower my voice so that no one can hear, except for Jacob. "Do they know?"
"No," Jacob replies with a whisper.
"What do they think happened?"
"We didn't tell them what happened with David and Hunter. We told them you took a nasty fall by tripping up on some stairs, banging your head on a pipe which caused the head wound. As for the bruises on your neck, you almost got strangled to death by some sort of plastic. Something along the lines like that; they didn't question too much."
"Sounds like I would trip on the stairs." I laugh weakly.
"You've got to be more careful," Jacob says in his normal voice. "We don't want to end up losing you. Not that I'd miss you of course," He says jokingly.
I gasp and punch him in the arm. "Rude," I mumble and he just laughs. He sees Jack coming towards us and he goes off to talk to dad.
"Are you feeling ok?" Jack asks as he engulfs me in a sweet-smelling hug.
"Yeah," I reply, resting my head on his chest.
"Are you sure? If you're not, then just tell me," He says, looking at me with a warm smile.
"I'm sure," I reply, returning the smile. He leans in and places and small and swift kiss on my lips. He takes a quick glance at my head and swiftly takes the beanie off, putting it on his head instead. "That's mine!" I protest.
"You seem to have gotten into a habit of wearing my stuff. So I don't see why I can't wear your stuff."
"It's not my fault you keep leaving them at my house. Learn to take proper care of your clothes."
"Don't tell me, this hat is now called George?"
"Um no," I say, looking at him weirdly. "Jack, when did you become so obsessed with inanimate objects?" I say cheekily and he stares at me, open-mouthed.
"I'm not even going to comment on that anymore," He simply replies. I sit down on the sofa with everyone else and Jack sits down next to me, taking his hand in mine. I smile at the lively atmosphere in front of me and look at Jack, suddenly remembering something.
"By the way..." I start to say.
"Yes?" Jack questions.
"You know when Molly came over with Ella and Maya? Ella said something to you?"
"When was this?" He asks and I sigh. Sometimes, he has the memory of a goldfish.
"When Ella whispered something to you and she told you not to tell anyone?" I remind him and he nods. "So what did she say to you?" I ask again.
"How come you're remembering this now?" He asks and I shrug. I look at him, expecting him to answer. "Oh, I don't know what Ella said," He says quickly and his face flushes a light pink.
"You're lying," I say, poking him in the arm.
"I'm not. She honestly didn't tell me anything. She just whispered gibberish in my ear."
"Ok, whatever you say," I reply, not believing a single word. I start talking to Karissa and she tells me about a promotion she's received at work. I congratulate her on the promotion and she tells about how everyone loved the makeup look she did on me at prom. It's become a favourite amongst customers looking for elegant makeup looks for special events.
"Sabina," Jack says but I ignore him.
"So what did she say to you?" I ask Karissa and she explains that a customer wanted to have her hair dyed in every colour possible.
"Sabina!" Jack whines but I don't pay attention to his whining. I smile a little seeing how frustrated he is becoming. "Why are you giving me the silent treatment?"
"I think Jack wants to talk to you," Karissa says and whatever she said in the past few minutes hasn't sunk in. I try to throw her a look to say 'I don't want to talk to Jack at the moment' but she's talking to Alexa now. I have no excuse to ignore Jack.
"Ok fine you win!" Jack whispers loudly. "You're so stubborn!"
I turn back to face him again. "So what did Ella tell you?"
"Um..." He nervously says, rubbing the back of his neck. "She's gonna kill me if she finds out I told you," He mutters but I simply raise an eyebrow at him. "Um, well, she told me that she's going to be the person carrying the rings when you and I get married," Jack mumbles and I see his face turn a startling shade of red.
"No way!" I laugh and he nods. I hear laughter from the other side of the room and see Matt and Carter laughing their heads off.
"Dude! Your face is literally a tomato!" Matt says which makes them both laugh again. Unfortunately, their laughter has caused everyone to look towards where Jack and I are sitting and everyone else in the room starts laughing as well.
"Oh God..." Jack mumbles as he covers his face with a pillow. Alexa catches my eye and she gives me knowing smile. I shake my head at her but she grins even wider at me and I sigh, knowing my attempts of trying to subdue this situation is futile.
When everyone's stopped speculating on Jack's red face and have gone back to their own conversations, I nudge him softly and he lifts his head from the pillow. his face back to its normal colour. "What did you say to Ella?" I ask him.
"Well, I didn't really say anything back to her because she kind of demanded to carry the, um..."
"Oh ok," I quickly say to save him the embarrassment of having his face turn red again. "I've never seen your face turn so red before."
"It doesn't happen very often," He mumbles.
"Wait, I've got the perfect name!" I say excitedly.
"What?"
"Whenever someone goes red, just like you did, I'm going to say that they've gone Jack red."
"But then people are going to ask why I went red."
"Exactly. You can have the pleasure of explaining that to them." I grin at him.
"That's never going to catch on."
"Trust me. It'll catch on. I'll make sure that it does."
"You are literally the cruellest person I've met."
"Oh honey, my cruelness goes beyond just that. You just haven't experienced it yet," I reply, patting him on the shoulder.
I look around me, smiling at my friends and family. I don't know why I ever thought that leaving them behind would be the best decision. I guess I didn't realise how lucky I am to have such wonderful people beside me. It's great to be back home.
~~~
A/N
Thank you for 18k reads :)
It's been nearly 3 months since I last updated. I'm so incredibly sorry for that. I've been swamped with tests and homework and a lot of deadlines to meet since school started. I've literally not had the time to write up a chapter and post it.
But I promise you that this will be the last time that I will let you go for so long without a new chapter. I'll be posting another chapter soon as the next chapter is the last chapter (cries).
EDIT: I've gone onto the draft for the final chapter and realise I haven't finished it at all. It may take some time for me to finish it as I currently have a lot of important tests at the moment. But as soon as it's finished, I will definitely update.
Thank you to those who have put up with this rubbish uploading schedule so far.
Please comment/vote/add to your library.
I love you all and I'll see you soon x