A/N: Hey guys, so I'm super sorry about the long wait for this chapter. I shouldn't even be updating until like Wednesday but after an entire month filled with exams, essays and research to be done I think I deserve a break (even if it was just an hour today).
Since the moment I woke up this morning, I have been doing work. I had a take home final (an essay on Edgar Allen Poe) and then I was studying for my two biology final exams tomorrow along with my case study presentation. Tuesday I also have a medical terminiology so i won't be able to update until after Tuesday.
but soon good news is that i graduate FRIDAY. so yay. lol anyways, i'll stop talking now. hope you enjoy this chapter.
also, the end is near so just a heads up!
♥ -cassie.
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Chapter 29
“You can’t do that,” I told him as I stepped out of his embrace and hugged myself. “You can’t just tell me things like that, Gray.” I continued as I shook my head side to side.
“Why not?” he asked confused.
“Because!” I yelled. “Do you not see where we are right now?! We’re standing in front of the hospital, my sister, you’re ex-girlfriend is lying in! She just woke up from a coma, Gray. You can’t do that. You can’t do this to me.”
“What does Hailey have to do with us?”
“EVERYTHING.” I screamed as I gathered strands of hair into my fists. “Hailey has everything to do with us. She was your ex-girlfriend and my sister. Do you not see how fucked up that is? I am her little sister! You saw me fucking grow up, Gray. I’ve known you for my entire life practically and never did you speak to me while Henry was still around or when you were with Hailey. Then Henry died and you come back from war and you just walk into my life like nothing fucking happened? Like we’re strangers that just met and you wanted to get to know me? You were my brother’s best friend! You dated my sister! You and I can’t happen.”
Gray stood before me with a confused expression written all over his face. It was as if he didn’t understand what I had just said, or as if he were still trying to peace it together. “Why?” he finally asked.
I shook my head and exhaled, “I can’t give you what you want.” I told him. “Although Hailey and I have differences, she’s still my sister and I know how much she loved you. She was insanely in love with you, Gray. The love she felt for you, I won’t ever be able to give you. I’m not that type of person.”
“I don’t want you to be like Hailey,” Gray replied taking a step forward. “I know how you are, Holland. Hailey was always too clingy. She depended on me too much. I like that you’re not that like. You’re your own person. Hailey admitted to being nothing without me the night we broke up.” He reached out to grab my arm as he spoke.
I shook my head and took a step back. If he touched me, I would give in. I wanted to be in his arms, I wanted to say yes a million times and tell him that I wanted him and I too work. But I couldn’t because Hailey was my sister. Hailey had been so in love with Gray that she let the heartbreak of them splitting up destroy her. I couldn’t end up like her. I wouldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “But I just can’t.” and with that I walked past him back towards the hospital.
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My mother was walking out of Hailey’s room when I stepped off the elevator and onto the floor. Her hair was pulled up into a tight bun, her white plain T-Shirt was slightly wrinkled and her dark jeans were crisply ironed.
“Holland,” she gasped as she saw me. “Honey, you’re here.”
I smiled weakly as I nodded, “Yeah.”
“I thought you weren’t going to come,” she admitted.
“I told you I was coming.”
“I didn’t think you were being serious. After what happened-,”
“That had nothing to do with Hailey. What happened was between us, not her mom.”
My mother nodded as she crossed her arms across her chest.
“How is she?” I asked.
My mother sighed before she shook her head, “She can’t remember a lot of things. She remembers bits and pieces from a few months before Henry died.”
“Does she know that he passed?” I asked.
She shook her head no.
I closed my eyes and ran a hand through my hair.
“She’s been asking about Gray,” she said. “She thinks they’re still together.”
I swallowed hard and something in my chest constricted. I had the feeling something like that was bound to happen. It had been one of the many reasons why I had told Gray no. Why I had walked away and rejected him when all I really wanted to do was take him up on his proposal on a date and goodnight kiss.
“Did you tell her?”
“That you two are together now? No. I thought that would be very inappropriate and be a bit too much for her to handle at the moment.”
“What?” I asked, thrown off guard by the first half of her response.
My mother remained silent as she locked eyes with me.
“Gray and I aren’t together,” I told her. “Why would you think that?”
Again, she remained silent.
“Mom,” I said my voice hard and even.
“I talked to Gray’s mother. She says he’s been speaking of you so much these last few months that she suspects you two are together.”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head, “You know parents really need to get out of their sons and daughters personal lives. Who I date shouldn’t matter to you. What should is my happiness. And if Gray makes me happy then you should be happy for me, not so judgmental.”
“Holland?” a voice said from behind us. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Hailey standing under the frame of her door. A pair of grey sweats and an oversized white T-Shirt making up her attire. Her hair was longer that it had been two years before, her natural dirty blonde roots long grown out. After Henry’s death she went through a phase and dyed her hair jet black. She wanted to be another person. She had been for the months following.
With her make-up less face looking back at me, I saw the innocence she once had. The innocence she had before Henry died.
“Hailey,” I breathed out, shocked flowing through my veins.
“You’re with Gray?” she asked, her green eyes filling with unshed tears.
I sighed and shook my head as I completely turned away from my mother, “No.” I replied.
“Then why did you say that mom should be happy if Gray made you happy?”
“Hail-,” I began and went to explain but my mother pushed past me and rushed towards Hailey.
“Sweety, you shouldn’t be out of bed.”
“I feel fine,” Hailey replied as she fought against our mother who was trying to push her back into the room. “Mom, I need to talk to Holland.” My mother gripped her forearms tightly and pushed her into the room. “I need to talk to Holland!” Hailey repeated as she fought against our mother.
From outside the room, I watched as my older sister began to cry. Tears fell down her pale cheeks as she fought against the woman who gave us birth.
I need to talk to Holland.
I need to talk to Holland.
I NEED TO TALK TO HOLLAND.
She screamed over and over again and seconds later doctors rushed down the hall and into her room. She was crying, yelling out my name over and over again. I watched from the hallway as they strapped my sister down onto the bed. My mother cried and it wasn’t until a nurse asked me to leave that I finally realized I was crying.
Wiping away tears from my face, I walked past the nurse who was waiting for me to leave and walked back towards the elevator.
I’m fine. I chanted over and over again in my head. I need to be strong. I need to be fearless. I need to be flawless.