Chapter 36
HAILEY
"Hailey! You came!"
I couldn't believe what my eyes were seeing.
Three hours of absolute personal hell trying to get to her, and there she was—sitting upright, her delicate frame propped against sterile hospital pillows, a spoonful of lime Jell-O hovering near her mouth, administered by our mother's careful hand.
The fluorescent hospital lights cast a halo around her dark hair, making her seem almost ethereal, untouched by the sheer terror that had nearly swallowed me whole.
Mallory. Alive. Breathing. Fine.
My knees nearly buckled beneath me, tendons liquefying, bones disintegrating.
The past several hours crashed down like collapsing scaffolding—the frantic phone call shattering camp night's peace, Karen's voice fracturing into pieces as she sobbed Mallory's name, the nightmarish bus ride where I'd bitten my knuckles raw to keep from screaming.
The endless drive where I'd barely registered Gina's hand on my shoulder, her voice a distant murmur beneath the roaring in my ears.
Every second of the journey had been a blur of terror and worst-case scenarios tearing through my brain with serrated edges, each one more devastating than the last: my sister, pale and still.
My sister, tubes snaking from her body. My sister, gone before I could say goodbye, before I could tell her that I—
I'd run through these fucking halls, ankle screaming in protest, chest burning like I'd swallowed fire. The physical pain was nothing—a distant echo compared to the fear that had wrapped itself around my throat like a noose, tightening with every step.
But now, seeing Mallory's face—her skin holding a soft flush, eyes bright and clear despite the IV in her arm—the fear transformed into something else. Something molten and unstable that threatened to crack my ribs from the inside out.
"Hailey." Both parents stood at my frantic entrance, their gazes bright with shock. "What are you doing here?"
The question snapped me out of my daze with blunt force, rattling my teeth, stealing what little breath I had left.
"What do you mean, what am I doing here?
" My voice cracked, splintering under the weight of all those hours of absolute terror.
"I'm here to check on Mal! You called me last night to say she's in danger! "
My parents shared that look—the one adults exchange when something's gone terribly wrong. My stomach dropped through the floor, through the foundation, into the earth's molten core.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Hailey," Karen began, her face creasing with guilt. "She pulled through it pretty quickly, around midnight. We tried calling you but it wasn't going through for some reason, so we sent you messages informing you of her progress. Didn't you get them?"
No, I didn't fucking get them. But that was mostly my fault, too. I'd been obsessing over my phone so much last night that Gina had had to turn my phone off to get me to sleep. And when I turned the phone on this morning, there was no network so it was impossible for me to get the messages in.
The words hit like a sledgehammer to the chest. She pulled through it pretty quickly, around midnight . Around midnight. While I was spiraling into hysteria at camp. While I was falling apart in Lively's arms—
No. Don't think about that .
The adrenaline that had kept me upright for the past day evaporated like water on hot metal.
My limbs turned to liquid, muscles dissolving, bones seemingly disappearing from my body.
Before I could crumple to the floor like wet paper, I forced myself forward on unsteady legs, closing the distance to gather my sister into my arms.
"Oh, Hails," Mallory crooned, her tone watery as her thin arms wrapped around me. "I'm okay. It wasn't even all that bad."
I couldn't speak. My throat had closed up entirely, like someone had poured wet cement down it. All I could do was hold her—feel the rise and fall of her chest, the warmth of her skin, the soft vibration of her voice against my collarbone. Okay. She was okay.
"Hails, you're crushing me," she whispered, but her arms tightened around me too, belying her complaint.
I pressed my face into her hair, breathing in the familiar scent of hospital shampoo and that indefinable Mallory-ness that still somehow persisted beneath the antiseptic.
My entire body was trembling, fine tremors radiating from somewhere deep in my bones.
The relief was so overwhelming that it physically hurt, a tidal wave crashing against the walls I'd carefully maintained for years.
When I finally pulled back, the mortification crashed over me like a cold wave.
I'd left camp in complete fucking hysteria. Sobbed on the bus like a broken child. Fell apart in front of my teammates like some kind of unhinged disaster. All for a crisis that had resolved itself at midnight. Hours before I'd even started my panic-driven journey.
I didn’t even know what to feel then: shame, gratitude, guilt? All of that was a messy soup inside my gut. My cheeks were bright red, and just as scorching hot.
"Oh." The soft gasp from my mother penetrated the bubble of my tangled relief and regret.
That sound made it impossible to pretend like reality wasn’t slamming down on me from all sides anymore.
I turned, and there they were—the Blizzard Belles hovering awkwardly near the doorway, uncertainty painted across their faces.
Gina, Zoe, Sarah, Dani, and Rina. All of them looking anywhere but directly at me, the weight of what they'd witnessed hanging in the air like toxic smoke.
Mortification burned through me like acid. God, this was so embarrassing.
"Um...good morning, ma'am. Sir." Gina's voice was stiff with formality, so unlike her usual confident self. Like she was nervous. And, I mean, I couldn't exactly blame her—she'd never met my parents before, and this was probably the most awkward possible introduction.
My parents beamed, their faces lighting up with genuine welcome. "Oh, please come in!" My mother gestured enthusiastically. "Friends of Hailey are always welcome!"
My father stepped forward, his hand extended. "David Hartley. This is such a wonderful surprise! We're huge fans from afar."
“From afar”. Because I'd worked so hard to keep these worlds separate. Because letting them collide meant acknowledging the connections, the attachments, the ways I wasn't as independent as I pretended to be. The ways I needed people despite my best efforts to convince myself otherwise.
And yet, despite all that—despite all my attempts to keep them out of my personal life, they'd still come through for me. They'd stayed with me when I could barely string a coherent thought together, followed me here when I was falling apart at the seams.
The realization slammed like a brick against my nose: I was a colossal jerk who didn't deserve any of them.
"Oh, uh, yeah, so these are my teammates," I managed, my voice still scraped raw. I stood shakily, gesturing awkwardly at the group. "They, uh...they came here with me."
"It's so amazing to finally meet you!" Mallory beamed at them, her eyes bright with genuine excitement. "I'm Mallory, by the way—the better sister."
I shot her a look, but she cheerfully ignored it, already launching into enthusiastic chatter about how she'd watched them play online. The introductions blurred together—names and polite smiles and Mallory's irrepressible energy bouncing off the sterile walls.
I felt like I was watching it all through thick glass, the mortification of my earlier breakdown still burning in my chest. They were being so fucking nice about it, too. Acting like I hadn't just had a complete meltdown in front of them.
Then Mallory's voice cut through the pleasant chatter like a blade. "Yeah! Lively's the only one who visits me from her group of friends."
The temperature in the room plummeted so suddenly I was surprised that frost didn't form on the windows. I felt every muscle in my body lock up, like rigor mortis setting in while I was still alive and breathing. Even the air in my lungs crystallized, sharp and painful.
"Group of friends ?" Rina coughed, the words strangled in her throat.
I pressed my lips together. Shit. She couldn't have chosen worse words if she'd tried.
But Mallory was still beaming, oblivious to the sudden tension crackling through the room like electricity. "Yeah! But he was my friend first, let’s be clear," she said, jabbing a thumb toward my unnaturally frozen form. "I knew him first….even though they bicker a lot.”
Well…I wouldn’t call our last conversation… bickering per se. No, I’d full-on gone nuclear on him. Shit.
The silence stretched, taut as a wire about to snap. I could feel my teammates' eyes on me, their careful neutrality barely concealing the questions burning underneath.
Mallory paused then, her head tilting to the side like a curious puppy. "Where is he, then? Lively? Didn't he come with you, Hailey?"
And that rising chill exploded in the room, winter detonating in the summer morning as my teammates suddenly found the ceiling, the floor, the beeping monitors utterly fascinating. Looking anywhere but at my face.
My fingers clenched into fists, nails biting half-moons into my palms. "Why would he?" The words scraped out, hollow and brittle.
Mallory turned to look at me fully, her eyebrows drawing together in confusion. "Because he's your partner. Isn't he?”
I'd overreacted.
I couldn't deny that much anymore.
Four days of obsessively replaying that moment at Blackwater Bay had worn down my defenses, eroding the righteous anger I'd clung to like a shield. Four days of sitting with the cold, hard truth of what I'd done—what I'd said to him.