Chapter 39
HAILEY
The hospital corridors were irritatingly familiar as I made my way to Mallory's room, the antiseptic smell and soft beeping of monitors providing a strange kind of comfort despite their meaning.
Here, at least, things made sense. Here, I knew exactly where I stood and what was expected of me.
“Hailey!” Mallory's face lit up the moment I walked through the door, her smile bright enough to power the entire building. She was sitting up in bed, her tablet balanced on her knees.
“Hey, Mal,” I said, settling into the chair beside her bed. “What are you doing?”
“I’m looking up dress designs for the fundraiser ball!” She held up the tablet, revealing a collage of ball gowns that looked like they belonged in a fairy tale. All flowing lines and intricate details.
My heart clenched at the pure joy radiating from her face. “The fundraiser ball?” I cocked my head. It sounded very familiar. I tried to dredge up the details from the murky depths of my brain.
“Duh! I’ve told you before! The hospital is hosting it next month to raise money for the children's wing,” she explained, bouncing slightly with excitement that made her IV line sway.
“All the patients get to dress up and attend, and there's going to be dancing and music and everything! I can't wait to wear my gown.”
And it clicked. She had told me about it. She’d talked about it many times last week, and our adoptive parents had agreed to come. I guess I’d been too worried about her recent crisis that I hadn’t paid much attention to it.
The happiness in her voice was infectious, and I found myself smiling. “You'll be the most beautiful princess there.” I said. “I can’t wait, either.”
“Will Gina and the others come, too?” She asked, her eyes hopeful and I paused.
“Uh…so, I don’t know about them? They’ll probably be busy with school…but I’ll ask them tonight!” I rushed to add when her expression started to fall.
Just staring at her now was healing the savage, melancholy thing with razor sharp teeth that’d been ravaging my chest for the past week. I didn’t want her sad, either.
“Well,” she said with the kind of dramatic flair only a fourteen-year-old could muster, bouncing back pretty quickly with eyes that sparked mischief, “Lively promised to be my prince, so we’ll definitely be the best-looking couple at the ball.”
The words hit me like ice water, freezing my smile in place. My heart stuttered, then kicked into an irregular rhythm that made it hard to breathe.
“Wait. Lively still visits you?” The question scraped out of my throat, ripping out of me with the speed of a moving bullet.
Mallory blinked, surprise coloring her eyes a lighter brown. “Uh, yeah?” She said, eyeing me suspiciously, “He comes every other day. He’s been helping me pick my dress design, actually. He has surprisingly good taste for a guy.”
Every other day , huh. All this time, I’d assumed that he’d stopped visiting because of our fallout. That he was avoiding this place the same way he was avoiding me everywhere else.
But no. He was still coming. Still being Mallory’s friend, still bringing her candy and playing mario kart and picking out dresses with her. I bet he still smiled at her, and got all up in her personal space like he didn’t know what boundaries were.
He was just avoiding me .
My jaw clenched so hard it was surprising that my teeth didn’t crack then and there. The realization shouldn’t have pissed me off as much as it did—after all, he’d been Mallory's friend first. Why would he stop visiting her just because we’d had a fight?
But somehow, knowing that he was still capable of warmth, still capable of caring, just not for me ... that twisted the knife in ways I wasn’t prepared for. And that anger I didn’t even know if I had the right to feel started to bubble in my stomach again.
Because he really didn’t have to go this far at all. The worst part wasn't even the silence—it was knowing he was still him everywhere else. Still that golden retriever energy that drew people in like gravity. Still warm and caring and devoted, just... not to me . Never again to me.
That was my fault, too, I knew that but…he could at least give me a chance to apologise. My fingernails bit into my palms as I squeezed my hands into tight fists, my pulse fluttering at the base of my throat. Why was he being so damn stubborn—?
“Why are you being mean to Lively?” Mallory's question cut through my spiraling thoughts like a blade.
My head snapped up, brows furrowing. “What? Who's being mean to him? Is that what he's been telling you?” The words came out sharp, defensive and raw. “ He ’s the one ignoring me .”
But Mallory just narrowed her eyes in that way that made her look far older than fourteen, like she could see right through my bullshit to the truth underneath.
“He didn’t tell me anything.” She said. “I just…noticed…” she trailed off, not completing her words.
Damn it. Then she looked right at me again and said, “But I bet you’re the one who did something to him first.”
My mouth snapped shut. Because she was right. Of course she was right. I had lashed out first, and told him to leave me alone. But…
“Yeah, but he isn’t even giving me the chance to apologise.
” I mumbled, before lapsing into a silence that stretched between us, heavy with all the feelings I couldn’t name nor voice.
Mallory’s eyes as she watched me were too knowing, too perceptive for a damn kid, seriously.
I mean, it felt so damn awkward to have her talking about him like this to me, especially since she was basically calling me out. I mean, couldn’t she take my side, too—
“He's so sad,” she said suddenly, her voice soft and matter of fact.
Oh . My heart squeezed, a sharp pain radiating through my chest as I saw the sadness creeping into my sister's expression, dimming the brightness that had been there moments before.
“He's so, so sad, Hailey.”