EIGHTEEN #2
I had got shit off my chest that morning after she left to see her sister with Adam, telling Tanner and Weston the truth.
I spoke about her troubled past, the fact that she was to remain at our house for good and the way I felt about her.
When I told them about the way she came to my room that night, they both believed that it hadn’t been contrived and about her brother.
And I realised I already knew that. It wasn’t in her character to do something like that.
We had hit the weight room, and between heavy sets, I emptied my soul to my boys. Later, I called Lincoln. "Follow your heart," he told me, his voice heavy with experience. "And those demons you're carrying about our old man? Let them go. Move the fuck on." I knew they were all right.
And then that evening, I had my usual nightmare.
My breath hitched as I pushed to my feet, my muscles aching with a heavy exhaustion.
Looking down, my hands were caked in dry, black dirt.
Dark crescents of soil were packed tightly under my fingernails, yet the grass beneath me remained perfectly untouched.
Usually, I pulled at the earth until my fingers bled.
To my left, the world blurred into a surreal, thick mist. Jessa and Maisy stood under a weeping willow, mindlessly twisting and styling each other's hair, their laughter silent and detached.
On a stone bench next to them sat Cameron, his head buried in his hands, his shoulders shaking with unvoiced sobs.
Vanessa bent over him, rubbing his back with a tight expression of concern.
They were all there, trapped in my subconscious, acting out a grief none of them fucking understood.
Hating that rising panic, I spun around. I needed Amelie. She was the only light in that suffocating land of darkness.
Thankfully, I found her. She was perched calmly on top of a weathered headstone, just two rows away from where my mother lay. Her eyes were fixed on me, weighted down with a tragic, pitying weight.
As I stumbled toward her, my gaze dropped to the cold granite monument she sat upon. The deeply carved letters seemed to bleed shadow:
RIP
DR MICHAEL ASTOR
The name struck me like a physical blow. Dr. Astor. My mother’s oncologist. The personal physician who held her hand when the chemo failed that last time.
The world tilted, and the cemetery dissolved into a rapid, violent onslaught of suppressed memories.
I remembered the doc inside our house, long after visiting hours.
An image of him standing over my mother’s bed to check the timing of her pulse, the way his fingers lingered on her arm.
My mother's face—wasted and pale from the sickness—suddenly lit up with a radiant flush the moment he walked into the room, which had nothing to do with her medication.
She had never looked at my father that way.
And then a memory of my father swept into my thoughts like a Tsunami.
I saw my dad. Not as the villain I had painted him to be in my mind, but broken.
I remembered him slumped against the kitchen counter in utter despair.
I remembered the vicious, muffled shouting matches behind closed doors—arguments.
And then I woke up, my own shout echoing around my room. I was dripping in sweat, my eyes scanning the shadows of my room for Amelie. The last time she had been there. But I was alone.
Lying back against my sheets, I realised that the tiny seed of doubt I had buried deep in the earth years ago—the one I refused to nurture, the one I pretended wasn't there—had finally cracked open.
What the actual fuck?
When my alarm went off the following morning, those doubts and confusion were still on my mind, but were blown out of the water as I picked up my phone.
There was a message from Weston on there. I read it feeling a mixture of relief and anxiety.
I had two problems to face that day.
The first was that I was late for school.
And the second… Rebecca Blake had come around from her coma. The hit-and-run victim was finally awake.
AMELIE
Thanking Jessa for the lift, we agreed to meet for lunch, and I made my way to my first lesson thinking about Kieran. The moment I crossed the threshold, the air changed.
Dozens of eyes snapped up from glowing phone screens, locking onto me before darting nervously away. Then came the whispers—a low, rhythmic buzzing that made the hairs on my arms stand up. What was going on?
I moved toward a spare seat near the windows, my throat dry.
Pulling my books from my bag, I tried to ignore the heavy knot tightening in my stomach.
Maybe this was the Kieran thing again. Someone from the party must have restarted the rumours.
Except this time, the gossip wasn’t a lie.
Kieran and I were seeing each other. Sort of.
When the teacher arrived, the tension flattened but didn't disappear.
I forced myself to stare at the board, trying to drown the noise in my head with what Mrs Chambers was saying.
We were covering the psychology aspect of our health course.
Usually, I loved it—the puzzle of getting inside people's heads and why we behave the way we do. Today, the irony felt suffocating.
The sharp clang of the end-of-lesson bell made me jump. Mrs Chambers turned to the whiteboard, her marker squeaking as she scribbled the homework. I leaned over my notebook, racing to copy the revision chapters, when a sharp thud clipped my shoulder blade.
Something small dropped onto the dusty floor at my feet. It was a crumpled ball of paper.
My heart did a hard thud against my ribs.
I glanced over my shoulder, but everyone was already in motion—zipping bags, scraping chair legs, talking loudly.
I bent down, scooped up the paper, and squeezed it tightly in my palm until the edges dug into my skin.
I didn't open it until I hit the crowded hallway.
Checking that no one was watching me, I flattened the paper out. Bitch!
Scrawled in aggressive, black biro. No name. No explanation. A thick lump lodged in my throat, making it hard to swallow. Had it actually been meant for me? Who had I even been a bitch to?
A dozen worst-case scenarios flooded my brain as I walked toward my locker, gripping my backpack straps. The hallway felt narrower than usual. I forced my lips into a stiff, shaky smile at a couple of girls from my tutor group, but they looked right through me and accelerated their pace.
Active isolation. Again, like I was nobody.
“Amelie, stop,” Jessa’s voice cut through the fog. She stepped directly into my path, her eyes wide and frantic.
“What’s up?” I asked, my voice sounding small.
Jessa didn't answer me. Instead, she locked eyes with a blonde girl pushing past. “The fuck are you staring at, Hannah?” Jessa snarled. The girl flinched and hurried away.
“Jessa, what is going on?”