Chapter 25 #7
I sigh out loud, then realize I won’t get an answer out of Will. I glance at Liam instead. “So, Liam, is there something you’d like to share?” I ask, because I’ve been waiting to for a while now. Liam seems genuinely taken aback when I do, his expression hinting at confusion more than anything.
I would have assumed he knew more.
“She said she fell down some stairs.” The words sound even more ridiculous spoken aloud than they did in my head.
Liam’s brows shoot up, his eyes widening. “She just… fell?”
A snort escapes Christian’s lips, but he doesn’t look up from his notebook. “That might be the most idiotic thing I’ve heard all day.”
“Do you think she realizes her arm is bleeding?” Will asks bluntly though it doesn’t sound like a question when he says it, and we all look.
Well, all of us apart from Will, whose attention drifts elsewhere, like he’s searching for something—or someone.
Kym, no doubt. It’s not much of a secret that Will’s attention often orbits around her, his sister. Although he would never admit it.
Will almost never talks about her. But he always looks for her.
I watch as he pulls up his sleeves, leaning his elbows against the table and revealing his heavily inked-up arms. In fact, he’s covered in them.
For more reasons than one.
In that way, I suppose, we are similar.
It’s a permanent kind of armour for him, a considerable upgrade from when we were kids and I used to draw over his skin in pen. But back then, it washed away.
The moment Will turned eighteen, he got them done, layer after layer, again and again, until there was nothing left to see. Nothing left to remind him.
Shifting my attention to Adeline’s arm, I see he’s right, because sure enough, streaks of blood run down her arm, and there are even red marks beginning to form in certain places.
“Well, she didn’t trip.” I say what I had known all along. What we all knew.
She was pushed.
For a moment, I wonder if her stalker is the one who might have done it, but I see Lilia storm toward Naomi and suddenly the answer becomes clear as day.
I’ve known for a while that Adeline has never been treated well by her sisters—never remotely respected in that house.
But I digress, not all families are built for love. Some are just prisons with windows.
I know because I’d seen it amidst my old habit of following her a few years ago. I told myself I only stopped because I grew tragically bored of the same old routine, but in truth, it probably had more to do with the frustration she and her family set alight in me.
I wouldn’t be able to think straight for days, and even my inventions turned painfully mediocre after that. That was my breaking point. And the day I decided she wasn’t worth the brain malfunctions she induced.
Or the stack of snapped pencils.
Naturally, I came to know Adeline quite well through all this. That’s how I know Adeline won’t leave that house, not unless she’s forced to. She’s too selfless for that, and way too tangled up in what others think of her. So much, it’s infuriating to watch.
It’s the kind of flaw that looks an awful lot like virtue. And the kind of virtue that makes her very, very useful.
She still wants their approval, even though they’ve never given her a real reason to believe she’ll get it.
But validation is desperation. And it never lasts. Sometimes no amount of praise and approval can help a person. It’s like pouring water into a cup with no bottom—it just keeps spilling out until there’s no water left.
And yet she’s still helping them. But you can’t pour water from an empty cup no matter how hard you try.
I’m guessing Naomi knows that.
Maybe she just pushed her out of anger, or maybe she pushed her simply because she can. Because she knew Adeline would never push back.
That, I think, is reason enough.
In the corner of my vision, I see Lilia finally reach Naomi. Then, without a moment of hesitation, she swings and slaps her in the face.
Naomi stumbles back, her head snapping to the side, eyes wide with shock.
“Fuck yeah!” Liam cheers.
I watch him for a moment; the way his forehead crinkles when he’s excited, the restless way he talks with his hands, and that new, peculiar habit of blinking far more than necessary.
I’d like to think I know my friends rather well—precisely, intimately, instinctively.
It’s not difficult, if you only know where to look. And I always do. That’s the advantage of keeping a few pieces close to the chest.
That’s how I also know that Christian is deathly scared of being abandoned again. How I know Liam has a frankly alarming fixation with clocks of all types; I sometimes wonder if, given enough time and isolation, he might just become one. How I know Will is terribly worried for his sister.
How I know, with absolute certainty, that Liam knows more than he lets on.
Adeline
Four years ago
The caféteria is loud, louder than usual at least. There’s laughter, clinking of trays, and the occasional outburst from some guy launching a grape across the room—but none of it belongs to me. I sit alone, staring at my half-eaten sandwich like it might start talking just to fill the silence.
Wow, it’s embarrassing even saying that in my head.
It’s not that I mind being alone. It’s just that sitting at an entirely empty table makes it obvious. If there were at least a few people around, I could pretend. Pretend I was waiting for someone, pretend I chose this.
Maybe I should be grateful though. No judgemental stares, or whispered insults… it’s what I always wanted.
I am grateful.
But is it wrong that I still feel jealous of them?
My entire life, I’ve watched friendships bloom around me, easily. I watched my siblings love and be loved. They had people waiting at the door, calling their names, linking their arms as they walked down the street. They had sleepovers and inside jokes and birthday parties filled with people…
They knew how to make people love them. I could barely get people to tolerate me.
I cared too much, and they cared just enough.
Somehow, I always get everything wrong, and they always get it right. They speak and people listen, they walk into a room and people want them there. Their mistakes are the kind that get laughed off.
Mine aren’t.
I don’t get to be the funny one, the charming one, the effortlessly likable one. I don’t get to be the friend that someone is excited to see, the person people text first, the one who belongs without having to prove it.
I am tolerated, at best. A mistake, at worst.
It’s almost like trying to force something to grow in soil that has already been claimed.
Exhausting and pointless.
I’ve just taken a bite of my sandwich when someone steps into my peripheral vision.
I look up and see… Lacey?
She’s not someone I would have expected. Not here, not at my table. Not in my orbit at all. She’s pretty and popular, and everyone loves her.
I’m so caught off-guard that I choke on a piece of lettuce.
I cough violently, hands flying to my throat.
Lacey doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t roll her eyes or turn away in second-hand embarrassment. She just watches, an amused glint in her eyes as she pulls out the chair across from me.
“It’s Adeline, right?” she asks, her voice warm.
For a second, I just stare at her.
Like an idiot.
Then I realize she’s talking to me.
“Me?” I ask, my heart slamming against my ribcage.
She nods graciously, and I suddenly feel quite pathetic.
Who else would she be talking to, you big fool?
“Oh. Yes. Yes, I’m Adeline.”
I hate how my voice shakes, how my tongue stumbles over my own name, but she doesn’t seem to notice, or if she does, she doesn’t care.
She tucks her hair behind her ears, and smiles. “I’m Lacey.”
There’s something so surreal about this moment that my brain short-circuits.
“Not to sound rude or anything,” I blurt out, “but why are you here?” The words rush out before I can filter them, and I cringe, my stomach twisting. “Not that I don’t want you to be here—because I do. I just—uh—”
I really should just stop talking. Maybe if I say less, I’ll mess up less.
Lacy doesn’t seem offended, though. If anything, she looks… thoughtful. She studies me like she’s trying to understand something that doesn’t quite make sense to her.
“You seemed lonely,” she says finally. Her voice is soft, not pitying, but knowing. “Actually, you seem lonely all the time.” She hesitates, giving me a chance to deny it. “Do you even have friends?”
“Of course I do!” I react too quickly. Too defensively.
Lacy arches a brow, unconvinced.
Technically, I’m not lying. I have Arion, if that even counts. I guess he’s more Mason’s friend than mine.
But I like to think he’s mine too.
She doesn’t push. Instead, she rests her elbows on the table, studying me.
“Me and my friend are going to a café tomorrow to finish some homework.” She says it casually, like it’s not a big deal, like she’s not about to completely dismantle my entire worldview.
“I was just coming here to ask if you wanted to come.”
For a second, my brain completely blanks.
People don’t ask me things. That’s just not something that happens. But Lacey had noticed me… she’d noticed me and actually chosen to talk to me.
I almost want to cry.
Then, before I can overthink it, before I can convince myself she’s joking, I nod. “Yeah,” I say, “that would be great.”
Actually, it would be life-changing.
***
I arrive ten minutes early, a little breathless, a little too eager.
I choose a table near the window, arranging the chairs, and table for three with careful precision.
Two chocolate croissants sit at the centre, neatly wrapped in golden layers, and I’ve ordered two drinks—one for Lacey and her friend. I didn’t have enough for three.
But that’s fine.
It’s not like I need one, I’m happy to just be here.
The minutes stretch, and I tell myself they’re just running late, though my fingers drum anxiously against the tabletop.
At 4:10, I tell myself they’ll be here any second.