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That, though, was the issue. That was why I broke up with her the week before she died. I’d found out and spiraled. There were never secrets between us. I was always an open book to her, and until I found out she’d been with Travis, she’d been the same. Until I walked upstairs into her room and found her in bed, naked and asleep, and Travis silently putting on his clothes.
Yeah, I supposed there still was a whole lot of bad blood between Travis and I. We were all friends: me, Travis, and Sawyer. Both he and Sawyer knew how much I loved Sabrina, and yet he still went behind my back and slept with her. And what was worse? She let him close. That last week, I’d started to wonder if I even knew who Sabrina really was, and then…
Then the suicide. The hanging. The note blaming me, the Salvatores refusing to allow me to see her or even go to the funeral. To this day, I never got closure, and until this school year had started, I thought I’d continue to wallow and sink into a deeper depression. It was impossible not to, when everyone was out against you and those you thought were your friends were actually your worst enemies.
But who could’ve ever guessed that my dad, the dean of Hillcrest, would try to play matchmaker? That’s what it was. That’s why Ash got in ahead of the other girls. Starting next school year, Hillcrest would no longer be a private, male-only university. It would be a private university, open to anyone who had enough money and the grades for it.
Ash got in partly because of her grades, but also because my dad thought I needed a replacement Sabrina. Of course, this wasn’t something I brought up to my dad yet—because how the hell could I? Hey, Dad, did you happen to push for Ash to be an experiment, for her to room with me, all because she’s pretty and blonde?
No. I could not ask my dad that.
Ash was stronger than Sabrina was, or at least I thought so, until tonight. Until I looked into those beautiful grey eyes and saw a paranoia I couldn’t place. How in the world was Will’s attack all about her?
As I sat there, lost in my own mind, I couldn’t help but realize there was a lot I didn’t know about Ash. She woke up in the middle of the night sometimes with cold sweats, unable to catch her breath. She fell in the shower and practically zoned out of it ten minutes afterwards, not acting like herself at all.
I’m a liar—her words to me. I didn’t like dealing with liars, but I found what she said impossible. She wasn’t a liar. What did she have to lie about? And then, of course, I remembered waking up to a phone call from the hospital and finding out that she wasn’t in the room. She was gone, and I had no idea where she’d been.
I still didn’t know where she was when I called her, but I knew she’d been with Travis.
Why was it always Travis? What was so much better about him? Why did Travis draw their attention like no other?
My fingers clenched in my lap, and I tugged down the sleeve to cover up my scar. I’d have to ask her about it, once Will was alright.
And he had to be alright. If I lost Will tonight, I didn’t know what the hell I’d do. Dad had to be called, which I supposed I should do now, rather than later. I’d be in for a hell of a scolding when he strolled in here, that’s for sure.
I heaved a sigh, pulling out my phone. Will would be in surgery for a while to repair the organs and everything the blade had cut into, so even if I called Dad right now, he’d do nothing but sit next to me and bug the crap out of me.
Hmm…maybe I should wait a bit, then.
I was just about to shove my phone back in my pocket when the nurse at the front desk got up and hurried down the hall, yelling something about a hit and run. Five minutes, she shouted, just down the street. Patient was unconscious.
The ER flared to life around me, and as I sat there, I wondered if this was how busy it was—nurses running around, trying to get a room ready—when Will had been brought in.
And then it hit me. Like a brick wall, suddenly appearing out of nowhere and slamming into my body at one hundred miles per hour. If I wasn’t already sitting, I would’ve fallen. A hit and run, just down the street.
Were they talking about Ash?
I hadn’t seen anyone else around, and there were hardly any cars on the road since it was still an ungodly hour on a Sunday morning. My mind could hardly form the sentence-slash-question: was Ash hit by a car?
No. Ash was many things, one of them invincible. She would’ve seen the car coming, got out of the way…but then again, she’d hardly been herself while she was saying this was all about her, how this was her fault. She’d sounded manic, too similar to Sabrina during her episodes. It wasn’t too far out of the realm of possibility that she was too lost in her own head to notice an oncoming car.
If time was a crawl before, it absolutely stopped when an ambulance crew wheeled in the hit-and-run patient on a stretcher. My heart fell to the floor when I saw it was Ash, the one person I never wanted harmed. The one person I needed to be alright, besides Will.That girl meant so much to me, and my whole body hurt as I laid my eyes on her unconscious form.
Damn it. I should’ve gone after her. I shouldn’t have let her run away from me. I should’ve fought for her…wasn’t that exactly what I’d told her? I was going to fight for her, and yet while Will was in surgery, I simply let her go. That wasn’t fighting for her; that was the opposite.
Stupid, stupid me.
As they started to wheel Ash down the hall, down the same hall that took my brother, I rushed over, attempting to follow. The same nurse that told me I wasn’t allowed to see Will until he was stabilized darted between me and the stretcher, and I watched, helpless, as they rolled Ash away from me, turning down another hall further away.
“She’s my roommate,” I said, my voice rising with each word. “I have to know if she’s alright.”The words felt wrong on my tongue, and I felt the need to be sick. This night just kept getting worse and worse. Was I trapped in a nightmare? Was this really the state of my life?
The nurse gave me a level look, ridiculously calm, considering the circumstances. Considering my entire world was falling apart in one night. “She needs to be checked. Until she gets her own room, only family is allowed to be with her.”
Only family.
Only family.
I could feel my blood pressure rising. I wasn’t Ash’s family. It was stupid, but that realization hit me hard. I hadn’t known her long in the scheme of things, but God, I wanted to be able to go back there. I couldn’t imagine my life without her in it anymore. If she wasn’t family to me, what was she? My roommate, my friend…my heart.
