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I got to the door and heard the bikes and, presumably, the car pulling away. I paused, hand raised to knock, finding myself suddenly nervous. To see her, which made no sense. She was the best friend I had in the world. We shared so much. Though, there was probably just as much that we kept from each other and it was time to come clean, it was time to admit that I had been hiding my past from her, that I didn't trust her with it before but that it was time for that to change.
So I forced my hand to knock.
When I heard nothing from inside, no moving, no TV, no nothing, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. I reached for the handle and found it unlocked, another thing that had me worried. Janie was practically OCD about locks. She checked every door inside Hailstorm before she went to sleep at night. I understood why. No one would blame her. Not once in all the years I had known her had she forgotten to check. And Hailstorm was a fortress, made of unyielding metal and surrounded by barbed wire gates and protected by guard dogs. So leaving the door open at some random little cottage in the woods? Yeah, so not Janie.
“Janie?” I called, pushing open the door and stepping in carefully. “You in here, babe?”
My eyes took a second to adjust to the light in the darkened room and when they did, I finally saw her, curled up in the bed under the covers, cuddled into a protective little ball, crying.
Crying.
Once. I had seen her crying once in all the years I knew her- the night I met her. After that, she tucked it away, she locked it up tight; or she dealt with the tears in private, but she never shared them. Not with me, not with anyone.
“Honey,” I said, my voice a worried whisper as I moved to sit down on the side of the bed by her body. My hand moved out to touch her shoulder and she shrieked and flew back from me, scooting up in the bed to lean up against the headboard. “It's me. Hey, it's me,” I crooned, holding my hands up, palms out.
Janie took a deep breath, closing her eyes, tilting her head to the ceiling. The air shook in her chest as she let it out, her eyes opening slowly as she focused on me. The tears were gone and I had a moment to admire the kind of self-control it took for her to go from the depths of hell of emotions to almost robotically blank in the course of a few seconds.
“You alright, honey?” I asked, knowing her response would be surface, would be empty and knee-jerk.
“Your face,” she said instead, choosing not to lie.
“Back is worse,” I shrugged, feeling the pulsing pain start up again. “Your arm,” I said, gesturing toward the white gauze. Her eyes flew down to the limb in question, her eyes closing again for a moment. “Burn, right?” I asked and her head snapped up, surprised. At that, I let myself smile. “Know you like a little sister,” I explained. “Did you really think I'd miss the Jstorm signature? No one does explosions like you, babe.”
Her hand rose, shaking a little as she ripped it through her hair roughly. “You knew,” she accused quietly and I nodded. “How long?”
“Since about the minute after I picked myself up off the ground.”
Janie exhaled loudly. “You weren't supposed to be there. You were supposed to be at Reign's. I told Summer...”
“No effing way,” I laughed, unable to help myself. “Oh, that makes so much more sense now.”
“What does?”
“That ridiculous dinner party. None of us understood why the hell we were there except that Summer threw a holy fit at any of us who said we weren't going to be able to make it.”
“I wanted to keep you all safe.”
“While you created chaos.”
“I didn't want any of the friendleys thinking it was any of the other friendleys doing the dirt,” she said, using the silly term she always did for The Henchmen or the Mallicks. Summer's father, Richard Lyon, was not included in this list, but I imagined she felt the need to protect Summer's feelings by protecting her father.
I paused for a second, trying to find the right words, trying to not push the wrong buttons. “That night, babe, that night is burned in my memory,” I started, knowing she knew I didn't mean the night of the bombs. I meant the night I met her, the night she became the biggest part of my heart.
“When I close my eyes, some nights, I still see it clear as I did then. You were too young to be that broken. Sixteen with scars a grown woman would never be able to walk around wearing. And not just all these ones,” I said, running my hand down the tattoos on her arms, tattoos she got to cover up what was underneath. “I mean the ones you wear on the inside. I didn't know you. You couldn't even speak to me your face was so swollen, but I knew you. I understood. Our souls spoke in the same language- the language only women can fully understand, babe. And the second I picked you up off that street, I knew I would give anything to see you able to carry your own weight again one day, to see you smile or laugh, to see you start to heal.”
“I tried, Lo,” she said, her voice a small, desperate whisper.
My hand went to hers, grabbing it hard and not letting go. “No. You didn't try. You succeeded. It took a long time, years, but you healed from the outside in. But because I spoke your language, babe, I knew that there were some scars, the ones marked deep down on your soul, that might never heal. I understood that. I never expected you to live one day like all of that never happened to you. It would be hypocritical of me to expect that of you when I didn't expect it of myself.”
