AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Turned out, when it looked like you tried to kill yourself, no amount of reassurance could make your mom believe it was an accident. It wasn’t an accident, but that wasn’t important right now. I was far from suicidal; I’d only done it to hurt Gareth… whose dick I was apparently thirsty for.
Whatever.
But back to my mom. The hospital staff didn’t want to let me go, but Alistair managed to convince them all it was an accident and I wasn’t on the brink of ending my own life, so they sent me home with a bandage on my arm and some pills to stop the wound from getting infected. It was a clean cut, and as long as nothing went wrong, the stitches would dissolve themselves once the wound fully closed and healed over.
My mom wasn’t happy that I was back. She hardly looked at me when she and Alistair came to take me home the next day, and she barely said two words to me once we got back to the house. I could tell she was keeping her thoughts to herself, but it was a struggle. She was dying to tell me her opinions on the subject of my life and what I’d done.
It was only when I was in my room, in bed, resting for the remainder of the day on doctor’s orders that my mom finally spoke her mind. She stood beside the bed, having just brought up lunch for me. Her lips wore a tight frown, and her shoulder-length brown hair was pulled back in a low, loose ponytail. She wore just the barest hints of makeup, her light blue eyes zeroed in on me.
We were alone, which was the only reason she was comfortable in telling me, “I don’t appreciate what you did, Brianna. You could’ve ruined this for us. You should be grateful that Alistair is such a kind, understanding man. Anyone else would’ve been done with your shit.”
I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from telling her,He didn’t seem like a kind, understanding man when he was pinning me against the shower wall, fucking my brains out, but you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?Instead, I held back my retort, just barely.
“Alistair and Gareth seem to think it was an accident,” she went on, her voice cold. “It better have been. If it wasn’t… well, let’s just say if you have an accident again—”
“Thank you for your concern, Mom,” I bit out the words, interrupting her—which only further riled her up.
My mom huffed, said not another word, and then turned to leave my bedroom. She passed Gareth, who stood half in the hall, half in my room, and she said not a word to him as she walked by. It seemed she didn’t even care if he’d heard her say all that to me.
Gareth waited a moment, watching my mom go, before strolling into my bedroom like he owned the place. I was about to ask him what he was doing when I spotted my phone in his hand. Once he reached the side of my bed, he tossed a glance over his shoulder, muttering, “Your mother really seems to hate you.” An obvious observation if ever there was one.
“Yeah, it feels like it most days,” I said, even though making small talk about my mom and the fact that she hated me wasn’t what I wanted to talk about. It was all old news to me. “Why do you have my phone?”
“Oh.” He lifted it up and inspected it. “I was keeping it safe while you were in the hospital.” He then tossed it toward me—and, surprise, surprise, I was too slow in catching it. It landed on my legs. “I charged it for you, too.”
“Thanks.” Thanking Gareth for anything wasn’t on my bingo list, and yet here I was, doing just that. Ugh. I dropped my gaze to my phone, wanting Gareth to leave, but he remained beside my bed, staring at me, so I snapped, “What?”
He shrugged, said, “Nothing,” and turned to walk away, leaving me be.
That was odd, but whatever. My phone had a passcode, so I doubted he was able to crack into it while I was in the hospital—and even if he did, all he’d see were messages between me and Erin. I didn’t really talk to anyone else from school.
I unlocked the screen and went straight for the message folder, expecting a few missed messages from Erin about what happened, but the weird thing was, when I looked, I saw absolutely nothing. No new messages at all, which I found bizarre. Erin, out of all people, would’ve blown up my phone after what happened. She was the type to apologize endlessly over something that wasn’t her fault… like ‘passing out.’
Maybe she was upset with me. Maybe she thought I was acting too territorial over Gareth. Which, in a sense, I was, but I didn’t want her knowing it.
I started a new message, sending her a quick text telling her I was sorry I’d been radio silent. I told her I had an accident that landed myself in the hospital right after she left, which was why I hadn’t talked to her since.
It was Sunday afternoon. I expected a text back relatively quickly, but my phone remained silent all afternoon and well into the night.
Actually, it was silent all night, and because of that, I couldn’t sleep. A weird feeling in my gut was telling me something wasn’t right.
The only good thing that came out of that night was the fact that Gareth didn’t try to sneak his way into my room. He let me be; probably wanted me to heal up so he could be his true, rough self with me after our little quickie in the hospital.
But even that was a small mercy, because I knew. I just knew.
Something was wrong.
Alistair and Gareth didn’t want me to go to school. They both put up a fight the next morning, while my mom remained unusually silent. She was off for the day; I’d bet anything Alistair made her feel guilty, so she took the day off work. She probably wanted me to go to school, so she could do whatever it was she did when she wasn’t at the gallery.
Whatever the hell rich people did to take up time. Don’t ask me what.
“I’ll be fine,” I told Gareth and Alistair. We all stood in the kitchen. I had my backpack slung around my shoulders, a long-sleeved shirt on to cover the bandage on my arm. I’d already eaten something and taken my morning pill, so I was good to go. “Look, the sleeve covers it all.” And being a senior, there was no gym class to worry about, so really, they were freaking out about nothing.
Gareth was five feet away, wearing a scowl on his face. It wasn’t quite a look of murder, but it was pretty damned close. How dare I push to go to school instead of staying home and resting? Hah. As if he really gave a shit.
Alistair was the only one who was calm. He was near my mom, but all of his attention was on me. “If you’re sure you can handle it, then… okay.” It was plain as day he didn’t think I should go either, but he wasn’t about to argue with me about it.
My mom stood near the fridge, sipping her coffee and watching the exchange with disinterest.
