“He’s an asshole,” I force out.
Ransom chuckles, but it’s heavy. “Yeah, he is.” His eyes find mine, and slowly roam along my face as he slides closer, lifting my chin slightly.
“He’d hate you,” he says quietly, and my shoulders stretch. “He’d hate you because I don’t.”
Something settles over me and a sense of self-preservation knocks at the back of my mind, but I don’t answer.
Even if I did, it would be a Ransom shaped silhouette standing on the other side of it.
He was right before, a piece of him has found its way into every part of me. Even the ugly parts I hide.
I don’t know how or when it happened, and I can’t claim to care.
I like who I am with him.
Without him, I’m not sure I exist.
Ransom’s eyes soften as he stares at me, but then they lift over my shoulder and his entire being transforms.
The anger is gone, the heartache no longer lingering.
He smiles same as I witnessed that day I saw him in the park with her.
I’m almost nervous to look but then the foot of her chair comes into view and slowly I turn, watching as Ransom leans in to hug her, gently kissing her cheek.
She is young, maybe fifteen, and beautiful. Her hair, the most striking shade of blonde and her eyes, the exact shade of her brother’s.
She sits up in her wheelchair with the help of padded straps around her legs, chest, and her left arm. Her fingers tap at the right handle in which her palm lays flat and she tips her chin the slightest bit, her eyes sliding from me to her brother and back again.
Nervousness comes alive in my stomach like never before and I’m tempted to smile and exit, but I won’t. Emotions don’t come easy for me, but no part of this can possibly be easy on him, so I have to suck it up and open myself up to the terrifying feelings taking over me.
“Hi, Sienna.” I smile softly. “I’m Jameson.”
It takes several moments, but her blue eyes move back to Ransom, holding.
His grin is small, and a low chuckle leaves him. “She knows who you are.”
My mouth runs dry as I stare at his profile.
This is insane. I’m overwhelmed and in need of a little blue pill pronto. Even as I think it, I know how weak I sound, because how pathetic are my worries compared to theirs?
I want to run, but I sense her eyes on me once more and he said she knows who I am, so he must have shared my name, if nothing else, so, for him, I swallow the overwhelming emotion threatening to consume me.
I turn to Sienna, holding my breath when her lips part and she speaks.
“How do you put up with him?” she teases, her tone soft yet holding a hint of a rasp and she lifts her right arm up a few inches, pointing his way.
My heart pounds wildly in my chest, and her lips curl as her brother’s did. It’s subtler, a little less even, but it’s there, and I can’t help the airy laugh that follows.
I swallow and realize this is what she wants, to sit and be the little sister of the boy who brought a girl to meet her. Everything else forgotten, as it should be.
So, I smile wider, a smile that comes easy as I widen my eyes playfully. “Oh, it’s not easy.” I joke back with her, and in my peripheral, Ransom’s shoulders ease creating a warmth deep in my chest. “Did he tell you what he did to me the first day we met?”
Her lips twitch and she gives the slightest shake of her head.
I cross my legs and start from the beginning.
As we walk up the school steps Tuesday morning, Cali comes bursting through the doors, tears pouring down her cheeks.
“Jameson!” She spots me.
My nerves tighten as she moves toward me.
“Jameson! Oh my god, I’ve called you three times!” she sobs.
I slip from under Ransom’s arm, meeting her in the middle of the hall.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Jules!” she cries. “She didn’t answer her phone or the door this morning, so I thought she was playing hooky with Dax, but then I got here and he was here and she never showed, so I called her mom. Her mom was mad, but she went home to check and she... she found her in a pile of her own vomit. Jameson, she’s in the hospital getting her stomach pumped.”
“Alcohol poisoning?”
Cali nods, her arms wrapping around me.
“We need to go.”
“My driver is picking my brother up from the airport,” she shares. “And the others left already, but I had to come find you.”
“Shit, I didn’t drive either, I...”
My eyes fly to Ransom, and whether he realizes it or not, he’s backing away, a lost look in his eyes.
Alcohol and the hospital.
Damn it.
I turn back. “We’ll Uber.”
“No.”
Both our heads snap to Ransom.
He frowns down the hall. “We got you.”
Arsen and Beretta, having held back at the car a second longer, reach us then, keeping their expressions as blank as Ransom’s when they spot Cali—they give others no insight as to where their minds are.
Cali’s spine shoots straight, and she turns away, wiping at her tears, and they scoff, shaking their heads at her.
I grab her hands, gently pulling them down, and she grows uneasy.
“Come on, you can worry about that later. Let’s get going, okay?” I nod, and after a moment, she rolls her eyes at herself and nods back.
We follow them outside, and Beretta gives her the front seat, taking the one beside me.
We’re at the hospital within fifteen minutes
I get ready to climb out, but Cali simply grabs her bag and waits.
“Hey, uh, princess.” Beretta slouches farther in his seat. “The only way that door is getting opened is if you open it yourself.”
Cali glances over her shoulder with a small frown, but when she realizes he was speaking to her and what exactly he had said, her cheeks tint pink.
Arsen swallows a chuckle, laughing when Beretta reaches between the seats and nudges his head.
Cali looks around the car, from them to me. To them.
“Cali...”
She brings her eyes to mine, and I lift my brows.
“Shit, yeah, right. Sorry.” She looks around for the handle and then pushes the door open.
It’s bouncing back, about to smash her legs as she climbs out, but Arsen flies over, catching it before it can, and her quiet, completely embarrassed ‘thanks’ is barely audible.
She doesn’t look back again but waits for me to fall in line beside her. The boys tell me to call them when I’m done, and we head inside.
Jules and Amy’s mom is pacing the hall when we get to the correct floor, and relief washes over her when she notices our arrival.
“Oh, thank god!” She smiles tightly, coming to us.
She grabs both our shoulders but focuses on Cali. “She’ll need you when she wakes up, God knows she won’t care to see me.” Tears fill her eyes, and I look away.
“Do you know what happened?” Cali asks her.
“She drank too much is the simple answer, the rest...” Her eyes dart up, hardening, and when we turn to look, it’s Amy we find.
She cries silently, tucked into the farthest corner, alone, while her twin is fighting for consciousness.
“Let’s wait for her to wake, and just... be here when she does.” She says this more to herself, releasing us and answering her phone as it rings.