Please Note : The "Fall Formal" will henceforth be referred to as the "Winter Formal," just in case anyone got confused. Same dance, just a different name.

As you were.

I WASN'T THE only member of my family who was keeping secrets.

Two months before I was returned home to my family, my mother had come down with a bout of migraine headaches and nausea. Concerned, my father had taken her to the doctor's to have her checked out. At first, their doctor had brushed it off, saying that headaches at her age were quite normal. But, regardless, they sent her home with a requisition for an MRI scan.

Three weeks before I came home to her, my mother was diagnosed with glioblastoma. She had a cancerous tumor growing in her brain.

My mother was dying, and nobody had bothered to tell me.

I'd finally been informed by the physician that cared for her when we arrived in the emergency room. He'd pulled up her file and, upon a quick neurological exam, quickly deduced that she'd had a grand mal seizure. Of course I'd had to ask what that was, and he explained that seizures like that were quite common in patients with a tumor like hers.

"You must have the wrong chart," I'd insisted, shaking my head quickly. "My mum doesn't have cancer."

When I saw the sympathetic look on the doctor's face, my heart shattered in my chest.

Mum had been pretty out of it since we'd gotten to the hospital. She hadn't said much, and she'd been drifting in and out of consciousness on the drive in the ambulance. The doctor said that seizures tended to take a lot out of a person, and they were often quite tired afterwards.

But Mum's voice was clear, albeit weak, as she thanked the doctor and asked him to excuse us to talk alone for a moment.

Her hand found mine as I took the seat beside her bed, squeezing it tightly. "Scarlett, dear, there's something we need to talk about."

My first instinct was to shake my head. "No," I breathed, my voice barely audible as I choked back a landslide of tears in my throat.

Tears clouded my mother's tired eyes as she slowly nodded her head.

I continued in my denial, shaking my head as salty tears streamed down my already puffy face. No, no, no. Don't say it," I sobbed, my hand coming up to cover my mouth as I struggled to get the words out. "Please, Mum, don't."

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'm so sorry."

Mum told me the story of how she'd found out. She told me that when she found out, she'd made peace with the idea that she would never see her daughter again. She'd refused all treatment, not wanting to feel any worse than she already did. She didn't want the chemo, or the radiation to wear her down. Dad had planned to take an early retirement and they would travel the world again until she couldn't anymore.

But then they had seen my photo on the television one night, and everything had changed. She'd had something to live for again.

"I couldn't bring you home and tell you our time was limited to a few months, Scarlett. I'd just gotten you back," she said, squeezing my hand. "I went back to the doctors the next day and told them I would do whatever it took to get a little more time with my darling girl. I had my first round of radiation therapy the night before we left for Boston."

"You should have told me," I whimpered, drying my eyes on the sleeve of my sweater. "I could've handled it."

Once again, mum shook her head. "No, darling, you couldn't have. I know you don't want to hear it, because you are so incredibly strong now, but you were so very fragile then, sweetheart. I couldn't risk losing you when we'd just gotten you back."

I wanted so bad to scream and deny it. I refused to believe I had ever been fragile. I fought, I lived, I thrived.

But could I really have handled coming home to find out my mother had only months to live?

"I could've at least done things differently," I insisted, not denying her words. "I never would've left home that week. I could've spent more time with you."

"Scarlett, Baby, it's okay," she cooed, tucking my hair behind my ear. "This changes nothing, sweetheart. We're going to go home, and you're going to show me whatever beautiful dress you bought for your winter formal, and we're going to keep living. You've worked so hard for all you've got, Scarlett. I don't want any of this to change that."

Slowly, I nodded, brushing away the remaining tears. "Okay. Okay."

Mum's thin lips stretched out into a tired smile. "Lovely. Now, you didn't happen to call your poor father did you?" When I shook my head she continued. "Good, I wouldn't want to worry him. Say, why don't you go on out into the waiting room and call one of your friends to come sit with you? I know how much you hate hospitals."

Nodding, I pressed a kiss to her forehead and excused myself to go and sit in one of the little family rooms just down the hall. I passed the doctor waiting in the hallway, and stopped to  inform him my mother and I were done speaking if he still needed to see her.

Once I was tucked away in the tiny, windowless rooms meant to give patient's family's some privacy, I pulled my cellphone out of my bag.

When I had tossed it across the room back at home, I had managed to completely shatter the glass screen. But by some miracle, the thing still worked— I just couldn't make out much on the screen, so texting anybody was out of the question.

My first instinct was to call Aimee and Meghan, but when we had left the dress shop, Aimee had informed me they were off to a family dinner at some fancy restaurant on the other side of the city.

It wasn't that I didn't want to call Noah or Sienna. They'd both been so great to me when I'd had my first existential crisis. But I just hated to thought of saddling then with such another heavy topic like this.

But I needed somebody, so I scrolled through my contacts in my phone until I found Noah's blurry name and put my phone to my ear. It only rang twice before the other line picked up.

But the deep voice that answered wasn't the same as the entrancing British accent I'd hopelessly fallen for.

"Oh gosh, sorry Declan," I said as calmly as I could. "I meant to call Noah."

I heard shuffling on the other end of the line, and the sound of a door closing. "Don't worry about it. He actually just left here a few minutes ago, he should be home in like fifteen minutes," he said, pausing for a moment. "Everything okay?"

There was the slightest hint of concern in his voice when he asked, which was completely out of character for Declan. He was the king of not showing his emotions, his face was always blank. I could quite literally count on one hand the number of times I had seen him smile over the last month I had spent hanging out with Noah and Rachel and him.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," I sighed, raking a hand through my tangled hair. "Just some family crap. Anyways, I didn't mean to bother you. Sorry, again."

I could hear Declan scoff quietly on the end. "Nothing to be sorry for, Scarlett. Seriously. And, if you need someone to talk to, I'm well versed in family crap."

I let out a humorless laugh. "I'm sure. Thanks for the offer, Declan, but I couldn't ask you to listen to me drabble on while I have a minor breakdown."

"You're not asking, I'm offering," he clarified, his voice taking on a very serious note. "What's wrong, Scarlett?"

I had no reason to spill my guts out to Declan Morgan. We were acquaintances, friends by default. I was dating his best friend, and his twin sister was one of my closest friends. But for some reason, be it chance or coincidence, i had accidentally called him when I desperately needed someone to talk to.

And while I knew I should have hung up and called someone else, someone who I could actually hold a conversation with— someone who actually gave a damn about me— the words just came tumbling out of my mouth.

"My mum has cancer. She's had it for a long time, and I only just found out. But only because I walked into the living room and found her on the floor, having a seizure. So, I'm pretty sure the world hates me and I'm not allowed to be happy."

There was a long pause as neither of us said anything. My heart hammered in my chest, the pressure of my world caving in building up with every beat against my ribs. I thought I had gotten all of my tears out of the way when I was in the room with my mother, but that was a lie.

"Are you at home?" He asked slowly. I can hear him shuffling about on the other end, and he sound of keys jingling.

I sniffled, wiping a stray tear from my cheek. "No, I'm still at the hospital. Why?"

"Because you shouldn't be alone right now."

"I'm fine, Declan really. I'll call Noah."

"Noah's not going to be home for another twenty minutes," Declan sighed surprisingly softly, the thud of a closing door sounding out. "I'm only five minutes away from the hospital, Lettie. Just let me be your friend."

The last time I'd come this close to having an actually conversation with Declan, it had been on the lacrosse field when I'd tried to fix his friendship with Noah. Then, Declan had been cold and hard and completely void of any redeeming qualities. He hadn't wanted to be my friend then. Hell, he'd given up on having any kind of friendship with me the second he'd decked Noah for supposedly taking advantage of me after getting me high.

But my phone was shattered and half dead, and I wasn't exactly in the frame of mind to pass up on the offer of a friend right now.

"I'm in the Emergency department. The family room behind the nurses station."

"I'll be there in five."

Declan wasn't kidding when he told me he was five minutes away.

I was just contemplating the idea of throwing my cellphone at the wall again when a soft knock broke the silence in the room.

"Come in," I croaked, my throat still dry from another bout of anxious sobs.

The door clicked open softly, and in walked Declan in his black leather jacket and jeans. He didn't say a word, just closed the door behind him and took a seat in the chair across from me. His honey colored eyes watched me the entire time, practically boring holes into my skull.

Declan continued to watch me for a moment, his intense gaze doing weird things to my stomach. After a moment of the awkward silence hanging between us, I set my destroyed cellphone down beside me and curled my arms around my knees.

"So. Aren't you going to ask me if I'm okay?" I asked, my voice coming out steadier than I'd expected it to.

"Course not," he scoffed in typical Declan fashion. "'Cause you'll just lie and say you are. I'm not as stupid as my sister might say."

A tiny ghost of a smile twisted at my lips. "You're not wrong."

"But I will ask you how you're feeling," he said, crossing his arms over his broad chest before adding, "And if you say 'I'm fine' I will get very annoyed with you."

I was the queen of brushing off my feelings with a half-hearted "I'm fine" and somewhat-convincing fake smile. But apparently I wasn't going to be pulling that one over on Declan.

"Will you accept an 'I'm dealing for now, but when I get home I'm probably going to scream into my pillow and cry a lot'?" I asked, perching my chin on my knees.

Declan cocked his head from side to side, contemplating my answer, before he shrugged. "Yeah, that'll do. Do I actually think you're dealing? Not a chance. I think you're just putting on a tough face in front of a stranger. But, I'll go along with your story if it makes you feel better. 

I could've denied any part of his statement. After all, I was dealing. I was processing the fact that my mother had terminal cancer and I didn't know how much time I had left with her. It just hadn't quite sunken in yet.

But I didn't waste my breath explaining that. Instead, I said the stupidest thing I could have.

"You're not exactly a stranger, Declan."

The corner of his mouth curved up into something that almost resembled a smile. "You don't exactly consider me your friend though, do you, Scarlett?"

"I mean, we have the same friends. There's no reason to say we aren't friends."

He fixed me with a look I almost could have considered to be amused. "You mean you're friends with my sister."

"And Kennedy," I added.

"How could I forget?" He asked with a mildly sarcastic laugh. "So, you say we're friends then?"

His golden eyes locked with mine for a second, and I felt an unfamiliar twinge in my stomach. "Yeah. Friends."

Declan seemed to relax a bit then, leaning forward with his arms resting against his knees. He regarded me again, taking in my disheveled appearance and puffy eyes rather than just staring at me. "I seem to remember telling you that you could talk to me if you needed to. The offer still stands, you know."

As long as we were talking about anything but the crisis at hand, I could forget that I was sitting in a hospital. I could forget about chaos of the last few hours.

I knew I'd told Declan to come here so I could talk to someone, but talking to him wasn't the same as talking to Sienna, or Aimee, or Meghan, or Noah. There was this unnamed tension that seemed to hang in the air between us.

But it was a proven fact that me holding in my feelings was an incredibly self destructive habit of mine.

"You know, Rachel and I never knew our Mom."

I looked up to see Declan's eyes on me as he spoke, his voice softer than I'd ever heard before. "Really? What happened?"

"She died just after we were born. Some kind of complication. Our dad never really talked about it much, he just went on like nothing happened. He drowned himself in work, and let a fleet of nannies raise us until we were old enough for him to not care anymore."

I'd known Rachel and Declan's mom was out of the picture, but I didn't know what happened to her. I guess a part of me just thought she'd left her children and husband like Meghan's father had when he'd left her mother, Chelsea, when Meg was nine. And I'd never bothered to ask Noah or Rachel.

Tilting my head to the side, I frowned. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"Neither of us talk about it much," he shrugged. His hands clasped together in front of him. "It's different, of course, since we never actually knew her. We've seen her in pictures, but that's about it."

"I've only known my mother for six months, and a good chunk of that I barely spoke to her," I said in a quiet voice. "It shouldn't really hurt this much."

"But she's still your mom, Scarlett. She's a part of who you are, whether you really realize it or not. And, if you think about it, she did raise you for the first six and a half years of your life."

"True," I sighed. "I just wish I'd known, before it was too late. They should've just told me."

Declan shook his head. "Think of it this way, your mom got to watch you become the girl sitting in front of me. She got to see you smile, and laugh, and grow. If you'd known, you probably wouldn't have joined the dance team, or won that first place solo award. And you wouldn't have gotten to know your mom for who she is. Do you really want to take all of that away just to have that dark cloud floating over your head all the time?"

I thought about it for a minute, all of the things that might not have happened if I'd been preoccupied by my mother's illness.

Would I have met all of my friends?

Would I have danced at qualifiers?

Would I have overcome my anxieties and stood up to my fears?

Would I have let myself fall in love?

"No," I whispered, answering both Declan's question and my own. I felt the familiar sting of tears in my eyes just before the first one slid down my cheek. "I just want more time with her."

Before I could suck it up and hold back the waterworks, another tear slid down my cheek. And then another. And another. Soon, my cheeks were once again stained with salty tears and whatever was still left of my mascara was long gone.

A sob ripped its way out of my chest and I wrapped an arm around stomach to try and hold myself together. My other hand went up to my mouth, holding in a silent scream as I abandoned my facade and let myself cry in front of Declan.

I vaguely heard the squeak of the chair across from me as Declan got up and sat down next to me. A strong arm wrapped around my shoulders and held me together as sobs continued to rack my body. 

"We all wish we could have more time, Lettie," he said quietly, his hand gently rubbing circles against my arm.

Declan never flinched. He kept his arm around my shoulders, and didn't even try to tell me everything would be okay. I'd never seen this side of him; kind and patient. I'd almost forgotten why I'd never actually given him a chance to show me there was more to him than the cocky, arrogant asshole he always acted like.

I don't know how long we sat like that. It felt like hours before there were no longer any tears left for me to cry.

We continued to sit in silence until the door to the family room opened and the bustling noise of the emergency room filled the room.

"Miss Grey?"

I looked up to see the same doctor I'd met when we'd arrived, whose name had completely left me. I uncurled from the tiny ball I had made myself into, letting my feet brush against the floor as Declan dropped his arm back to his side.

"Your mother is asking for you."

Hey guys! I hope you somewhat enjoyed this long overdue update. It was particularly hard for me to write, and as much as I wish I could just write a happy puff chapter, I just can't bring myself to do that.

However, the next chapter is going to pick up the pace quite a bit. You guessed it, it's finally time for our beautiful winter Formal!

I'd love to hear what you guys thought of this gloomy chapter! Have any opinions changed, perhaps? Do you think Scarlett can really be friends with Declan? Let me know in the comments!
Until next time, let's just all remember that as dislikable as Declan may be, Matthew Daddario is an adorable flower.

🖤🖤🖤