^ happy Valentine's Day from Jameson ;) ^

H o l l o w s I n
T I M E

"So Jameson cheated on you." Saph said, flipping through a magazine next to me.

My eyes widened. "No! I never said it was Jameson."

"One doesn't even need to guess." She muttered under her breath so that only I could hear.

"And you're forgetting the point I made earlier that technically he didn't cheat, because we were never in the relationship." I told them, watching them all act so normal as I was busy freaking out.

"True. And I guess it's kind of void since you took that 'holiday'." Avery said, glancing at Cassie as she stole her term for my disappearance. I bit at my cheek, my eyes meeting with Bria's. We both knew that what happened wasn't a holiday.

I closed my eyes, trying to draw the courage from within to say what I so badly wanted to admit in this moment. "Actually, guys, I think we should talk about my 'holiday'."

Bria gave me an encouraging smile as Cassie bounded over, yelling something about wanting to know about my hotel reservations.

With an inhale, and then an exhale, I told them everything.

I started with August the twenty-third, skimmed over May the twenty-ninth, and finished with September the third, when I was finally rescued.

The girls listened intently and never interrupted. It felt good. Alexi and Jameson already had rough ideas about what had happened, and I wasn't giving the girls any exclusive details, but it felt good that they would finally know and understand what happened.

When I finished, tears were cried and hugs were exchanged. Last year, I realised that home was not a place, and that it was people. And I felt at home here.

As we all clutched onto each other in one final group hug, in which Saph insisted that she would not be stuck between Avery and Bria, I said the three words that I couldn't say to Jameson.

"I love you, guys." Oh, well, maybe four. Everyone spoke similar responses until Saph had to go and ruin it.

"So, talking about love." I groaned, breaking out of the hug first and falling back onto the bed. The girls laughed at me before Saph pounced on me again.

"No, this is serious, we need to sort this out. And soon." She said, earning a confused glance from me.

"What? Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know that you already had a date to the two upcoming Balls." She shrugged, twirling a strand of hair around her index finger.

I stared at her, open-mouthed, before I hurled a pillow at her. "You know that we can't go together!" I threw with it, acutely aware that Cassie had slipped off the bed and wandered off somewhere.

Saph scoffed. "Which is why you guys had such a romantic time last year." I froze. Did they know?

Saph frowned. "Calm down, I was talking about the dance you guys had. But, if there's something else that you want to tell us." She threw me a wink as I shook my head as fast as I possibly could. Avery laughed at us, but Bria didn't join in. I frowned at her, and she flashed me a wistful kind of grin.

"So if you really don't want to tell him, then why is it a big deal?" Avery asked, offering me an Oreo. I gratefully accepted the choice of comfort food before answering.

I sighed. "I guess...I guess it's not." I said.

Saph scoffed. "It obviously is." She said with a tone of sass.

I fell back against Cassie's bed, watching the owner dust her phone with a feather duster. Don't ask.

"So what am I supposed to do then?" I asked in frustration. The girls pondered this, and then Cassie lifted her head up.

"Tell him how you feel." She told me, voice light as she looked everywhere but at me. Everyone stared at her, then Saph raised a hand to gesture to Cassie with eyebrows raised as if to say "there's your answer".

I sat up against a cushion and frowned, "You know that there's a problem when Cassie comes up with the best solution." I said, watching Cassie scrunch up her face and the other girls laugh.

"But I still can't do that." I said, putting a damper on the mood. Saph groaned loudly and banged her head on the wall.

"Okay," she said, regaining her posture, "I see that there's an obvious reason why you can't tell him, but what's the other reason?" She asked. I ducked my head, not wanting to explain myself.

"'Obvious reason'?" Bria echoed, the confusion evident in her voice. I looked up, giving the girls a warning sign.

Bria crumpled up her face. "What aren't you telling me?" She directed the question at all of us, but none of us answered.

Seeing no other way around it, I spoke up. "Sometimes, you keep dangerous secrets. So, if I told you this one, I'd have to kill you." I told her.

She frowned. "But everyone else here knows." She fought back. I stared at her, trying to come up with something to say.

"Do they?" I asked, earning confused glances from the three girls in question.

"Ye–"

I interrupted Cassie before she did some damage control. "Maybe they're just assuming something. Because I never told them." I told her, hoping my reason would keep the suspicion away.

She shook her head, standing up abruptly. "I'm not a child. I just wish that you would all stop treating me like one." She threw at us in an angry fit before opening the door and stalking out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

We all stared at the door for a while, trying to comprehend what just happened.

"Well, now that that's cleared up." Saph spoke up, earning a cold glare from Avery and a cushion to her face from Cassie.

Saph scrunched up her face. "It wasn't meant to be mean, I was just saying." She muttered, looking away from Avery.

"That's not the point, Saph. Because what you don't seem to understand is that we aren't psychic; we don't know what you meant." Avery threw back. I groaned and placed my face in the palm of my hands.

"She wasn't even here to hear it!" Saph shot at her in response.

Avery scoffed. "Well at least now we all know that you talk behind our backs."

I huffed, slipping off the bed to join Cassie as she sat on her bench-like seat at her vanity. I watched her organise bottles of perfume for a while, until I had gathered the courage to start talking.

"What do you think I should do?" I asked her softly.

She glanced at my reflection in the mirror and smiled before returning to organising. "You should tell him that you love him."

I frowned, leaning back slightly. If I got something out of this, it was that Cassie's wit had improved.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. "I can't." I said, the desperation leaking out into my words.

Cassie gave me a questioning glance. "Why?" She asked, no longer organising things as she focused fully on me and only me.

With her undivided attention, I faltered. I couldn't even admit this to myself, so why would I admit it to her?

I closed my eyes. "Because I'm scared."

"Scared of what?" Cassie asked, and I could feel as she shifted on the seat. I opened my eyes to see that her whole body was facing me.

"Scared that if I let myself love him again, that he'll leave me again." And that was it. The secret was out.

Alexi had it right in the dress shop—saying that I was afraid of finding out why he didn't save me. That was true. I was afraid that he'd abandon me like that again, not only when I was trapped in a cage, but on August twenty-third last year, when he left me in that shed.

Cassie smiled. "That makes sense." She told me.

I frowned and then raised an eyebrow. "It does?" I asked, uncertain with even my own reasons.

She gave me rueful smile. "He broke your heart," she said. I nodded, glancing away from her for a moment as old emotions froze my heart over.

"You're afraid that it won't survive if he breaks it again." I closed my eyes. It was true. Everything that she had observed was true. I just didn't want to admit it, not to myself, not to anyone, and especially not to Jameson.

She took my hands into her own. "Sky," I opened my eyes and looked at her. She looked back with compassion that I didn't even know that she owned.

"You're breaking your own heart by not telling him. You're cutting it off by not giving a relationship with Jameson a chance, and soon, it will suffocate." I smiled at her.

"When did you get so wise?" I asked, nudging her playfully.

She grinned. "There's this girl that I know, she's like made out of steel or something. Because she's been through so much and somehow survived, and I personally think that she should take the second chance that she's been given." All jokes aside, I stared at Cassie. Then I pulled her in for a side hug.

She twirled a lock of my blonde hair, then looked at me in the reflection of the mirror. "You were trapped in such a horrible place. Do you really want to condemn your heart to the same fate?"

________________________________

No way hosey

Anyone else on my side here ?

No

Wait who was that

Eden

THE FUCKKKKK

WHY SHE HERE

SHE RUINING VALENTINES DAY

-yes, I am

__________
Next chapter: Friyay
__________

CHAPTER EIGHTY- THREE SPOILER:

A chance to fall back in love is strangled by rumpled sheets.

And it's only so long before the sheets are pulled back, to reveal the guilty.

THE FINAL CHAPTER IS:
20 chapters away