Verse Nineteen

I couldn't believe that my parents would still let me go to school after everything that had happened to me, especially considering that the person who had pushed me down the stairs and had almost killed me was allowed to come back after his one week suspension.

He should've been expelled after that video had come out but of course, his parents had connections so that wasn't happening.

I took one step into school and with everyone's eyes on me again, I bolted.  I ran straight to the place that was my sanctuary, the music room.  Since classes hadn't started yet it was completely empty and secluded, just how I liked it.

I sat down on the empty bench at the piano and allowed the music to flow through my fingers, the words of one of my favorite songs effortlessly flowing past my lips as I recited every word by heart.

I loved playing and singing at the same time, it was something therapeutic about being able to only allow your mind focus on so many things that the pain of everything that I'd been through just washed away, my mind simply wasn't capable of worrying when I was playing and singing.

On and on, the song went as I felt the chorus and verses flow out of my throat, the words eloquently describing what I was feeling in those pain filled moments.

"I didn't know you could play," his voice filled my ears when I got to a part that I wasn't singing and was just playing the piano.

"I didn't know you were a student here and actually allowed on campus," I retorted back to him once the surprise wore off.

I continued playing the piano as he came and sat down beside me, my motions more relaxed since he was close to me.  It was strange that Sebastian made me so calm when I was around him, even though I hadn't known him very long there was just an air about him that made all of my anxieties vanish within one look at him.

My heart rate started bounding out of control, the spicy cinnamon scent of his cologne and minty breath so near to my face was giving me whiplash. I thought that since we had kissed, my senses wouldn't go into haywire around him anymore.

I was so completely and totally wrong.

I eyed him from the side and saw that he was wearing his signature white t shirt that clung to his prominent muscles like glue.

Was that drool on the side of my face?

"I got a guest pass. I knew you'd probably be feeling really scared or nervous about today, so I arranged for someone to be at your side all day long and if that someone couldn't be me then it would be someone who I trust with your life," he said, and I wondered who all he meant by that as I tried to play off how startled I was when he interrupted my embarrassing train of thought.

"Me, Blake, Jason and Josie," he said, answering my confused expression on my face.

"So, why did you never tell me you could sing? Like, really really sing?"

"Well, it kind of never came up in conversation. And honestly I just do it for fun I don't think I'd be good at trying to make a career out of it," I said, trying to dismiss it.

I took my fingers off of the keys and turned my body to the right to completely face Sebastian, wanting to give him my full attention.

"But that's ridiculous you sounded amazing, better than half the pop female artists out there now who can only sing the same notes every song and always sound like they're whispering in their songs," he said and I laughed at his analogy.

"Maybe that's just their style..." I pointed out but he wasn't having it.

"No no no, show me one pop artist today who can hit that note that you just sang?"

"Demi Lovato, Christina Aguilera, Lea Michele, the person who actually sings the song, Ariana Grande, Kelly Clar-"

"Okay okay, but still, you know what I mean. You need to grace the singing world with your voice. Damn, that voice," he said, biting his lip and I think if I wasn't sitting down I would have fainted right there on the spot.

The bell rang, causing us to spring apart and for the moment to be thwarted, but it didn't matter to me. As long as he was beside me, that was all I ever needed.

***

The classes drew by slowly, and I didn't see Dylan or his friends a single time the entire day, which I was thankful for. I managed to get a lot of meaningful studying done since Josie had pretty much done all of my missing work for me while I was in the hospital.

I realized that I needed to move on from what had happened to me and decided that enough was enough, I wasn't going to mope around and be that girl who just blended into the background no matter how hard I tried.

I decided that I would embrace the spotlight that was thrust upon me, and I was going to do something reckless.

I decided to sign up for the school talent show.

I know, I know, it didn't sound very reckless at first, but when I thought of all of the people who would be staring up at me, all of their eyes on me...it was a little more nerve wracking to think of it that way, to say the least.

"Are you sure?" Josie asked me later that afternoon as we were out getting ice cream after school. I wanted to celebrate not seeing Dylan all day, and I'm not exactly sure how I swung that. It might have been because Sebastian, Josie, Jason and Blake all took me off campus for lunch so I didn't have to be thrown to the wolves so early.

I had to face them sooner or later, I just preferred later.

"Yeah, I think so. I feel like it'll be good for me. Music always makes me feel better," I told her, letting the warm air flow across my shoulders. Summer was quickly approaching, thankfully.

"Yeah, but you remember that time you were in the school play in fourth grade and you were dressed up as the tree. You had like, one speaking line and you threw up your lunch in the middle of it."

I snorted out in laughter causing a few of the other customers at the ice cream place to look over at us in annoyance. I had half a mind to stick my tongue out at them but decided against it, against my better judgement, I might add.

"Hey, I was like eleven. And yes I am sure, it's gonna get my mind off of everything anyway," I told her, wanting to put the topic to rest.

"Alright, alright. Now, what's going on with you and Sebastian? I know you two were kissing the other day when we caught you. You guys already act like a couple, so what gives? Are you dating for real or are you fake dating?"

I sighed, putting my head into my hands at her intrusive questions.

"I don't know, Jos. It's all so complicated. I feel like he kind of shut himself off to me because I suggested that we fake date so my interview could get more hits on the internet and his ex girlfriend did that to him so it probably left a bad taste in his mouth. I just don't know. Of course, I want us to be something more, I mean he's Sebastian Jennings! But I'm scared to tell him how I really feel, what if he doesn't feel the same way and just wants to be friends and-"

"Breathe, Holly Breathe! You're babbling again, you know how you get when you babble. Look, I'm sure he feels the exact same way towards you, I mean he kissed you and everything! You should have seen how worried he was when we were all talking about who was going to be with you at school when, he was like your own personal bodyguard and-"

She was cut off by a news alert on her phone. I felt my heart clench in anticipation for what was about to appear on her phone screen, sure that it wasn't going to be any positive news. It never was with my life.

"Oh, honey..." she started, and with the tripod look on her face I knew something was seriously wrong.

"What, what is it?" I asked her, reaching for her phone. She quickly yanked it away from my reach and I gave her a deathly glare.

"Listen, before you see this I want you to keep in mind how the paparazzi can twist things around and make things look different than they appear..." she trailed off.

She nervously turned her phone around and I loosaw what had made her so worrisome. It was just a picture. Crazy how a simple picture could turn my life completely inside out and upside down all at the same time.

I felt bile rise up in my throat, my heart in my chest twisting and turning over and over inside of me. I knew the man who was in that picture, he owned my heart and at the moment he had destroyed it. Just with one picture.

His arms were on her shoulders. Her lips were on his. And my stomach was in my throat.

A phone call pulled me out of my reverie and I was hoping it was Sebastian so I could tell him how much I disliked his taste in females, but it turned out to be my mother.

"Hello?" I asked her, waiting for a response. Josie looked at me expectantly, the worry etched across her face.

"...she doesn't know and she'll never know! I thought I told you that we weren't going to tell her!" I heard my mother's yelling voice. She must have butt dialed me. I kept listening.

"But look at all of the awful things happening around her right now! She needs her father, and she also needs to know the truth. What if she finds out later and hates us because we never told her!"

"We're protecting her, and she would know that! Her father is not someone that she needs to know," I heard my mother saying.

"You don't get to decide that for her!" he screamed at my mom.

I couldn't feel my body, it was like I was floating outside of myself.

The hole was growing larger and larger, so much so that it felt like it would swallow me up whole. Like I was just an inconsequential road block in one huge expanse of a universe.

It felt like I was falling slowly, now knowing which way way up and which was down.

"Holly? Holly!" I heard Josie's voice but I couldn't see her, just kept hearing the words repeated over and over in my head on an eternal loop.

"She's not even really yours, you have no say in the matter!"

My mother's words, so cruel and harsh and cutting deep within my soul.

I couldn't explain the pain surging through me that very second. The only thing I remembered thinking was that the only person who I wanted to comfort me in that moment couldn't because he was too busy with someone else to even care about me.

How stupid was I. How stupid was I to believe even for a second that someone like Sebastian would ever want me.

I let the phone drop from my hands onto the hard, burning concrete below my feet as a concerned Josie called someone on her phone.

I didn't care anymore, I just wanted to go somewhere that wasn't home and never look back.

Author's Note:

Well, that was kind of crazy!

What do you think is going on?!

Who was Sebastian kissing? Did he really betray Holly like that?

What scenes do you want in the final ten chapters?

Yes I said it, were on the home stretch! Only ten more chapters!!

I could be convinced to write a sequel but we'll just have to wait and see! I think I would need 500 thousand views to warrant a sequel!

Until next time my lovely readers!

-Kristen :)