His Paper Heart ✓

•36|Her Big Secret(Imogene)-Part Two

SHE STANDS THERE, FLOWERS IN HER HANDS AS SHE SMILES AT GRAY. I sit back on the bed and exhale loudly. Her slow, methodical steps approach Gray's bed and I'm left a little confused as to why she'd come visit him.

"I heard you were in the hospital, thought I'd come say hi," she whispers. "I know you don't like me, both of you but I'm here to apologize." she looks at me, her eyes unapologetic. "I know I've no right to ask but I hope we can all be friends," she adds.

Emily is a lot of things but one thing she'll never be is my friend, no matter how much she thinks she has changed, she and I can never be friends. She smiles wryly at me and turns to Gray, slowly putting the flowers on the bed.

Gray squints at her. "I know I've told you this before but I'll say it again. You're an asshole and incredibly awful at lying." he coughs.

"I know you're angry—"

"You know nothing," I state.

"Excuse me?" she asks.

"You're so clueless about everything that's going on in the world. You're stuck in this bubble where you get high off the fact that you're beautiful and you own a cheap BMW and you're the girlfriend of the town's mayor's son. There are literally problems everywhere and you've no idea. Gray was shot by a man last week. A psychotic, abusive man was trying to take advantage of a girl and when we stopped him, he shot Gray. He could have died —"

"I know that!" she says, practically yelling.

"What you don't know is there's no difference between you and that man."

"How dare you," she whispers, her chest rising and falling, her brows furrowed together, anger evident on the features of her face.

"What are you going to do?" I ask. "Hit me? Go ahead. That won't shut me up." I shrug.

"The man abuses people physically, you abuse people emotionally. You torture us, you say mean things to us and call us fat, ugly, disgusting and worthless. Do you know what does? It gets stuck in our minds, it's depressing and the common outcome is us cutting ourselves and overdosing to numb the emotional and mental pain you inflict on us. There's nothing different between you and that man. He uses a gun, you use words and they hurt twice as much so yes Emily, you're an asshole."

"You're going to regret this, Kaelin."

"And here I thought you wanted to be friends," I tease, smiling at her. With a loud grunt, she heads for the door.

"Emily wait," Gray calls. Emily holts and quickly turns. "You forgot your flowers," Gray adds. I hold in a laugh behind pursed lips as she comes for the flowers and slams the door loudly behind her when she walks out. "God, you're so sexy," Gray says to me, earning a giggle.

"My heart didn't beat fast once," I whisper.

"It didn't?" he smiles and I nod. "I'm proud of you."

"I'm proud of me too." I smile. "You've made me strong Gray." I stroke his cheeks, brushing my thumb on his nasal cannula. Something I've worn more than half of my life. The device that supplies me with air.

He shakes his head. "No. You've always been strong. Always."

I tug my lower lip between my teeth and smile. My Christmas isn't going the way I expected it to go. There's barely any gifts and the only Christmas tree I've been looking at this week is the one in the hospital. I am grateful for everything. Gray is fine, he's going to get better.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" Gray asks.

"Nothing," I say, "you're just really hot." I giggle.