Chapter 283
Chapter 283
-Ava’s POV-
“It’s us! Lilian, it’s us! Stop screaming!”
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Isabella’s voice cut through the darkness, but I couldn’t stop. My throat burned, my pulse pounded, and my wolf was clawing at the surface–ready to fight and growling at me for screaming instead of letting her do exactly that.
Then the lights flicked on.
“Why are you still screaming?” Isabella asked, brows furrowed.
“I don’t know!” My breath came in short gasps, my chest heaving.
“Stop it.”
“I can’t!”
“Oh, for goodness‘ sake,” Eliza, who had apparently appeared out of nowhere, grabbed something–what even was that, a underwear?-and stuffed it into my mouth.
I yanked it out immediately, eyes wide, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I told you it was a bad idea to sneak up on her,” Eliza muttered to Isabella, arms crossed.
I turned to her, still breathless. “And you! You’re here too? What the hell are you both even doing in my room?” My heart was still hammering, my wolf still pacing beneath my skin.
Isabella grinned like she hadn’t just scared the life out of me, “We’re here to take you out.”
I blinked, “Take me where? And why didn’t you just call?” I turned to Eliza, “And you’re supposed to be the rational one. Why would you agree to this? Why aren’t you at work with Grayson? And why are you enabling her?”
“Okay, that’s enough ‘and why’s,”” Isabella cut in. “You’ve had this dead look in your eyes ever since you got back from that storm. You keep saying you’re fine, but you’re not. So, I decided we needed to do something normal. Something fun. Like we used to.”
“You mean like when you used to get me into trouble?” I deadpanned.
“Anyway,” She dragged the word out, ignoring me, “I went to Grayson, and all I had to say was, ‘Ava needs this,‘ and he released Eliza from work. I was thinking later we could use that to our advantage–like, I don’t know, get him to buy us a small country by saying, ‘Ava needs this.“”
I shot her a look.
Eliza, to my disappointment, just hummed in thought, “That might actually work.”
I turned to her, exasperated, “I really just want to rest. Can you please tell her that Grayson will not be buying anyone a small country and that she is still supposed to be resting from that explosion?”
“Hey, why are you talking to her like I’m not here?” Isabella protested.
“Because you have a listening problem,” I muttered. “You need to hear things twice for them to sink in.”
“Given everything you’ve been through, I’m going to let that slide,” She said sweetly, then clapped her hands together. “No go get changed. We need to get going.”
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05:51 Mon, 24 Mar
Chapter 283
I turned to Eliza in disbelief, “Can you see what I mean? She doesn’t listen”
I let out a slow breath and moved away from the door, “I’m really not in the mood to go anywhere. I’m tired. And scaring me half to death was not funny.”
“It was a little funny,” Eliza muttered, but when I shot her a glare, she looked away quickly,
Isabella huffed, following me as I sat on the bed, “Come on, Lilian, don’t be like this. You’re walking around like a zombie. You’re avoiding everyone. You keep going back to your parents‘ hospital when they’ve told you a hundred times that the babies are fine. It’s over. We should celebrate,”
“But there’s nothing to celebrate,” I snapped,
The air in the room shifted.
Isabella’s eyes widened. Eliza took a small step back.
I closed my eyes and took a shaky breath, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. I’m just so tired. And I’m so angry. And at the same time, I don’t even know what I’m feeling”
I lifted my gaze, my voice trembling now, “The man who practically raised me stole my twin sister at birth. Then he tried to kill me–kill us–over and over again. And then I thought I found my mate, only to be manipulated into believing a lie. And my sister–my twin sister–hated me. If I had just been a better person, if I had just done something different, maybe she wouldn’t grow up hating me so much abd I would have had an actual sister and I wouldn’t have had to leave her to die.”
My hands curled into fists.
“And then there’s my father,” I continued, my voice breaking. “The man I spent years trying to escape–hating–now lying in that house, withering away, never to wake up. And my mother, the woman who spent my entire life being cruel to me, suddenly wants to make it up to me. And I don’t know why I don’t even want that. I should. I said I. But I don’t and then Elaine wants me to forgive her like it is easy and then you are friends with her and Monica like you’ve forgotten everything they did.”
A silence stretched between us.
And then, I whispered, “And then there’s Grayson.”
My throat tightened.
“Everything is supposed to be fine. Everything should feel fine with us. I mean I forgave him and then I went to the In Between just to bring him back and then we went through shit on tbst ship together and we survived. But it doesn’t.”
I swallowed, my voice raw with emotion, “People died. People got hurt. A lot was lost and you’re all trying to pretend like it’s okay. Like it’s easy for me to just move.”
Isabella let out a soft sigh, her voice gentle as scooted closer. “Oh, honey, no one is asking you to move on or to be okay so easily.” Her eyes softened, filled with an understanding that made my chest tighten, “We all went through it, but most of it was directed at you. And at Grayson.”
She closed the distance between us, “You went with Grayson to visit his old, burnt house because you wanted him to let go of his past, right? You wanted him to move forward. And that’s exactly what you helped him do.” Her voice wavered slightly, as if she were holding back her own emotions, “But you aren’t letting any of us help you.”
My breath hitched as I looked away, my fingers curling into the fabric of my sleeves.
“You wake up every day and go to that hospital to have yourself checked on, and then you smile.” She exhaled sharply, shaking her head. “You pretend you’re fine. You smile like you’ve done your whole life when you’re hurting. And you’re pushing everyone away without even realizing it.”
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Chapter 283
She hesitated, then reached out and took my hands, her grip firm but warm.
“The only reason things feel wrong between you and Grayson is because you’re making it to*
Her words struck something deep in me, something I hadn’t even ler myself acknowledge. I swallowed hand, my thenat aching.
Then Isabella moved even closer, wrapping her arms around me. Her warmth, her steady heartbeat against mine, made something inside me crack open.
“You’re allowed to hurt.” She whispered. “But you need to do what you told Grayson to do. You need to let go
A sharp breath escaped me, and I realized too late that my shoulders were shaking, Tears slipped down my cheeks before 1 could stop them. I hadn’t even realized I was crying until Isabella tightened her hold, resting her chin on my shoulder.
And then, in the middle of the raw, painful silence, she murmured, “You’re kind of getting fat.”
A strangled laugh burst out of me before I even knew it was coming. I clutched onto her, shaking my head as another laugh bubbled up through the tears.
Isabella grinned against my shoulder, then turned to Eliza. “I didn’t get you off work so you could just stand there. Come on.”
Eliza, who had been watching with a small, knowing smile, finally stepped forward and wrapped her arms around both of us
We stayed there like that, tangled together in a warm, messy, imperfect hug and then I broke the silence. “So where are we going?”
Isabella was the first to pull away, moving back with a grin so wide that I instantly regretted asking anything at all. That look on her face meant trouble.
She clapped her hands together, practically vibrating with excitement, “So, you know how your wedding was fake and rushed, so you never got a proper bachelorette party? And then we couldn’t even go to Eliza’s because of everything that was happening? And then I couldn’t have one because-”
“You went completely insane and decided you wanted your wedding in three days,” Eliza and I said at the exact same time.
Isabella shot us a glare but didn’t lose her grin, “Don’t start.” Then, she took a dramatic pause, lifting a hand like she was about to make the biggest announcement of the century. “Which brings me to… drum roll, please.”
Eliza groaned. “Oh, just tell us already!”
But Isabella wasn’t fazed. If anything, she looked even more smug as she wiggled her eyebrows and declared, “We are going to have the ultimate bachelorette party, and we are going to do something I’ve always wanted to do.”
I crossed my arms, already wary. “What? Get tested to see if you’re actually insane?”
She snorted. “No.” Then her grin stretched wider, “We’re going to prison.”
