The 12 Steps [1D/5SOS]

3. "Bad Blood"

Hope

Present Day: Friday, April 7th, 2017

"Stylinson?" Harry's brows furrowed together. "That's your last name, Hope. Are you two related?"

"No," I shook out of my initial shock, my lips pressing together in a fine line. "My only family is Lottie, must be a common name."

"Yes, it must be," Gemma tried to fake it as well. She looked so much older though since the last time I had seen her, but I couldn't forget her face even if I tried to. "Um, would you like to-"

"No," I didn't even care to hear what she had to say. "Harry's right, we must get going. It was so nice to meet you, Mr. Black."

I turned on my heels my hair flipping fast over my shoulder as I tried to push my way to the exit. There was no possible way in the history of the world that this was happening to me right now. I might have been praying for my sister's safe return every night, but not for that fucking sister.

"Hope, hey," Harry tugged on my arm, stopping me before I made it to the exit. "What's going on?"

"It's nothing," I crossed my arms tightly over my chest. "I just don't want to be here anymore. I knew it was stupid coming here."

"Did you... did you know that woman back there?" Harry asked.

"No, I don't know that woman at all," I honestly said. "I'll see you guys for dinner later, I'm skipping the rest of classes."

"If you skip again you're going to fail," Harry's eyes winded.

"Yeah well... fuck school," I quickly turned around again before I pushed one of the side doors open and walked out into the sunlight.

I looked both ways to make sure there were no teachers around, not like I would care to begin with at this point. I reached into my bag to the secret pocket at the bottom pulling out a pack of cigarettes. I never smoked around Hermione, because she would kill me and show me some sort of statistic on how every time I smoked I lost ten minutes of my life.

But I didn't give a shit about how long I lived at this point.

I brought the lighter up to the cigarette, taking a long drag as soon as it started to burn. That was a new thing that came with this fun year as well. Lottie would have killed me just as much for smoking if she was here.

But who gave a fuck at this point?

No one cared about me, I was all alone. I didn't have a family to help me out if I was in trouble. I didn't even have a family at all at this point.

The side door opened again and I rolled my eyes when Gemma walked out. She looked to the left before she turned and spotted me leaning against the wall.

"You know, you shouldn't be smoking," She said.

"Oh yeah?" I took another drag. "Who's going to stop me?"

"Hope," Hemma closed the door, taking a step towards me. "How have you... god, it's been so long. You were a child when I saw you last."

I couldn't even believe she was speaking honestly, what bullshit she was spewing out of her mouth. I took the cigarette and tapped it against the wall to put it out.

"You know what Gemma? Let's pretend that we never saw each other, okay?" I said in a very monotoned voice, because that's all the energy I had for her. "Let's not pretend like you care about me, or what I've been up to, or who my celebrity crush is. You're not my sister, you're just someone I share blood with. And if I could take that away, I would."