Of Ice and Hopitals

Chapter 19

Lisa found her on the beach.

With her knees pulled closely under her chin and her hands clawing at the flesh over her legs so hard her nails dug half-moon indents into her fair skin, Sofia's silhouette appeared as no more than a small, tight ball as she watched the moonlit horizon, her gaze hollow.

She was not hiding, not really.

Jennie and Echo knew where she was, they just sensed that she wanted to be left alone, thus let her be as they waited at the house until Lisa came back to deal with her.

Because she knew that that was what would happen.

There was no way their cousin would not call her sister and tell her about how she had gotten herself into a fight.

And there was certainly no way her overprotective older sister would not drop everything and come rushing back home the second she heard the news.

It was a trait about her that the teenager loved as much as she hated, especially right now.

Hence, when she sensed her presence as Lisa slowly dropped to her knees as she sat down a few feet behind her, Sofia was not surprised.

She pushed her toes further into the cool wet sand, feeling its fine particles slide under her nails.

Lisa arrived faster than the teenager thought she would.

A deflating sigh barely louder than a whisper rushed out of the older Manoban' lips, her jade gaze focused on the back of a wavy, brown-haired head.

Sofia physically felt it.

She did not turn around.

"Will you tell me what this is really about? I assume you did not throw punches at someone's face purely for the hell of it," Lisa said evenly.

The fifteen-year-old kept her eyes firmly on the silvery surface of the Pacific Ocean, her chin jutting in defiance and her teeth grinding painfully against each other.

The words that had sent her toppling over the edge and made her lose her temper that day kept replaying over and over in her head.

Her fingernails dove deeper into her skin, the pressure so vigorous she was on the brink of starting to bleed from where the pad of her fingers stung into her calves, the skin around the indents there white.

Lisa tried to curl a grounding hand on top of the younger girl's shoulder only for Sofia to immediately sharply recoil at the touch with an abrupt roll of her shoulder, Lisa's hand falling back to her side at the sudden motion.

The actress swallowed the rejection painfully, feeling the crushing pressure of a boulder into her throat.

Assuming that her little sister needed more time alone before she was ready to talk, the woman who all but sprinted out of New York and to her sister's side pushed herself up from the ground with the help of her palms and her heels to retreat into their home.

Sofia stopped her.

Blindly grasping her big sister's hand into her own, the sulking figure skater pulled at Lisa's wrist and effectively prevented her from going any further away.

"Please don't leave me," the girl hoarsely demanded.

The tail of Lisa's eyebrows pulled down as she looked down at her sister with distress pooling in her pale green eyes.

She gently squeezed the slightly smaller hand with her own, hoping it would provide the comfort and reassurance Sofia obviously sought.

"Okay."