"I love you!" she yelled, her eyes slamming shut. If she shut her eyes it wasn't happening. She could pretend that it was a dream - no a nightmare. She was telling her childhood best friend that she loved him. Ha, definitely a dream.. if it was real...
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CHAPTER FOURTEEN, the rescue ( Registration )
Small trigger warning for thoughts and conversations about unhealthy eating and sick.
It was hard to sleep that night. Although back home, in her own bed, surrounded by the stuffed animals she hugged as a child and by her father. Yet she still couldn't sleep. She couldn't shut her eyes and see the dreams that would fill her mind but the nightmare of the past days she'd had.
Marissa on the ground. Unconscious.
Her fault.
It was no use. Sleep didn't want to come so she didn't want to sleep. Gina sat up in her bed, staring at the crack in the wall. Watching as the sun slowly rose, peeking behind the curtains that her Dad had pulled over the windows - to shut the outside world out because they were the ones against her. Against Marissa. Against her sleep, her life.
She hadn't slept a wink when her Dad came in that morning and took her downstairs. Gina let him guide her, her brain too busy overthinking every decision she made that led her to right now. To Mexico with her friend unconscious on the ground.
Callum pushed a plate full of cut-up fruit in front of his daughter. Gina looked down at it, her eyes scanning the colourful plate trying to find something wrong with it.
She couldn't help it.
If she found something wrong with it then she could tell Callum to take it away. Maybe the strawberries looked rotten or the grapes were too squishy but no - nothing was wrong. The plate was perfect.
But she wasn't hungry.
"Darling, you have to eat," he told her with a sigh. Gina forced her eyes from her plate and up at her Dad. The moment she saw his face, the way his eyes looked sad and the concern that filled his face, she broke down. She couldn't make him feel that way again. "I know." He quickly made his way around the island and sat down next to her.
Callum's hand rested on Gina's back, rubbing up and down to comfort her. She leaned into his touch, letting her body collapse into his chest, sobbing.
"Jimmy called me this morning," Callum informed her, his own eyes burning with tears as he watched his daughter's chest heave. "She's ok."
"No, she's not," Gina spoke harshly. She was angry but she had no one to be angry at. It was just bubbling up in her chest and clouding her thoughts. She pushed off her father's chest and looked at him. "She tried to-"
Her throat went dry as her mouth filled up with saliva. Gina gagged. Callum nodded, a sigh falling from his lips as he watched his daughter run from the kitchen to the downstairs bathroom. She reached both tears and vomit falling into the bowl.
