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I can feel my knees starting to shake with anticipation as I watch Demi. She doesn't say anything. Her hands are trembling, and I can see that she's picking at her nails; a nervous habit.

She's smaller than the last time I saw her. Her arms are skinnier, and I can see what looks like a small thigh gap. Looking at her face, I notice just how pale her skin has gotten, and the bags under her eyes are dark. She looks even more drained in person.

"Are you just gonna stand there or are you gonna give me a hug?" I giggle in an attempt to break the awkwardness, and it seems to work because she comes running over to me in seconds.

I close my eyes, wrapping my arms around her small frame while her arms wrap around my neck. We stay like this for several minutes, just savouring it. I can feel her tears on my chest as her body trembles in my arms. Fighting back my own, I run my hands through her hair.

"Shh, Dem. It's okay, I'm here it's okay" I say softly as she continues to cry in my arms. I feel her head shake from side to side and she soon pushes away from me.

"No!" she yells before looking up at me with bloodshot eyes. "No, it's not okay Kalani. None of this is okay! I thought you were dead!" she shouts before gripping her hair in her hands. "I thought you were dead!"

I quickly run over to her side as she crouches down to the ground. Her hands are tightly pulling on her hair, and I have to pry them away.

"Demi, stop that" I say sternly, recognising that she's having an anxiety attack. "Demi, just let me help you" I add while trying to get her to sit up straight.

"No, don't touch me! Don't touch me!" she yells, pushing herself to her feet and away from me. "You can't just do this! You can't leave me alone all this time and then come back, alive and breathing. I thought you were gone Kal" she cries out as I walk towards her. She lets me wrap my arms around her shoulders, surprisingly.

"I know Demi, and I'm sorry. Trust me when I say that I had no choice" I whisper in her ear, hoping that my tone will calm her down.

Instead, she starts to faintly hit my chest with her hands, crying while muttering "you left me" over and over again. I don't stop her from hitting me, I deserve it.

"I needed you, I needed you!" she states while pushing me away again.

We stand there, staring at each other. Her cheeks are red from crying, and I'm sure my eyes are the same. She's looking at me with such pain that I have to break eye contact.

"What happened Kalani?" she asks after some time passes. I can feel my heartbeat start to increase at her question. How am I supposed to tell her?

"Can we go somewhere more private?" I say in a small voice, almost automatically reclining back into the small girl I was subjected into being during my disappearance.

She slowly walks over to me, reaching out to grab my hand. "Yeah, okay. We can go to my house, everyone's out."

I nod in response, my anxiety too high to form words. I'm trying so hard to keep my mind in the present moment, but it's almost inevitable that a flashback will happen.

"Come on Kal, lets go. You don't have to say anything right now" she says reassuringly, and if I wasn't trying to stop myself from passing out, I'd be more surprised at her sudden change of emotion. One minute she's crying and screaming, and the next she's the one trying to keep me calm.

I follow her to the car and climb into the passenger seat, not even bothering to buckle my seatbelt.

"Here, let me" Demi says, and I watch with numb eyes as she reaches over and grabs my seatbelt, pulling it over my front and then clicking it into place.

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