Sisters [book one]

Chapter Fifteen

This is dedicated to @ghostwritethewhip for her comment on the old version of one of the unedited chapters. Thank you!

Chapter Fifteen

The smell of disinfectant and porcelain brings me back to the night Michele was brought into hospital. I charge ahead of my mom, desperately wanting someone to prove to me that Esmee's not really in hospital; it's someone else.

Room 505's door is ajar. I see Esmee's family; there's a doctor talking to them.

I burst in, only to have everyone's gaze fall on me. My eyes flicker to Esmee's sullen body; her petite frame swallowed by the hospital's mattress. Her eyes are closed and the machine beside her beeps steadily; a red mark is streaked across her left cheek and her left arm's in a cast. Two hands touch my shoulders but I shake them away.

"Is she okay?" I say.

"She's stable," the doctor says.

I clutch onto the metal railing at the foot of the bed and heave a sigh of relief. For a split second, I thought it was going to be Déjà vu all over again. They were going to tell me Esmee was in a coma and they wouldn't know the extent of the damage until she'd woken up, only to have her not remember a single thing.

"Haley, sit down," Esmee's mom says, and she takes me back into the corridor.

"What's happened?" I say.

Mrs Jackson hesitates. "Esmee's been unwell for a while now.

"What do you mean?" I say. "Esmee's healthy..."

"She hasn't been eating enough for a while now," Mrs Jackson says. "We bought her to the hospital because she was missing her period. Then we noticed how thin she was getting and we grew worried. There were arguments but she wouldn't get help. Then she fainted, and fell down the stairs..."

I remember when she collapsed in class and Nurse Helen asked if she'd had any breakfast. I remember Esmee had shaken her head. She doesn't eat at lunchtimes, I know that, but I thought that was because none of the other cheerleaders did and she didn't want to stand out; I never thought the amount of exercise she did was unhealthy. I didn't think anything. That was the problem. I didn't think. I was so wrapped up in my own problems that I hadn't seen Esmee suffering.

But had Jake?

"Where's Jake?" I say.

"He went to get a coffee, I think."

I find him in the cafeteria, sitting low on one of the fabric chairs with a packet of Maltesers' in one hand and a plastic cup of coffee in the other. His expression is blank and his face is pale; he doesn't blink.

"Hey," I say, sitting in the chair beside him.

His eyes flicker to me for a moment before continuing to stare dead ahead. "Hey."

"Thanks for calling," I say.

Jake sits up a little straighter. "That's okay."

I cross my legs and twiddle with my thumbs in my lap. I then grip the armchairs either side of me and my eyes dart across the cafeteria: two children try and work out a puzzle on the floor, an elderly couple sit in silence, families from every walk of life fill up the rest of the tables. I take a moment to wonder why they're all here, what their story is.

"Malteser?" Jake says and I shake my head. A long silence follows. "So you heard what happened."

"Mrs Jackson told me," I say. "I had no idea."

"I had no idea," I say, "about Esmee."

Jake runs a hand through his hair and takes sip from his cup. "I did, sort of. I knew that there was something wrong but I had no idea what. I didn't realise her excessive workouts at four in the morning were part of the problem."