Cold At Night // Ethan Cutkosky

Chapter 27: Order Up

It's been a month since that night, a lot has happened. The day after, Bella told her mother everything and she kindly asked Riley, Isaac, and Hunter if they can stay in a hotel, but they already were one step ahead of her. Bella's father came back the next day, but only to grab a few of his things and leave. He hasn't been home yet. Noah wasn't talking that much to Bella. Their mother wasn't really doing much. Bella has been doing the most.

She went back to school ignoring everyone. Her routine was waking up, going to school, come home, going to bed, and repeat the whole thing. On weekends she would go see her therapist. She even got a job to keep herself busy. It was at the diner, but whenever the guys came she would make sure somebody else take their order, but that was rare since the guy's barely showed up anymore. They didn't even hang of anymore.

Lucas mostly spent time with Kyle and his friends getting high. Alex would sometimes hang out with them, but he met other people since he became more popular especially with all the parties he now goes to. Andrew and Ethan still talk, but Andrew became a player. Ethan stayed the same. He still talked to all the guys, but it was just different. Everything was different.

Bella just came back from school and walked into the house to find her mom and Noah home early. Bella shut the door and put her bag down.

"Is everything okay?" She asked walking towards them.

"Tell her." Her mother said while crossing her arms.

"I don't have to." Noah shrugged.

"Tell her now!" Her mother yelled.

Noah groaned. "Fine." She sat up and looked at her sister with a blank face. "We had to write about family today in class so I wrote about how fucked up ours is."

"Okay?" Bella gave her a confused look.

"Then I wrote about how you tried to commit suicide and my teacher wrote it and turns out her husband is actually the principal at your school so she called mom and then she called him and then he called the board and now we all have one big meeting coming soon."

Bella's eyes widened. "Noah! What the fuck? You know that's not true!"

"I know, but I mean you did at one point right? So I thought hey maybe if I write about it I wouldn't be as mad at you for ruining this family."

"Enough!" Her mother yelled.

"No! You always say that when it gets too much for her! She needs to hear the truth!" Noah yelled.

"Do not raise your voice at me!" Their mother yelled.

"Whatever," Noah muttered.

"I have had enough of your attitude! I get that you're mad at your sister and I because you think we are the reason your father left, bu-"

"You are the reason! You let him leave!" Noah cut her mother off.

"He left because he couldn't handle it and he needed time, Noah!" Bella said.

"Time? The only time he needed was to get away from this messed up family. He doesn't need time to think, he needs time to escape and we handed that right to him because you can't handle anything! You're just so emotional!"

"Go upstairs." Her mother said.

"Mom!"

"Go upstairs, you're grounded."

Noah groaned and got up looking at Bella. "You ruined everything." She said before heading upstairs.

Bella just sighed and looked at her mother who was covering her face with her hands. "Mom?" She said quietly.