The Elusive Heart of Nova Hart ✔

56// blame game

hestianess thank you for giving this story a chance and falling in love with it so much that you read it all in three hours haha :D

BLAME GAME

    Graham hadn't left Nova's house even after she'd left, for Caroline had come down almost immediately, cursing her sister for leaving without telling her goodbye.

    He tried telling Caroline that Nova had left with a preoccupied mind, but she wouldn't have it and then the conversation just flowed from there. Its not like Graham had anywhere else to be anyway; his dad was turning into a workaholic, channelling all his misery and anger into his job.

    "So how long?" Caroline asked, leaning her head back against the headrest of the couch, eyes sparkling mischievously as she watched Graham.

    "How long what?" He frowned.

    "That you've had the hots for my little sister, that's what," she shot back.

    He spluttered on the mug of coffee she'd brewed for him, choking and coughing as she simply watched.

    When the coughing fit subsided, he looked up with watery eyes, glaring at Caroline who was stifling her laughter with much difficulty.

    "I don't know what you're talking about," he said curtly.

    "Right," she drawled, sarcasm thickly layered over her voice, "that's why you had to see her before she went off to meet the possible love of her life."

    His gut clenched unpleasantly at those last few words, picturing Nova in that sexy red dress in the arms of another guy, with her body pressed close to someone else's, with somebody else's fingers threading through her blonde locks —

    "Whoa, easy there, tiger," Caroline held her hands up in a gesture of surrender, probably gauging his expression. "Drop the murderous look on your face. Lets just have a civilised conversation, yes?"

    He rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the tension in his muscles. "Its n—"

    The sharp ring of the doorbell cut him off and he looked from the door to Caroline questioningly, wondering who would come calling at this time of the night.

    She shrugged in response, looking equally baffled and curious, before getting up and walking towards the door.

    Graham set his mug down on the coffee table and followed behind her.

    When she opened the door, Graham did not expect that to be the sight to greet him.

    His heart went into overdrive as his eyes landed on a sleeping Nova being carried in Ty's arms but the ecstatic sensation gave away into worry when he noticed the dried tear streaks that ran down her face and her red-stained lips that was set into a troubled frown.

    He looked at Ty, ready to bombard him with questions, but found him scowling at Graham with narrowed eyes. And then there was Monica, who looked plain miserable.

    "What in the world... What the heck happened?!" Caroline demanded, recovering from the shock quicker than Graham.

    "He turned out to be one piece of shit," Ty muttered darkly, his angry eyes not leaving Graham's.

    "What the hell did he do to my sister?" She all but growled, her eyes flashing with fury. Graham was struck with the resemblance of the Hart sisters right then; both of them had a defiant spirit, and signs of it could almost always be found in their eyes.

    "Stood her up," Ty replied, "or didn't stand her up, I don't know. He must've attended the dance, just didn't make any move to meet with her."

    "I doubt Nova would cry over something like that," Graham spoke up, "she'd have chalked it down to him being nervous... Something else must've happened tonight; what was it?"

    "Well you'd know if you had come," Monica snapped all of a sudden. "But of course you had to be a coward and stay back."

    Graham flushed. "Come on, Mona—"

    "She isn't wrong," Ty interjected, pinning Graham down with a stare, "if you'd just grown a goddamn pair, manned up and told her how you felt, she wouldn't have been there! And she wouldn't have got humiliated the way she did."

    Any ability to speak abandoned Graham as he just stared at both Ty and Monica, guilt eating away at him until he couldn't look them in the eyes anymore.

    "You guys can do this blame game later," Caroline snapped, "right now, I just want to take my sister and tuck her in bed, alright?" She moved to take Nova from Ty but Graham stopped her before he could register what he was doing.

    "Let me," he told her softly, traces of a plea evident in his tone.

    She hesitated, then moved away, allowing him to scoop Nova's sleeping body into his arms.

    "She's a little too heavy for me anyways," Caroline shrugged. "You know where her room is."

    He nodded, glancing down at Nova's face and his chest constricted with pain and guilt at the troubled look he found there. He hated that she'd cried herself to sleep; there was no way he could peacefully sleep himself while knowing the condition she was in.

    "I'm staying," he found himself saying, not speaking to anyone in particular. "I'm not leaving her. Not tonight."

    Not ever.

    But those were words to be uttered on another day.

_______________________________________

Also, the response i received for the previous chapters was MINDBLOWING. i cannot even begin to describe the affection i feel for you guys :")
wattpad wouldn't be the same without y'all by my side.

Keep smiling xx