Life's Fear

Chapter Thirty-Eight

"I know she must have really appreciated that," Jason had said to me the moment we left her room.

Scarlett, though I would never have concurrently guessed, or she would ever like to admit – got a little tearful as we left. As much as she tried to conceal it, her endeavours were fruitless. Jason gave her a big, brotherly bear hug when we were set to leave, as I stood awkwardly in the threshold. I actually had no idea whether I was supposed to hug her or not, but no one said anything, and so I just smiled warmly at her before we left.

"I'm glad I did it for her, though I had no idea whether I was doing it right or not half of the time," I confessed.

"Trust me, she'll be sending me texts tonight saying just how much she appreciated it all and she'll be the one to get sappy, not us." He sounded like he was just teasing and messing around, and the smirk would validate that, but there was something else underlining his tone that I just couldn't quite put my finger on. Was it sadness?

And together we ambled back, holding hands. Jason understood I had to get home and make it look like I had walked in the direction from school, so we had to take a little detour to accomplish this. We kissed goodbye and I felt like, despite the ordeal in the hospital and the meaning behind it, I was on cloud nine. I had Jason back, and that's all that mattered to me, and I knew I said that a lot, but it just enforced how much I truly meant it.

"How was the workshop?" Mum asked me the second I stepped through the front door.

I had no doubt she'd been waiting in the lounge for my arrival for the past ten minutes or so when I texted her to inform her I was on the way home from school instead of pottering around the house like she should have been doing. She actually made me jump as soon as I walked in, and the door slammed inadvertently from my startle whereby my joints moved on their own accord and movements seemed more aggressive than I originally intended.

"It was good," I said, "they might make it a regular thing if enough people keep turning up to them."

Mum nodded, eyebrows slightly raised as if she wanted to believe me but due to recent events, she just couldn't locate the trust inside of me anymore. And then she ambled off into the kitchen to continue with dinner. That must have been preoccupying her with my absence. She was evidently contemplating whether I was just spending extra time with Jason or not, but toying with herself knowing that I wouldn't wholly disobey my parents like that. And I use the term "wholly disobey" loosely in this case, evidently.

Jesse cornered me upstairs too before I could even open the door to my room this time. "How was it?" he asked, his voice nonchalant before gesturing with his hand into my room, glancing down the stairs just to make sure no one was watching us, and by "no one" it meant Mum. But I could hear cutlery clanging together to suggest she was about to lay the table, so she had absolutely zero chances of witnessing this scene.

"So how was it then?" he asked again, once I had dumped my bag on my bed and Jesse had closed the door so there was no chance of anyone listening in unless they had their ear pressed against the door. The younger ones tended to do it when they knew they should allow some privacy for whomever they are spying on, but they want to be little rascals and do the complete opposite.

"It was okay," I said, and told him that we went to the hospital for a pretend funeral in aid of Scarlett.

His face actually softened at that and I knew why. He had been her doctor a couple of times and he got to know her a little, so inevitably he knew her backstory because he was the one who told me to ask Jason about her.

"Is she okay?" I asked him. He did know more about her condition than I did, after all, and Jason for that matter, I presumed. "How long do you think she has left?"