What A Secret Looks Like | ✓

09: tessa

It's hard seeing her in the hospital bed, and it's even harder to imagine that Ethan could have been in one too if I hadn't left him alone.

We all have our ghosts, but I have my fair share. Lately I've been taking on more of them than I thought I ever could, or would have the chance to take on.

"Peyton, why didn't you call me?" I ask quietly, hearing Grayson sit in a chair in the back corner of the room.

A tear slips down her cheek while she smiles, "I didn't mean to. The first time was a few weeks ago, and I thought I would just try it once at some party to see what the big deal was. Then I found myself going back this morning to help with a little tiny craving for the feeling of floating. It was stupid, and I wish I'd never gone back to that stupid place." In the few years that we've been friends, I don't think I've ever seen her shed a tear.

Peyton's only two years younger than me and while she's naive, I didn't think her spitfire personality would succumb to the pressures of coke.

"It's okay, you don't have to explain," My voice is calm and soothing, but everything about me is screaming to find answers. Further explanation as to why Grayson came, how he knows Peyton because even though they denied it, I wouldn't be surprised if she was just another one night stand he had along the way to the one with me. I want to know who she got the drugs from so I can tip the police off. I want to know why Grayson has to be such a good fucking guy making it that much harder to stay away from him.

Instead she glances at me and then at Grayson, slowly putting the pieces together. "You've never dated anyone in the time I've known you."

"I'm still not," I protest, and she rolls her eyes. Two hours after I found her unconscious surrounded in her own puke on the floor, she's rolling her eyes at me.

"Gray's a good guy. His brother is an asshole and his family is crazy, but he has a good heart."

I rest my hand on hers, and Peyton curls her fingers around it, "We can talk about this another day, except even that day too, there'd be nothing to talk about because nothing happened."

She huffs in irritation, "I almost died today Tessie and you can't even admit that you like him. He wouldn't be here if he didn't care enough to come when you call."

"Exactly! You almost died today which is why we shouldn't be talking about me and Grayson," I shoot back at her. While she recoils a little, Peyton doesn't stop her pursuit to find the truth.

"So you admit there is a you and Grayson then." Motherfucker. It won't matter what I say because now she has an idea in her head that I know she won't give up on. I steal a glance at him from where he sits sleeping in the chair. How did he fall asleep that fast? "Again, don't try to lie unless you can make it believable."

I purse my lips for a moment as she stares intensely at me with her cornflower blue eyes, enhancing the starkness of her skin. The hospital lights do nothing to conceal the ghastly tones they cast on her face. "That's your go to line isn't it."

Her face breaks into a small smile, "It wouldn't have to be if you would just come clean the first time I asked you something."

"Peyton, I promise you that there's nothing to come clean about," Nothing that can't wait until after she's checked into a rehab facility, and knows better than to buy drugs again.

She crosses her arms, "The only reason there's nothing to come clean about is because you won't let him in or he won't let you in. I'd put a hundred dollars on it being you that won't let him in, considering Gray's here pretending to be my brother when I haven't seen him in over four years."

"How well do you know him?" I ask, carefully observing his handsome features from across the room.

"Well enough to tell you to go for it. Just whatever you do, don't date his brother. Jared's an asshole so it's hard to believe that they're related; if I could do it all over again I would have picked Grayson because he actually cares. He was dating some girl at the time, but they broke up before Jared and I did. I can't remember what happened between them, but I know he initiated it since all his brother would talk about was how hot she was and how stupid he was for letting her go."