Heartbeat

Twenty-One

Ok, so I've decided that I will be updating Heartbeat every Sunday. To make up for the one a week update, I will be posting two chapters instead of one. How does that sound? Because we're half way through now, it should take us nicely up to Christmas.

Big shout out to Kate... Hope you get well soon! Sarah, xx

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JORDAN

Dr. Warren made me step out when she came to see Emma after lunch, and for a slight moment I thought I could see Emma begging me not to leave her, but when my father insisted that I leave Emma alone with the psychiatrist, I knew I had been backed into a corner.

I kissed Emma on her forehead and told her I’d be just outside the door with Logan if she needed me- or him- for anything. She smiled sweetly when I whispered that I was ready to kick the doc’s ass if she wanted me to, and she kept a tight hold on me until I had backed away enough that she had to let me go.

“I love you,” I tell her.

I hadn’t seen Logan since he left Emma and I earlier and I knew he’d been crying as soon as I saw him slumped in his chair with Zoe’s arm around him. She sat in the chair next to him, her legs pulled up to her chest as she rested her head on his shoulder. Like Holly, Sam, Adam and Brady, Zoe had been home to change, her legs covered in skinny jeans and flat shoes.

Holly and Sam had segregated themselves from the others, the war of words and blame still in battle between the two girls. I sat next to Adam and sighed as I stretched my legs out before me. I’d hardly slept at all last night, worried that I might miss something important, and still playing the news that Emma had a brother over and over in my head.

“Happy Birthday!” Adam hollered as I finally relaxed.

Everyone’s eyes shot to mine, guilt creeping onto their faces as they remember. Like dominoes, as soon as one wished me a happy birthday the others fell and followed suit.

“I’m such a bad friend,” Sam punched himself in the thigh. “If anyone here was going to be the first to congratulate you, it should have been me, not him.”

Sam’s voice was playful as Adam made a ‘that’s me- best friend’ gesture with his hands, almost bowing with pride as he teased Sam.

“Actually,” I break up the bro-fest. “It was Emma that said it first.”

Adam stops with his gloating as Brady laughs at him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask Sam and Adam although I don’t address them directly. “Why didn’t either of you tell me about Emma’s brother?”

I see Adam tense up from the corner of my eye and I know instantly that he doesn’t want to talk about it, which I get. He was there when Alex fell through the ice, so maybe he wasn’t the right person to ask. But Sam? Why did he hide it?

“No-one talks about it,” Sam shrugged. “After the accident, Emma took a couple of weeks off school, went to live with her grandma in Bracken Hill and when she came back things were different.”