Chapter 133 – Perfect Timing – Holly Hayfield

The first thing I did on Sunday morning was take a trip to the local hospital. Val wasn’t interested in going with me to check on Candace. Her motorcycle was still parked outside our place and so she was able to drive herself home after getting changed. My mother dropped me off at the hospital by myself.

Today was somewhat special. The first snow of winter was falling and there were kids outside playing during the drive over. There wasn’t much snow on the ground yet, but that didn’t stop them from having fun. I’d rather be having fun with my friends too. I already committed to checking up on Candace. Besides, I planned to meet up with them later in the day.

I was bundled up in new winter clothes that I bought with some of my own money. It was a good decision since the inside of the hospital turned out to be cold as well. The building was so large that its ancient ventilation system wasn’t up to the challenge of equally distributing warmth. I stopped by the cafeteria to buy some hot coffee before going anywhere else.

Aside from me, there was only a single receptionist in the lobby area. The woman on duty explained that I was the third person that would be visiting Candace. Her parents came in at separate times in the middle of the night. I’d be the first ‘Friend’ visiting her, according to the receptionist. I decided not to correct her and wished her farewell before leaving.

The hospital was uncomfortably silent. I never liked places like this. Investigating places like the school basement, Autumn Eden Elementary School, and Ms. Logan’s home all came easily to me compared to this. The dim overhead lighting and the stillness of the hallway scenery gave me a sense of unease that I didn’t like.

The hallway was full of typical hospital supplies like spare bedframes, wheeled medical poles, and unconvincing fake plants. It was the fact that I was the only person walking through hall after hall that really stuck with me. Was everyone so busy on a Sunday morning that this place was essentially a ghost town?

I knocked twice on Candace’s hospital door and waited for a response. When no response came I wondered if she was asleep. I knocked again. There was another pause.

“…Come in…” A wary voice croaked from inside.

I opened the door and walked inside to see Candace lying flat in bed, wrapped up in her hospital blankets. She was giving me a bewildered look, like she was seeing a spirit walk through the door. She hardly moved as I walked in and headed for the seat near her bed.

“Holly…?” She asked dubiously.

“Yes…?” I asked in return.

She squinted at me intensely as if she were having trouble seeing me. This behavior made me wonder how bad her situation was. It wasn’t like I looked that different without my school uniform. Candace’s head wasn’t wrapped up in a medical bandage or anything, nor was she hooked up to a machine. She looked fairly stable.

“I came to check up on you.” I said as I sat down.

She raised both of her eyebrows in surprise before rolling around in bed, turning to face away from me.

“I wasn’t expecting visitors.” She said blandly. “I wasn’t expecting you, most of all…”

“Well…” I said slowly, trying to select my words carefully. “After how things went yesterday, I felt like I had a duty to check in on you at the very least.”

“Why?” She asked immediately. “What do you care?”

I smiled weakly at her, not that she could see it. She was currently facing towards the window where frost was forming as snow landed against the window sill.

“Part of me was worried that you’d have lasting brain damage from your concussion. I wanted to assess how bad things were.”

“I’m fine.” She said in an annoyed huff. “It’s not your problem to worry about. This was pretty much my fault anyways.”

That was an unexpected admission of guilt.

“Oh…?” I asked. “Just how much do you remember about what happened yesterday?”

“The bare basics, I guess.” She said. “I grabbed you… Then Erica… Val… There was a fight and I ended up falling into the river… I…”

She put one hand on her head as she spoke and her whole body shuddered violently. I leapt to my feet to put a hand on her shoulder. She was grimacing in intense pain, trying to stave off a migraine.

“Easy…” I said softly. “Try not to think too hard about it. The details aren’t important.”

“They are…!” She grunted, turning again in bed to face me.

She sat up in bed so that she could stare at me suspiciously.

“You… You jumped into the river after me, didn’t you?” She asked. “It was the last thing I remember before everything went haywire.”

“I did.” I said. “It wasn’t just me though. Val came down the riverbank to help. She was strong enough to do most of the heavy lifting until we got more help. My mother dropped you off here and I promised to come and check up on you.”

She stared at me blankly for a moment, before looking away.

“Oh…” She said flatly.

Her expression was hard to read, but it looked like she was struggling with indecision. Her eyes were listless and she was staring at the hospital wall in silence. She probably had mixed feelings about how to handle this information. It was strange seeing her like this. I had never seen her so quiet and subdued.

“You should’ve let me drown and die.” She said.

“Don’t say that.”

“You should have.” She said stubbornly, still staring at the wall. “Without Leigha, I don’t even know what I’m going to do anymore. I don’t even know why I bothered going to that funeral. I didn’t want to accept…”

She buried her face into her hands and I could hear her trying to suppress sobs. I sat down on the bed beside her to pull her into a hug. I somewhat expected that she might swipe away my attempt at affection, like the day before. This time, however, she accepted. She changed her seating in the bed and leaned against my shoulder as I held her.

This wasn’t the type of thing that I expected when I came here. This was more along the lines of what I expected yesterday when she originally sought me out. Yesterday I thought that she might be coming to speak to me for some emotional venting. Maybe she had to go through all that just to get to this point?

“It’s not going to be easy.” I said, although I wasn’t sure if she heard me over the sound of her own crying. “I know I’m probably not the person you’d prefer to talk to about this, but I’m here. Anything you need to say, you can say it.”

She hesitated before saying anything, but then clutched one of my shoulders tighter.

“I’m alone.” She cried into my shoulder. “I’m all alone now!”

She held me like a drowning person clinging to a life raft. My heart ached to see this, despite everything. At first I was emotionally distant in regards to Leigha’s death, but now I was beginning to have second thoughts. Like Lilith, I wasn’t on good terms with her either. It was hard to remain so frosty and stoic after interacting with Candace, Leigha’s brother, her relatives, and her other friends.

I thought I was beyond being emotionally perturbed by things like this. I steeled my heart after Ms. Logan died and tried to maintain an emotional gap with the people I talked to. Was this really all it took to unsettle me? I should be better composed considering my wealth of social experience. I felt weak for succumbing to my own feelings like this.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

It was probably the fact that I couldn’t think about her story without thinking about Ellie. She’s alone now in a way that I was alone before. The thought made me both depressed and enraged to think about. It brought back a flood of emotions that I usually kept bundled up so tightly.

The fact that Candace was still sobbing into my chest made it hard for me to stabilize myself. There wasn’t much I could say to her in this situation. I didn’t know enough about her family situation to invoke a conversation about familial support. She didn’t seem to be all that close with her other friends so I didn’t mention that either.

My counseling mission had pretty much failed at this point. Instead, I just went on holding her. That seemed like the best thing I could be doing in this situation. If our positions were reversed and it was one of my close friends that died then I’d probably want the same treatment. This was the only way I could help her.

Eventually Candace tired herself out and lied back on the hospital bed. She didn’t say much before bundling herself up again and going to sleep. It would be another half-hour before my mother returned to pick me up. For the time being, I just sat in the chair and quietly studied her. My heart was filled with mixed and complex emotions.

The hospital room door opened up, to my surprise. When Black Brittney’s eyes landed on mine we shared a mildly shocked look. She turned away first to focus on Candace. She walked over to the edge of Candace’s hospital bed and looked her over casually.

As Brittney studied Candace, I studied Brittney. She was wearing a thick winter jacket, had newly dyed hair, and was wearing a heavy amount of unnecessary jewelry. Going by her expression she didn’t look all that worried for her friend. Her expression was more like one of boredom. After a while, she finally turned back to me with an irked look.

“Why are you here?” She asked in a clipped tone.

“I came to check-…”

“Get out.” She said before I could finish my sentence.

I sighed in annoyance.

“I came to check up on Candace to see if she’s had any lasting brain damage. Fortunately that doesn’t seem to be the case. Her memory of the events from yesterday is a bit spotty, but she should be fine.”

Brittney let my assessment hang in the air before turning back to Candace. She turned to walk away. I stood up when she put her hand on the door.

“Wait, that’s it?” I asked.

“What…?” She asked as if I were being unreasonable. “I came here to see how she’s doing and you told me all I needed to know. Goodbye.”

“Aren’t you going to wait for her to wake up? You’re not interested in talking to her?”

“I’ll talk to her at school.” She said without looking at me.

“Aren’t you worried about her?”

She turned away from the door to face me again.

“I’m here, aren’t I?!” Brittney nearly shouted.

Candace stirred in bed as Brittney raised her voice. Brittney and I shared a look before silently agreeing to take this out into the hallway. Once the door was shut behind me I leveled a serious look at Brittney. She rolled her eyes in response.

“Do you know what she’s going through?” I asked. “Now that Leigha has passed away she’ll need the support of her friends now more than ever.”

“She’ll be fine after a few weeks.” Brittney said. “Besides, they weren’t even in a good relationship. I have it on good information that they were going to break up soon anyways. Candace will recover.”

There were so many points in Brittney’s response that I wanted to tear apart and I didn’t even know how to begin. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I let the topic drop and decided to move on to another pressing matter.

“You dodged the meeting I set up with you the other day.”

“And…? You’re not a teacher, just a student counselor.”

“I want to talk to you about your conflict with Naomi’s group. The violence is senseless and unnecessary. Leigha ended up dead on the very night that you decided to seek out Naomi’s gang. What do you have to say for that?”

Brittney’s expression went from passive aggravation to sudden outrage.

“Me…?” She asked in a shrill, high-pitched voice. “What about Naomi…? I saw Leigha’s wounds as the paramedics were putting her on a stretcher. She was stabbed. What does Naomi have to say about that? For as much trouble as you and the school give me, none of my friends have ever stabbed another student.”

“You’re missing the point. This situation was avoidable altogether. That fight never had to happen in the first place. If it didn’t then maybe Leigha would still be alive.”

Brittney folded her arms over her chest and glared at me.

“Blame me all you want, but I wasn’t the one that pulled a knife on someone. If you’re serious about this then you should look into whoever pulled the knife on Leigha! You’re only defending them because they’re your friends! What right do you have to blame me for anything? Naomi is every bit as bad as me, if not worse!”

“Let’s put aside the blame for a moment and talk about the future. Let’s make sure that nothing like this can ever happen again. We can hammer out something between you and Naomi as soon as tomorrow.”

“Hell no!” She said. “They killed one of my own and I’ll never forgive that. The way I see it, things just got taken to the next level. You can wave the white flag all you want but until they kill one of your friends then you have no right to speak to me this way!”

She turned away from me and stormed off. There was more I wanted to say to her but I didn’t try to stop her. This wasn’t a good place and a passing nurse was giving us a worried look. Brittney left the hallway and I decided to go back into Candace’s room. I’d sit with her a while longer, at least until my mother showed up.

I didn’t go straight home after leaving the hospital. Instead, I went to the school, which was weird for a Sunday afternoon. This was a slight change of plans that Val told me about over the phone. Apparently one of the PTA members donated new Christmas decorations to the school. Val wanted to spend some time helping out, as opposed to going to a restaurant as originally planned.

Currently we were standing outside the school with the janitors that had been called in to deal with the boxes stacked outside the school building. Ms. Sampson was worried that they might get stolen if left out overnight and called them up. She called me and Valentina as well, but my phone was on silent while I was visiting Candace.

“When I said I wanted to hang out before I went back home this isn’t what I had in mind.” Erica complained as she dropped one of the snow-covered boxes in front of the door.

“Same.” Helga said tiredly. “This was supposed to be my day off. That demoness managed to convince my gramps this would be good for me. Why did I have to get roped into this? That slave driver didn’t even show up herself.”

“A little hard work never hurt anyone.” Val said.

“That’s not true.” Helga defended.

“And you’ll be able to return to your relaxation once we’re finished. This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.” Val said. “We’re not decorating anything right now. We just need to move the boxes inside so that some opportunist doesn’t get any bright ideas.”

Helga let out a disbelieving laugh.

“Honestly, do you believe someone would be deprived enough to steal from a girl’s alternative school?” She asked. “Like, I don’t think I could imagine a lamer target.”

“It’s happened before.” I said matter-of-factly. “The camera by the doorway over there isn’t real. It’s just a decoy camera.”

“Most of them are…” Alyssa quietly added from behind me. “The school is cheap.”

“That’s the truest thing I’ve heard all week.” One of the janitors with us said.

I finished unlocking the front door and opened it up. I held the door open for everyone since I was the only one not currently holding a box. The inside of the school was nearly as cold as the outside. Nothing was on yet and one of the janitors left in a different direction to turn on the power. Meanwhile, everyone began moving the boxes into a corner of the entryway lobby.

The work took a lot of going back and forth. As Val promised it didn’t take long. Out of curiosity we opened some of the boxes up to check out the decorations inside. These were high quality Christmas ornaments that probably didn’t come cheap. I was unsurprised to learn that it was Alison Yale’s family that donated all this. There was a flowery written donation letter with her signature on it.

“She’s still trying to buy influence inside the school…” Val said, sounding both impressed and spiteful. “This girl is unbelievable.”

“This is par the course for her going by what Sam said.” I said. “Her family used to throw money around at her former school as well.”

“I wonder if she’s met Megan yet.” Erica said. “I bet those two would get along well.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me about Megan…” Helga said. “The moment she learned who I was she kept trying to get me to promote her blog for her.”

Erica studied Helga’s face.

“Who are you, exactly?” Erica asked. “I know you’re related to the principal, but I could swear that I’ve seen you from somewhere else…”

Helga brushed her hand with her hair and smirked.

“I get that a lot. People say I look like a famous model.”

“She’s semi-famous.” Alyssa said.

Erica gave Alyssa an appraising look also.

“I was surprised when Holly explained to me that you’ve become her assistant and a member of the student council. It looks like you’ve gone through a massive change since last we met.”

“Thanks to Holly,” Alyssa said.

“Thanks to you as well.” I said to Alyssa. “I owe you just as much as you owe me. We’re even.”

Erica looked at Val.

“Another thing I didn’t expect was for Lilith to be absent.” Erica said. “I mean, you already explained Sam’s situation and the fact that Jay is busy. I thought you said that Lilith would be coming to hang out too?”

“She was supposed to…” Val said with a hint of frustration. “She backed out of it the moment I explained that we had work to do before we could do anything else.”

“She was upset over yesterday.” Alyssa explained. “We didn’t find anything about that ‘Catherine’ lady that went missing.”

“That reminds me,” Erica said and turned to me. “Speaking of yesterday, how did your meeting with Candace go?”

I shrugged my shoulders thoughtfully and looked off to the side.

“It’s really hard to say. Her injuries aren’t that bad, but she’s in a poor emotional state.” I admitted. “She opened up to me, but at the same time I can tell that she’ll need a lot of time to recover from Leigha’s passing.”

“That’s understandable.” Erica said. “It’s good to know that her head damage won’t be permanent.”

“Just as importantly, I talked to Black Brittney while I was there too. I brought up the violence between her group and Naomi’s.”

This caught Val’s interest more so than Erica’s.

“What did she say?” Val asked.

“Essentially…?” I asked. “We’ve got a long road ahead of us if we’re going to find out how to correctly deal with them.”