All Chapters of SECRETS & SCANDALS: Chapter 51 - Chapter 59

59 Chapters

CHAPTER FIFTY- ONE

IVY'S POV By the time I got to the porch, I was dripping. My clothes were clinging to me. I couldn’t stop shivering. My fingers were stiff. I couldn’t even move them right. Aunt Linda must’ve been watching, ’cause the second I stepped up, she yanked the door open and pulled me in quick. “Ivy! Oh my God. What happened? Why were you out in the rain?” she asked, trying to get the towel tighter around my shoulders. I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. My chin was trembling. I couldn’t hold it anymore. I dropped to the floor and cried like crazy. Loud, very loud. I couldn’t breathe right. I sat there, soaked and hunched over, shaking badly on the floor. I didn’t even know who I was crying about anymore. My parents. Sophia. Derek. All of it. Just stacked on top of each other. Every time I let someone in, something happened. Either they left or turned into someone I didn’t recognize. And I keep thinking it’s something I did. Like I must’ve done something wrong. Aunt Linda didn’t ask ques

CHAPTER FIFTY - TWO

IVY'S POV Liam’s head was on my shoulder. Warm… and heavy. He was completely out. Breathing slow and steady. Definitely not faking it. I’m pretty sure he was really tired. I moved some hair out of his face and he kinda huffed, then leaned in closer. I smiled, shook my head, looked back at the movie playing – She’s the Man. I wasn’t even following the movie anymore. Just felt him there, leaning on me, breathing. Then the credits came on, and yeah, I noticed it was late. I turned toward the doorway and just… froze. Liam’s mom was there. Leaning on the frame. Smiling like she already knew what she was seeing. My face instantly went hot. I didn’t know if I should wake him or just… I don’t know… disappear. “Liam,” she said softly, walking in. He stirred, blinked, looked at me, then at her. “It’s late,” she said. “You should take Ivy home.” “Oh, no, I can get home myself,” I said, but they didn’t even look at me. Liam stretched, grabbed his jacket, and just went, “Let’s go.”

CHAPTER FIFTY- THREE

The air in the room was stale and suffocating, and it felt familiar for all the wrong reasons. The room felt smaller. It brought me back to that time with my parents, lifeless and cold. I shook my head, trying to push the gruesome image away. My eyes swept across the room, and when I saw the bandage on Derek’s wrist, I felt dizzy and almost stumbled. A sob escaped before I could stop it.I clamped my hands over my mouth, but the sobs still tore through me.Aunt Linda wrapped her hands tightly around me, whispering that all was well and he was going to be fine, she said.I sincerely wanted to believe her, but I could clearly see Derek lying on the bed.He looked smaller than I remembered. His skin was pale, his lips dry, nothing like the person who used to tell silly jokes just to make me laugh.It felt wrong and unfair to see him like this. I shut my eyes tight, trying hard to stop the tears. I had to be strong, at least for Derek.After a while, I finally started to calm down. I p

CHAPTER FIFTY- FOUR

“Why?” I asked again, my voice sharper this time. “Why, Derek?”Silence. Only the monitor beeped, like it was answering for him.“Why would you do that?” My voice broke. “You told me not to give up. You told me things get better. You said I had to hold on, remember?”I heard myself talking, but it felt like someone else was using my voice.I was shaking so hard it shook the bed rail.“You said we were in this together.”“Do you know how much it scared me? I thought… I thought you were gone. I thought I lost you.”I gripped his hand tighter, my tears dripping onto his skin. “I thought we were close. I thought you were family. Why would you try to leave me like that? Am I that easy to let go of?”For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of me crying and the soft beeps of the machines. He closed his eyes. His chest rose slowly.“Say something,” I whispered. “Please.”When he finally spoke, his voice was rough and scraped raw.“I thought I was losing you.”Losing me? How? I wa

CHAPTER FIFTY - FIVE

Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up and reached out, but my hand found nothing. The bed was cold where Derek should have been.For a moment, my mind went blank. I sat up quickly, and my head spun. The room was dim, lit by the faint, yellowish hospital light.The monitor was beeping steadily, but the bed was empty. I stared at it for a few seconds longer than I should have.I was completely thrown off by how absurd what I was imagining sounded.“Derek?” I whispered. My voice sounded strange.No answer.I got up fast, my heart racing. It felt both foolish and entirely justified. I was halfway to the door when the bathroom door opened, and he walked out, blinking at me as if I had startled him.“What are you doing?” he asked, voice still rough from sleep.“I thought……” I stopped. “You weren’t…….. I didn’t see you.”He just blinked again, confused, then laughed. Like really laughed. A deep, tired laugh that made me want to smile, if not for my still skipping heart. “You thoug

CHAPTER FIFTY - SIX

The next morning, my phone was a mess.I had like, thirty something missed messages. From Diane, Nola, Gary, Zane. Even Liam. All stacked up one after another. I’d totally forgotten to text anyone. My brain had been too full.Most of the messages were short—hey, where are you?, are you okay?, you alive? stuff like that. I quickly replied to most of them with short messages like “I’m fine” and “sorry, I’ve been busy.” But when I got to Zane’s and Liam’s messages, I just stared at the screen.My thumb hovered over the screen, but I couldn’t bring myself to type anything.I figured I’d explain later. In person. Somehow.When I got to school, the first thing I noticed was the noise. Lockers slamming and people laughing like they had no worries. I was standing there, still dazed, when someone called my name.“Ivy!”Diane came running like she had been waiting for me. She hugged me so hard I almost lost my balance.“God, you scared us,” she said, pulling back to look at me. “Where the hel

CHAPTER FIFTY - SEVEN

The cafeteria was loud, there was too much noise. Diane was already talking before I even sat down.“You missed so much, girl, like you don’t even know. Maya tried to join Claire’s group yesterday.”I blinked at her, halfway through opening my juice. “Maya? Claire’s group?”“Yeah,” she said, leaning closer like it was classified info. “She’s been acting all high and mighty, you know, ever since Sophia started hanging with her. Thought she could level up or something.”I chewed on my sandwich, not saying anything. Diane didn’t need encouragement; she was already on fire.“So she went over to their table, and she just plopped down like she belonged there. Started talking about outfits, boys, whatever. Claire just looked at her and said, ‘Sorry, we don’t take in strays.’”I choked a little on my drink. “She did not say that.”“She did. Word for word. And then she said Maya wasn’t ‘up to par,’ or something like that. Said she should stay with Sophia and her little group because they’re a

CHAPTER FIFTY- EIGHT

After gym, it was like the whole school couldn’t shut up.People were whispering about how hard Maya got hit, how Liam didn’t even flinch, and how he just walked out like he’d dropped the mic. One girl even made a reference to a BTS mic drop song.And then there was me, the girl he apparently protected.By the time I got to class, it was already happening. Eyes. Whispers. It’s always the whispers that get you.Diane was smirking at me. “You know you’re trending, right?”“Please,” I said, trying to hide my face in my notebook.“I’m serious. Everyone’s talking. They’re saying Liam’s gone soft. Like, soft-soft.”I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be happy about that. What I did know was that I hated the stares and the side talks. No one enjoys being talked about or constantly stared at.I let out a tired groan and further buried my face in my books.And then, like on cue, the door opened, and there he was. Liam. Late as always, with messy hair and an unreadable expression.He didn’t eve

CHAPTER FIFTY - NINE

When Liam asked me out. Like on a date, I didn’t say yes at first. I stood there blinking at him like an idiot.It wasn’t even the question that scared me, it was what it actually meant.And of course, the moment I got home, I immediately called Nola.She picked up on the second ring, sounding calm as always. “Hey. What’s wrong?”I didn’t even know where to start, so I told her everything. About Liam asking me out. About how I froze and hadn’t responded. I told her about Derek… God, even saying his name out loud made me feel weird. I told her how I didn’t want to mess things up or make anyone mad.Nola listened. She always listens. You could practically hear her thinking on the other end of the line.Then she said, “Ivy… sometimes you overthink because you care too much about doing the right thing. You’re not choosing between good and bad,” she said. “You’re just choosing. And yeah, that’s scarier, but it’s still a choice you have to make. You have to choose you at the end of the day

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