Toxic ✔️

27 | not him again

chapter twenty-seven: not him again

My eyes open slowly. Turning my head slightly, I look down at my arm in a bandage. On the other side, Kellan's resting in the chair, sleeping.

Normally, he looks peaceful when he sleeps, but his eyebrows are now creased, a look of frustration setting over his face. I sigh, and his eyes instantly snap open. "Astrid, hey," he says. He looks down and even though I didn't notice it before, he lets go of my hand. Oh. Okay. "Are you...are you okay?"

"I...uh, my arm actually feels kinda better. Did the...doctor say anything?" I ask.

He nods. "It's good. You're good. You'll be fine. The doctor said you're lucky that it just grazed you," he says quickly. "But you'll have to stay for about 2 days. And it'll heal fully in about three weeks, I think," Kellan quickly adds. I nod and attempt to reach out for some water.

He quickly stands up, pouring it for me as he helps me to sit up a little. The door opens and my mom enters, her expression morphing from worry to relief in a split second. She wraps me in a hug, and honestly, I'm still not really used to this affection from her, seeing as she gave me a very, very, limited amount while growing up.

"Astrid," she murmurs, stroking my hair. "Oh, I'm so glad you're okay-"

"Aw, Mom, that's great, but you're kind of squishing my arm, and it just got shot, so if you could just..." Mom's eyes widen and she quickly stops hugging me, an apologetic smile on her face. "Yeah. Thanks."

Mom looks over at Kellan, her eyes looking him up and down. It isn't in a sexual way, no, because that would be gross, but I think she's actually judging him. Kellan looks over at me for support and I shrug with my good shoulder, which turns out pretty weird.

Mom turns to me. "Is he your boyfriend?" I'm just about ready to shake my head and tell he that he definitely isn't, but someone does it for me.

"No, he's my boyfriend," a familiar voice says. Mom moves and looks over at Sierra. I nearly jump out of the bed to punch her or something, but Kellan's hand holds me down. Well, I can do it from the bed.

"You fucking psycho bitch—!" I curse at her. "You got me kicked out of Kellan's apartment-"

"You lived with a man you didn't know?" Mom cuts in, but I instinctively put up my bad arm to stop her, which obviously is instant karma for me and my poor arm.

"Sorry, Mom," I quickly add, apologising about both before turning back to Sierra with a deathly glare on my face. "You got me kicked out of Kellan's apartment for no apparent reason but your insecure little ass—"

"Okay, Astrid," Sierra interrupts me, holding her Chanel bag closer to her. "You can't still be going with that lie," she chuckles lightly, as if she knows she's already won. "There's no shame in what you did, and the rest wasn't up to me. Besides, it's about damn time you admit it—"

My good hand lunges for her in a second, and she takes a quick step back as I wince at the pain in my arm. "Well, speak for yourself, you freaking...infection!" I cry at her, continuing the string of insults followed by interruptions. "Oh my God. What are you even doing here? We're not in high school, so get over your overinflated head and get it out of your freaking ass, you self-entitled—"

This time, it isn't Sierra who interrupts me. It's more of the heartbeat monitor beside me, which now is currently beating from how high my blood pressure must be. Kellan grabs my hand, trying to calm me down, and I see Sierra's and flicker down to it. "Si, I'm sorry," he says, and my heartbeat quickens. "She took a bullet for me, and that doesn't mean I believe her yet, but I still have to be here for her. I'll deal with all this later, okay?"