Vampire Academy: New Generations

Chapter 19

It's hard to say what finally made me do it. I'd held on to so many secrets for so long, doing what I believed best protected Eden. But hiding her cutting did nothing to protect her. I hadn't been able to make her stop—and really, I now wondered if it was my fault she'd ever started. None of this had happened until we came back. What if we'd stayed in Portland? Maybe she would have completely recovered. Maybe she would be all right today. I followed Vegas as he went to get Alberta. He hadn't hesitated for a second when I told him where she was and how she was dying. I'd said she was in dying, and he'd left immediately. I knew I was exaggerating but she would have died if he hadn't found her. "Stay here with her." Alberta said to Vegas who nodded and put his hand on my shoulder. Everything after that moved like some sort of slow-motion nightmare. The minutes dragged on while I waited. When she finally returned with an unconscious Eden, a flurry arose at the clinic, one everyone wanted me kept out of. She had lost a lot of blood, and while they had a feeder on hand right away, rousing her to enough consciousness to drink proved difficult. It wasn't until the middle of the Academy's night that someone decided she was stable enough for me to visit.

"Is it true?" she asked when I walked into the room. She lay on the bed, wrists heavily bandaged. I knew they'd put a lot of blood back into her, but she still looked pale to me. "They said it was you. You told them." I scoffed. "Eden, of course it was me. I had to," I said walking closer to her. "Eden...you cut yourself worse than you ever have. After everything with Mia, Maddy, Trevor, Ian and then Jasper...you couldn't handle it. You needed help." I said as she closed her eyes. "Jasper. You know about that. Of course you do. You know about everything." She said, annoyed. "I'm sorry, but it's not my fault. You... you pulled me into your head." I tried to reason, but she just scoffed at me. "Eden, I know they'll help you. They were all really worried. Eden, I'm doing this for you. I just want you to be okay." She turned away from me. "Get out, Evangelista." Hold up. What? "Are you serious, Eden? You were cutting yourself. That's a problem within itself. You were unconscious when you came here. If I hadn't told anyone, who knows when you would've been found? You would've been dying up there and people wouldn't even know!" I took a deep breath. I hadn't realized I'd been yelling and I couldn't fight against the dark shiver that climbed its way up my spine.

When she didn't respond, I left. They released her the next morning on the condition that she'd have to come back for daily visits to the counselor. Unfortunately, some sophomore had been in the clinic for an asthma attack. He'd seen her come in with Alberta. He didn't know why she'd been admitted, but that hadn't stopped him from telling people in his hall what he'd seen. They then told others at breakfast. By lunch, all the upperclassmen knew about the late-night clinic visit. And more importantly, everyone knew she wasn't speaking to me. Not that I cared. Eden should have known I was doing this for her. And if she didn't then it was her being the bad friend, not me. Just like that, whatever social headway I'd made plummeted. She didn't outright condemn me, but her silence spoke legions, and people behaved accordingly. The whole day, I walked around the Academy like a ghost. People watched me like I was something they'd never seen. But, I couldn't care less. I liked not being the front of attention for once. Cayden and Bash hung around with me and so did some other novices I was friends with. That's all I needed. Vegas was always there in the 4 hours I saw him everyday and the rest of the time, I was in my room, still under house arrest. The others students followed Eden's lead, imitating her silence. No one was openly mean to me—they probably didn't want to risk it in case she and I patched things up. Still, I heard things whispered here and there when someone thought I wasn't listening.

Bash and Cayden would have welcomed me to their lunch table, but some of his friends might not have been so nice. I didn't want to be the cause of any fights between him and them. So I chose Natasha instead. "I heard Eden tried to run away again, and you stopped her," Natasha said. No one had a clue why she'd been in the clinic yet. I hoped it stayed that way. "Why would she do that?" I asked to humor them. "I don't know." She lowered her voice. "Why'd she leave before? It's just what I heard." That story raged on as the day passed, as did all sorts of rumors about why Eden might have gone to the med clinic. Pregnancy and abortion theories were eternally popular. Some whispered she might have gotten a disease. No one even came close to guessing the truth. Leaving our last class as quickly as possible to avoid Eden, I was astonished when Mia started walking toward me. "What do you want?" I demanded. "I can't come out and play today, little girl." She looked annoyed. "You sure have an attitude for someone who doesn't exist right now." I pretended to look shocked. "As opposed to you?" I asked. Remembering what Jasper had said, I did feel a little sorry for her. That guilt disappeared after I took one look at her face. She might have been a victim, but now she was a monster. There was a cold, cunning look about her, very different from the desperate and depressed one from the other day. She hadn't stayed beaten after what Caspian had done to her—if that was even true, and I believed it was—and I doubted she would with Eden either. Mia was a survivor.