Candid

Chapter 52

Birthday Surprise!!! A present from me to you for all your love and support! Love you all!!

You honestly didn't think I would leave you all hanging like that, did you??

Also, I saw a lot of you commenting about Peter's attitude and behavior towards Maddie in the last chapter and I wanted to say that attitude-behavior can also be a symptom of an impending heart attack.

Enjoy as much as you can.

|| ✨ ||

An hour and a half with nothing. One hour and a half of sitting, rigid in these terrible plastic chairs with my mother sobbing next to me with no news.

My knee has yet to stop bouncing and I couldn't control my fingers from shaking. It had started raining some time ago, I can't remember when but the sound of it drowned out most of my thoughts.

Mom won't move. She won't even talk.

When I arrived at the hospital, she was rushing up and down demanding answers and receiving nothing in return. They had moved my father out of the ER five minutes after I had gotten there and as soon as the automatic double doors to the CCU shut, so did my mother.

I had to call my siblings. Sophie sobbed over the phone and promised she would take the fastest flight here. Harry grabbed his keys as I was speaking and had already hit the highway by the time we hung up. Tessa was quiet, mumbling her replies before hanging up altogether.

Sebastian didn't answer the first time so I had to call Olivia and she promised that they would pick up Valentina from school and be on the first flight out. Charlotte soothed me, helped me focus on getting my words out rather than getting emotional. Her voice didn't break surprisingly since she is pregnant. She only whispered that Jackson was already calling a cab to pick them up.

By the time I had come back my mother had curled herself in a chair, hugging her legs to her chest with her head resting on the wall behind her. There were no tears on her face. She showed no emotion when I sat down and told her that the others were on their way. She only stared across the hall at the doors leading to the Cardiac Care Unit.

Even though she was a doctor in this hospital and on any given day could probably walk into the Unit without being stopped, they wouldn't let her because of the severity of the situation. Right now she was being treated like any other patient's family member.

I swallowed hard and closed my eyes, leaning my head against the wall.

A hand rested on my arm. My head snapped to look at my mother but her face was still forward but her hand gripped my bicep gently. I laid my hand on top of hers, squeezing it tightly.

Twenty minutes later, rushed footsteps echoed along the floor breaking the silence around us. One set of feet. My mom didn't bother to see who it was.

"Clary..." The voice trailed off. I opened my eyes in time to watch my mother sprint straight into Johnathan's arms. The sobbing followed shortly after. He had tears in his own eyes. The thought of his best friend hurt.

My mother was mumbling incoherently into his chest. His eyebrows furrowed and he gripped her shoulders, holding her at arm's length. "I-I can't," she choked on a sob, "I can't lose him too, Johnathan."

Johnathan's face crumpled as he understood her meaning. She couldn't lose him too. She'd already lost Valentina, she couldn't lose my father too. Johnathan held her head tightly to his chest and cried with her, remembering the death of his wife, my mother's best friend.

The emotion was too much for me so I rose from my chair and walked down the hallway, resting a hand on my mother's back for a fraction of a second to show her some form of comfort. Johnathan patted my shoulder softly, a strained smile on his face before he reached out an arm and slung it around my head, kissing my forehead gently. I nodded my head with a grim smile and walked away.