Some say getting out of The Friend Zone is hard. Well, try getting out of The Sister Zone.
Vanessa Hayes-Wong has been best friends with Oliver Morrison for five years, one month, and fourteen days. Just as she starts to realize her feelings for him...
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"Hey, hey, hey." Ollie kneels in front of me, his face full of deep concern. "Are you alright?"
The knife wound across my right palm seems to be deeper than I initially thought, and I can feel blood oozing from it. But the last thing I want is for Ollie to worry too much about me. Trying my best not to wince at the throbbing pain, I curl my fingers into a tight ball and hide it behind me.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," I lie. "Not a single scratch. See?"
Ollie clicks his tongue in disbelief. In a careful movement, he draws my right hand from behind my back. A rivulet of blood rolls down my forearm and onto the floor. Cool air brushes against the one-and-a-half-inch wound across my palm as he unfurls my fingers, and I can't help but hiss at the needle-like pain.
Lines of worry pucker Ollie's forehead as he observes the blood-covered wound. "We should get you to the hospital."
"Over a cut?" I shake my head, laughing a little. "I'm not going to spend another Valentine's Day in the ER, got it?"
The quiet firmness in my voice elicits a frown from him. "Stay here. I'll get the first aid kit."
As Ollie strides out of the room, the unmistakable click of a handcuff closing around Celia's wrist catches my attention.
"See that?" Jack says to Celia, gesturing at her broken nose. "That is why you shouldn't mess with Tiger V." Turning around, he shoots me a congratulatory thumbs-up. "Nice one, V."
"Thanks," I reply with a proud grin.
A threatening scowl screws up Celia's face for a moment before she grimaces in pain. As Jack leads her out of the room, she growls at me, "You're going to pay for this, you little whore. Mark my word. You're going to pay for this!"
Celia proceeds to hurl a series of curses at me. But as she reaches the door, the murmur of the crowd gathering outside the restroom grows into a chorus of boos, drowning out her voice. The part of me that craves to see her downfall takes over my body. My feet move by themselves, and I find myself watching my former tormentor's walk of shame.
"Shame on you, Celia!" A teenage girl wearing a red Crusaders of Love T-shirt—the same girl who called me ugly about thirty minutes ago—spits on the floor right in front of Celia.
I gasp in shock—and so does Celia.
"H-how dare you?" she stutters, her lips trembling in rage. "I don't deserve to be treated like this. I'm a queen, you hear me? I'm a queen!"
Steam comes out of her ears as she tries to charge at her former fans. Lucky for the latter, Jack is more than experienced in handling angry-slash-insane people. The tall, muscular man grabs Celia by the waist and lifts her off the ground as if she weighs nothing more than a feather. She wriggles in his arms and tries to kick her way out of his grasp, but her effort is fruitless.
