Because of You

Face the Music

Oh my gosh. Guys, this is almost the end. All that's left is the epilogue now. That's crazy. Please let me know what you think of this. I hope it doesn't feel rushed, that the build was properly done, that the emotions were conveyed well. I hope I'm giving this story the ending that it deserves.

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I got the text at 10:00am, an hour before I was told Octavia would be discharged.

Hey, Maureen dropped me off at my apartment to get cleaned up but had to run. Could you drive me back to the hospital?

His request sent my nerves tying my stomach into knots. I think it was my conversation with Thalia and my mom, so close together, that had my hands clammy with sweat before I'd even left the house.

I hadn't slept very well, their words playing like a broken record in my mind, unsettling everything I'd believed not too long ago was settled, if only temporarily.

But now, things had changed. Octavia's accident had upset the precarious balance, the tectonic plates of what I'd anticipated shifting again. I felt the scales tilting, but to which side, I didn't know.

At 10:29, I waited in the parking lot of Bellamy's complex, heart ricocheting around me like an echo in a cave. I tried to act natural as he appeared at the stone steps and made his way down, dressed in a clean pair of jeans and black t-shirt. He threw his leather jacket on before popping open the passenger seat and getting in. That familiar, faint aroma of pine and something like campfire smoke slammed into me.

"Thanks for the ride," he said, securing his seatbelt. He rested one hand on his thigh, the other against the door.

I glanced up at the clouds that had begun to gather early this morning, now a thicker curtain of deep grey. It looked like it might rain today, but I found that the idea didn't scare me so much anymore.

I could feel Bellamy's eyes on me as we pulled out of the lot and onto the main road. "You look tired," he noted.

"Thanks," I said, tight-lipped.

That smell of pine was suddenly cloying.

"I bet Octavia's looking forward to being back home," I said, trying to distract myself. I knew full well how anxious she was to get out of that place.

Bellamy's fingers tapped listlessly against his knee. "Yeah. She is."

I was uncomfortably aware of the cavernous sound of my heart. Could he hear it?

"Any word on Jae?" I asked to fill the silence.

"It'll be a longer recovery time for him." Bellamy's tone was impassive. "We want to press criminal charges. Get him tried for criminal negligence. I also wanted him to be charged with child endangerment, though technically that's for kids under the age of fourteen." He let out a long breath. "Either way, if he ever walks out of that prison again, it will be when Octavia's aged out of the system. Old enough to call her own shots."

I felt my shoulders relax a little in relief. But there was a bitterness to it, too. It was its own kind of heartbreak when the only way to make a child feel safe was to put their parent behind bars again.

"So it's done," I said, letting those words hang, ultimate and unornamented, between us.

Bellamy's gaze burned into me. "It's done."

The rest of the time passed in taut, awkward silence, but I didn't know if it was coming from the both of us or just me.

The first raindrop struck when we pulled into the hospital. The parking lot was a big, vacant space, so I was slightly surprised when Bellamy asked us to park farther away, in a private corner of it.