Chapter 23: CHAPTER TWENTY | ♕

[𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘 : 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐘 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐌𝐒]

"  𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐔𝐂𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐊𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐃

𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅, 𝐒𝐄𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐀𝐍.  "

✯✯✯

𝐌𝐄𝐈𝐋𝐈 𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐂𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐒𝐎 𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐒𝐎 𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐘 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄, and it wasn't even her fault. She never once wanted it. She never once did anything to ask for it. It just invited itself in like it was an old friend.

And that friend had greeted again her once more.

It started with her mother. When she was thirteen she found her mother dead on the kitchen floor with blood seeping from her wrists. She remembered screaming and just standing by the door, paralyzed. She hated herself after that for just standing there and not calling the police right away. Maybe she could have saved her, but it was too late now.

She changed after that. Everyone knew it. Her father moved her and Liena from China to New York. He couldn't stay in their home any longer because it reminded him so much of her mother, and it was beginning to tear Mei apart. She became severely depressed and wouldn't leave her room for days on end. She lost so much weight she started passing out and they had to take her to the emergency room.

Once they moved to America, Mei wanted to forget that part of her life. She would sit and try to turn off her emotions because they would hurt too much. She didn't want to feel at all if her heart was going to hurt that bad. She didn't want to cry anymore. She wanted everything to go back to normal even though she knew it never could.

Mei often spend a lot of her time thinking about the last time she talked to her mother. She had been complaining about some test and school and her mother tried to be encouraging about it, but all she did was complain. She should have just shut up and hugged her mom. There were so many things she should have done, and now she would never get to.

It was crazy for her to think about how it was the last time she would ever talk to her mother again and she had never even known it.

The second time was when she found Bethany overdosing at a party. Mei never even wanted to go, but her friends forced her too. Someone had spilt their drink on her dress, and annoyingly, she had headed to the bathroom to see how bad it was. Bethany was there passed out in a bathtub.

Mei turned away from the mirror, her hands gripping the edge of the counter as she gave her friend a once over. Her skin had turned a purplish blue and her eyes were dazed and strained. She was totally out of it, and Mei had no idea what to do. They were only sophomores and her friend was dying. She knew that much. Instead of standing there this time she called 911 right away. She was a blubbering mess as they carried her friend away.

Everyone at school hated her for breaking up the party. Bethany's parents had sued the upperclassman who had threw it for millions. They blamed Meili for the incident making it even harder for her to deal with her friend's almost death.

Now there was another overdose. Another handshake with death. Her old friend. And again, she was being blamed for the whole mess. Only this time it was by Bethany.

She had updated her "I Hate Ella" Instagram page. She added a new bio tagging the "creator" of the hate page, and can you guess who it was? @meilichen of course.

The world was officially against her. Everyone would hate her at school tomorrow, and her follower count proved it. It had went down by a hundred and it had only been an hour.

"What's wrong?" Sebastian asked her. She had started crying a few minutes ago, but he didn't know how to approach the question. She covered her mouth and closed the computer screen.

"Nothing." She tried to stop crying, but she felt like something in her was broken. When she started crying it was like flipping a switch inside her. She would never stop.

"Seriously. What's wrong." He knew it was something serious because she barely ever even showed any emotion. Hell, if you had told him two days ago if he thought he'd ever see Meili Chen cry he'd burst out laughing.

"It's nothing for you to worry about, okay? I just need to calm myself down and I'll," Her voice cracked, "I'll be fine." She said, but it sounded like she was trying to convince herself of that.

"Mei-"

"I need to look through these spreads. My agent sent them a couple days ago, and I haven't-"

"Mei, calm down." He grabbed her arm stopping her from frantically searching through some papers, "Talk to me."

"I-I can't." She answered, "Why do you even care?"

"Because," He shrugged like it was obvious, "You're upset, and I don't like you like this."

"You don't like me anyways."

"Well... that's not always true." He replied making her stop crying for a second.

Mei settled back into his bed, and he let go of her arm. She opened the laptop again she moved the screen toward him.

"You did this?" He asked her as he glared at the screen.

"No," She whispered, "Bethany did."

"Why?"

"She wanted to show their ballet teacher that Ella wasn't taking care of herself so she wouldn't get cast their production or whatever." She glanced over at him, "I called the police on Theo, and supposedly that puts me on her bad side. Now she's pitting Ella and the whole school against me I guess."

"Wow," He scoffed, "That is some real mess up shit. That's like what happens in those soap operas. Bethany's that mean bitch."

"She's supposed to be my friend."

"What did I tell you the other day?" He nudged her shoulder, "None of these people are actually your friends. The only who who probably is Ezra."

She stayed quiet for a minute.

"I know what you mean now." She bit her lip, "It's just sad. We've all been through so much together, and I can't believe it's ending." She sighed, "No offense, but first you came and Ezra found another thing to occupy himself with, Bethany went behind Ella's back, Camila met her old best friend again and now she's spending all her time with him, and now Theo overdosed and Bethany hates me."

"It's one thing after another." Sebastian furrowed his brow as he sat up taller, "This is why I hate this life. People dream of being rich like us, but the truth is this life is a joke. Money doesn't buy you happiness it just buys you ten thousand more problems." He pulls his knees up toward his chest, "You don't know what I would give to just be a normal kid like everyone else."

"You can't just run from the money. Don't you have an inheritance?"

"I do, but it doesn't mean I'll continue my father's business or even use any of the money." His faze shifted out the window, "When high school's over I'm moving far away from here. I don't want anything to do with this life anymore." Mei looked down at her hands.

"You are an incredibly brave person. I'm a coward. I could never walk away from all this money." She sighed, "I'd miss the country club, and the modeling. I'd miss the clothes and the shoes and the limitless amount of money at my disposal." She got up and walked over to the floor length window, "If I wanted I could call a helicopter right now and it would pick me up in the backyard."

Sebastian didn't say anything. Instead he sighed and stood up also.

"You can't stand there and tell me money isn't the source of all our problems, Meili," He walked over to her, "It makes us selfish. It makes us vain. It makes us jealous, and we're all better without it."

"Stop trying to convince me to believe in your little Robin Hood act, Sebastian." She stepped closer to him, the tone in her voice changed, "Why can't you understand that none of us are perfect like you? It's not my fault I enjoy money and I care more about myself usually than others. It's not my fault I sometimes use people and I don't seem feel anything anymore. It's not my fault that everyone hates me and my mother is fucking dead."

"Wait-"

"She fucking killed herself, Sebastian." Meili was close to him now, spitting her words angrily in his face, "When I was thirteen I walked into the kitchen and found her dead on the cold floor. She slit her fucking wrists." Her hand curled up around his neck, but he grabbed her wrist tightly.

"Don't act like you're the only one with problems, Meili." He glared at her, "Have you ever wondered why I moved to America?"

"Why." She asked sternly. He didn't answer.

A moment passed, "Never mind. I can't tell you." He dropped her wrist and she watched him quickly leave the room.

What the hell was he hiding?