Dedicated to KevinaOyatedor. She has been one of my readers from the very start. I can't thank you enough for your support. Plus I really like your name. =)

So here's the 10th chapter. I can't believe this story has already reached double digits in term of chapters. It feels so awesome!

Without wasting any of your time, here is the chapter. Read on!

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3 times. Last night, I had tried calling Daniel 3 times, only to have every single one of my calls ignored. And since I hadn't got any answers so all my night was spent thinking why he didn't pick up the phone.

Maybe I was over-thinking and over-analysing everything again. Maybe he was just busy with whatever the call, that he got yesterday morning, was about. Or maybe he was in a bad condition and was shutting me off.

I don't know.

All I knew was that I sincerely hoped that he was safe wherever he was.

The sudden ringing of the clunky school bell ended the on-going session of "What to do about Daniel" discussion going on in my head. I kept looking towards the end of the hallway where Daniel's locker was in a hope to catch him before the first period.

"Ready to go?" Sebastian said casually, coming up to me. His voice sounded heavy.

"Yeah, just waiting for Shay. She borrowed some of my notes notes." I chose to not mention Daniel.

"I don't think she's going to come today. Must be with Liam," Sebastian remarked, rubbing his eyes.

"Are they back on again?" I asked, stealing a glance at Daniel's locker again.

Still no sign of Daniel.

After not getting any reply from Sebastian, I looked at him and found a confused expression on his face.

"What?"

He knitted his eyebrows together. "You don't know anything?"

Instantly, my stomach got twisted into a knot at the grim way Sebastian uttered the words

I hate these kinds of situation, you know where you already know that the other person is going to drop an atomic bomb on you and all you can do is think what it is about.

"Know what?" I asked, curiousness bubbling inside of me.

"Seriously? The whole school has been talking about it. How do you not know about it?" Sebastian said, looking at me in disbelief.

It wasn't like I hadn't noticed that the whole student population had been buzzing about something that day. But assuming it to be just another random gossip or rumour, I had decided to ignore it. And besides, I was too preoccupied about the whole Daniel situation to think about anything else.

"Are you going to tell me or is there some more amount of suspense still left to be built up?" I was getting annoyed at the lack of answers and the increasing amount of questions.

Sebastian ran his fingers through his dark blonde hair. "So you honestly don't have a clue what happened to Daniel last night?"

Everything in me froze.

"What...what a-about Daniel?" I managed to form the words with difficulty.

Please let him be alright. Please let him be okay, I chanted internally.

"He...Norah, Daniel's dead," Sebastian said in a whisper but the words were loud enough to pierce through my brain.

"He was involved in an accident last night."

No...no...no...

My vision was getting blurring and I could hear a ringing in my ears which over-powered everything else coming from the surrounding. Soon, I was losing grip from understanding where I actually was. All my mind could do was to repeat Sebastian's words.

'Daniel's dead.'

I was in a state of limbo where I didn't know what I had to do. My breathing rate reduced to a quarter while the blood in my veins seemed to be made of liquid mercury; heavy and sluggish.

"Norah! Norah! Look at me!" I could hear someone shout but the voice seemed be coming from really far.

I felt my body shake under someone's grip, pulling me back to reality.

"Shit!" Sebastian said in-between uneven breaths, "I am so sorry. I didn't know you'd react so badly."

I tried to respond but it felt like an impossible task.

"I'm so sorry. I was j-just kidding. I'm really sorry."

'What?'

Making my brain to fully concentrate on Sebastian's word, I started to realize what was happening.

"Kidding? Kidding?" I breathed out in disbelief.

"I'm so sorry. I don't know what I was thinking." Sebastian pleaded.

We were starting to gather an audience around us.

"Whatever. I gotta go," I uttered in annoyance and started to walk away from him.

"Norah, please-"

I cut him off, "Not now Seb."

Sebastian didn't follow. He knew better not to piss me off anymore than he already had.

I pulled my phone out of my bag and dialled the 12th contact from the 'L' list.

Only after a single ring, he picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Hey Liam, it's me..."

I nipped up the grand stairs of Panacea Medical Centre. Pushing open the glass doors, I approached the reception desk.

"Excuse me," I said to gain the attention of the 20-something year old looking receptionist. "Where would be room no. 324?"

"On the third floor, take the left from elevator no. 4 and then turn right," she replied with a practiced smile.

Thanking her for her help, I walked towards the elevator.

Turns out, Daniel actually was involved in an accident the previous night. His car was hit during some sort of race that he had been a part of. Liam didn't tell me anything about it, but during the call Shay had taken the phone and had told me about the race. However, I still didn't know what exactly had happened.

It was all my fault. I should've asked for someone's help right after the bridge incident. If I would've done so, none of this would've happened.

But now the burning question was that what I was supposed to do. Should I tell Liam or should I try to talk to Daniel's parents? Or maybe I should talk to Daniel first. But I knew if I did that, he would somehow convince me not to tell anyone.

I felt like I was back to square one. All of those times I tried to make him open up to me, or when I tried to be his friend. Everything seemed useless now.

Lost in my thought, I walked up to Shay and Liam.

"Hey, how's he?" I asked Liam without wasting any time.

"He's awake now. The doctor said that he would be having some tests soon."

I nodded in response. "And how bad are the injuries?"

"Fortunately, not really bad. He has a minor concussion, there's a fracture in his wrist bone and a part of his ribs are bruised." Liam's voice sounded groggy because of the lack of sleep.

"Anyway, I was heading for the cafeteria. Do you want something?" Liam asked looking at me.

"No, I'm good." I simply said.

"Okay"

After Liam left the hearing range, I asked Shay, "So what happened exactly?"

"Well, Dan was in some sort of 'after dark' race and a car collided into his car from behind. His car went all topsy-turvy and he fell out of the car cause he had the roof of his convertible down," Shay explained in a single breath.

"Have you talked to him?" I asked leaning against the wall.

"Yeah, he sounded pretty normal," Shay replied shrugging her shoulders. "And by the way, why didn't you come with Seb earlier?"

The mentioning of Sebastian's name made my anger to resurface but pushed it down.

"I didn't know that he was going to visit," I muttered quickly.

"Hey, where are Daniel and Liam's parent?" I asked, noticing the absence of any adult nearby.

"Oh Liam's mom has gone to talk to Dan's doctor and his dad is I think talking to the cops about the accident."

"Is Daniel going to be in trouble?" I was genuinely worried about him.

"I don't think so. Mr. Cohen is an influential man. He will get him out of it," Shay replied and then her phone went off so she walked away to attend it.

So there I was standing, a few metres away from the door, thinking if I should go inside or not. 

Taking a deep breath, I pushed the door to get inside. To my surprise, there were already some people inside. Or to phrase it more correctly, there was already a group of girls inside.

The moment I stepped inside, Daniel's eyes found mine but I broke the eye contact and decided to stand near the corner of the room.

"So how much time will it take to be fine?" some girl asked. I couldn't tell who she was as she had her back at me.

"Oh, I'll be back in no time, ladies," Daniel replied with a smile and some of the girls around him giggled. His eyes came back to me once again.

"You know we'll miss you," a girl in blue dress said with a pout.

"I'll make sure to compensate for that when I come back."

He sounded playful and much happier than I thought he would be. He was joking around with the girls as if nothing had happened but the tiredness in his voice gave it away.

Soon the girls left, telling Daniel to take care of himself and saying that they would come to visit him again.

He looked at me, waiting for me to say anything but I remained quite. I kept staring him back sans any emotion.

The door opened again. A tall man entered the room who I knew was Daniel's father. I'd met him before but then as him being Liam's stepfather. This was the first time I was seeing him with Daniel.

Seeing them in one frame, you could tell the similarities between the two of them. They had the same strong jaw line and the same kind of dark brown swept back hair.

"How're you feeling now?" Daniel's dad asked him. Even his voice was just as deep as Daniel's.

"Better than a dead man," Daniel replied quickly. My eyes bulged wider at his casual tone of talking to his father.

"Daniel!" his father said sternly.

"Dad" Daniel replied in the same manner and then said, "I'm fine. Don't worry."

Daniel's father turned around to leave the room and that's when he noticed me.

"Hello Mr. Cohen," I greeted

"Hello," he said with a small smile. "Norah, right?"

I nodded my head as an answer.

"I'm sorry I've some important issues to sort so I have to leave," he said putting his right hand in the right pocket of his trousers.

"Yeah, it's completely fine. I understand."

He left and then the room felt silent once again except the occasional faint beeping of the monitors attached to Daniel. He had his left arm wrapped up in a bandage and was resting below his chest which was discoloured on the left side because of the bruised ribs. He had several small stitches and scraped skin at various places.

"Are you going to say something or just planning to stare at me till eternity?" he finally broke the silence while looking up at the ceiling.

"Does it matter if I say something or not? You never listen to me anyway," I replied, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Aww don't say that. I always listen to you," he replied back with a smile. "And I swear this was just an accident. I didn't plan it to happen."

"So you said the last time."

"Because it's true every time," he said happily.

"I'm sorry but do you find something amusing in all of this?" I said irritated at his non-seriousness.

"Beside your face right now? Lots of other things." He gave me an ineffable smile.

"Daniel, I'm going to tell your dad or Liam everything. I have to. This is not normal. You need help," I said pleading and knowing very well that he won't like my idea.

His smile dropped. "Please don't. Trust me, it was just an accident. Nothing else," he tried to reason.

"Maybe, but it was still extremely reckless of you to be in that race. Something is obviously bothering you but you're just not willing to accept that and since so far every one of my attempt to help you have been a complete debacle, you require someone else's help."

Daniel closed his eyes, sighing.

"I'm sorry," I whispered and then rushed out of the room before listening to what Daniel had to say.

Closing the door after me, I rested my head on it to calm it down.

"Hey, you okay?" Shay came to stand near me.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I don't like the feeling of hospitals, that's all," I told her. "Where's Liam? I needed to talk to him."

"He left like 10 minutes ago. Said he needs to pick something from his house. Was it important?"

Yes, it was.

"No, not really." I shook my head. "Anyway I'll go now."

"Okay, see you in school tomorrow," Shay said giving me a hug.

"Yeah, okay. Bye"

I made my way back to the parking area of the hospital and drove my car out of it.

So this was it. I was going to tell Liam what I saw at the bridge. I could've talked to Daniel's dad instead but it sounded a tougher job so ultimately I had settled on telling Liam.

After around 15 minutes of driving, I reached in front of the huge triple storey house painted in all white.

Liam was about to get in his car, when I called his name, "Liam wait!"

I ran over to him while he gave me a confused expression.

"I need to talk to you," I said with nervousness exploding in me but then I noticed that Liam had a weird expression on his face.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Huh? Nothing. Nothing's wrong," he stuttered.

"Liam, tell me or I will never talk to you."

It was a stupid threat but it still managed to make Liam talk. "Alright, but don't think I'm accusing you or anything, okay?"

I nodded.

"The guy who hit Daniel's car was caught. He said that it wasn't his fault as they were in a race and that Daniel's car slowed down immediately, so he didn't get any time to respond."

I was getting confused. What was this leading on to?

"And then the cops checked Daniel's call record. They said that there were a few calls at the exact same time of the accident so there's a possibility that he might have been trying to attend the call and that's why he slowed down and ended up getting hit."

Oh, god.

"Who were the calls from?" I asked scared as hell.

I knew what Liam was going to say next and didn't like it at all.

Liam looked at me with pity. "You"

Me. All because of me.

This day couldn't get any worse.

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