a/n- 'nother heavy chapter, im sorry, omg.

ninety percent of you are going to end up hating one of the coolest characters after this chapter and i don't think im quite prepared to see your reactions.

i love you verrrryy much, thanks for being you.

purely happiness,

x bri.

-
[ cara ]

I bit my lip and slumped in my seat watching Emma pace back and forth in front of me with her hand covering most of her face. It didn't exactly take a ton of intelligence to figure out that she was for lack of better words, pissed the hell off.

She finally came to a stop and looked at me with narrowed eyes full of disbelief. "You said yes?!"

"Lower your voice! They're all in the other room." I whined, shrinking further into myself when Emma's glare only turned more cold. "I-I didn't know what else to do, Emma, okay? Looking back at all of this now, I feel horrible. I know it wasn't in my place to say yes, but I was caught up in the moment and it felt like he was talking to me and it just felt so good and everything he was saying was making me so happy and everything felt right-"

"God, Cara, stop, enough," Emma laughed with no humor lacing her voice, shaking her head and stared at me incredulously. "you're driving me batshit."

"What?"

"Why do you think I told you that Elena wasn't in love with Calum anymore? So that you wouldn't throw off their relationship any further and make it seem like she still is!" She snapped. "Now you have Calum thinking Elena wants to marry him, when in reality, she doesn't. Now Calum expects Elena to marry him in five years - do you know what Elena actually wants to be doing five years from now?"

"She wants to travel across Europe." I muttered lowly, finishing for Emma and fiddling with my fingernails. She wasn't making me feel any better about what'd just happened - at all.

"Yes, precisely. Exactly. Bingo." Emma clapped loudly, her hands flying in front of my face. I winced and shoved them away from me, glaring at her. "From all the European brochures taped on her wall, I'm pretty confident in saying El doesn't wanna be married or tied down to anyone at twenty-five years old, I'm sorry to break the news. Thanks to you, though, you have Calum on his tippy-toes expecting it. You have him expecting her to say 'I do' at the alter. Nice, Car, wonderful."

My lower lip was beginning to quiver, "Emma, I-"

"You're supposed to be her sister, Cara. You cannot just throw her under the bus like that, that's low."

I felt like crying, right there in front of her. There wasn't any humor in her voice, she wasn't joking. She actually was disappointed in me.

I knew that what I did was extremely shitty, I was more than aware. But another one of the worst feelings in the world, another to add to my list, was having someone who you thought was on your side drive the knives that are already in you, that you already know know are causing you to bleed out, deeper. Through everything, all Emma had ever done was stand behind me and push me forward when I was starting to stumble back - she'd helped me during the very first few days of the project, she'd helped me when I'd stressed over Calum, with my anxiety, learning the difference between a heel and a wedge - but I could already feel her backing away, slowly.

If she left me over this, I wouldn't have anyone else to stand behind me. I wanted to cringe at the thought.

"I'm sorry," I whispered brokenly, not meaning for my voice to come out so weakly. I wanted her to know that I meant it. "I'm sorry. I'll find a way to like, to fix this, I'll talk to Calum about it and-"

"No," Emma shook her head and dragged her palm against her forehead. "We have to stop this, you have to tell your Dad that we have to stop."

My eyes widened, "What do you mean?"

"We have to stop this damn project, or whatever this is at this point!" She nearly shouted, frustration written on every one of her features. "It's not doing anybody any good anymore, okay, not Elena, not Calum, nobody. Cara, you are throwing everything, and everyone off."

Emma was breathing heavily as I sat back in my seat with my eyes round and my lips parted - it fucking hurt.

"Excuse me?" I narrowed my eyes and shot up from the couch like it was an instinct. "I remember the day Elena went missing - you were there, and I was there, and I clearly asked you if you were okay with this project, and you said yes. And now you're saying we have to stop it, and you're trying to pin it on me? Like it's my fault?!"

"It is your fault, Cara!" She hissed through her teeth, staring straight at me like she'd completely lost me, like she didn't know who she was talking to. We were both standing face to face, only mere steps away from each other, yet between such a little amount of space there was a hell of a lot of tension that made me want to throw up. "I don't think you get it, do you? What is your sister supposed to do when she gets back? She was so accustomed to not having to act lovesick around Calum, she created a plan that would eventually lead Calum to break up with her that was initially going to take days, and now she's going to come back to a Calum who has expectations of her becoming Mrs. Hood five years from now! Now, it's going to take months! Because she can't find it in her to end things with him first, she's going to have to start over again, do you not understand that?!"

"What about me!" I cried out, my voice wavering and wobbly. I bit down harshly on the inside of my cheek with hopes that the sharp pain would hold back the water that was beginning to blur my sight. "I've made a mess out of Elena's life, I understand that, I've got that, but what about me?! Do you know how much this hurts, how degrading this is?! Weeks ago, I already knew something was up, I already knew I was starting to like Calum way too much, and you, you told me that it was just a feeling! That it was nothing! I censored myself, I censored and censored and censored myself and told myself that everything I was feeling was bullshit and it was all just a feeling and now I can confidently say that I'm in love with him when I should not be, and it hurts so much and makes me feel like a horrible person, because I know that it's wrong, and I know that I'm being a shit sister!"

If I hadn't kept my lips firmly pressed together, a sob would've escaped by now. My body was shaking, racking, and there Emma was, pacing the floor, looking perfectly fine - just mad. It made me angry. Did she even hear anything I just said?!

She mumbled into her hands, audible enough for me to hear, "She's going to have pretend. Cara, she's going to have to pretend to have anxiety! She's going to pretend to have anxiety attacks for a solid few months until it's safe enough to say they've gone away while pretending to be in love with Calum."

I couldn't hold it in, this time - a cross breed of a laugh and sob, some sort of embarrassing, inhuman sound left me and I pulled at my hair harshly. She'd just disregarded everything I'd said - she was more worried about Elena having to deal with my condition than me having to deal with my own anxiety.

I grunted loudly as my head started to pound and started to spin, my mind wandering off as if it were dragging me farther and farther away from reality - it wandered back to the dream, everything Elena had said in that wasteland.

"You're just a terrible person in general, Cara."

That was when my breath picked up, when my body started to shake and my lungs felt like they were starting to shrink and I cursed to myself, automatically knowing what this was. I pointed to the front door of the boys' house and pushed at Emma's shoulders whiles coughs and gasps for air racked through my body - get out, get out, get out!

"Cara!" Emma gasped, trying to firmly stand her ground as I pushed at her roughly with both of my fists banging into her back - I was being harsh, but no way in hell was I going to let her witness me break down and shatter. At all. Not after what she'd just said. "Hey!"

"Get out!" I screamed, the back of my throat hurting like hell and feeling rough once the scream had left me. By the looks of how much her eyes widened, it definitely startled hell. I screamed at the top of my lungs again and roughly pushed at her backside, ignoring the burning pain it brought to my throat and entire body in general; it sucked out all of the energy I had in me, and pretty soon I found myself choking at the feeling of no air entering my lungs. "Get out! Leave! G-Go!"

Emma stood frozen in the doorway, staring at me with something in her eyes that I couldn't exactly fathom properly - I was kind of busy trying to you know, breathe. She blinked a couple times, looking as if she'd just awoken from a haze and quickly spun around, leaving me alone in the living room. I grasped onto the coffee table tightly, trying to lift myself up, only to fall backwards and hit my head on the edge of the wood - I groaned out yet again and sobbed loudly, pathetically.

Not long after gracefully smashing my head against the heavy piece of wood, four shadows that were blurred by the water in my eyes were cowering and frozen in the doorway. I let out another agonizing wail that had one of the shadows running over and crouching down next to me, pulling my head up into their chest. Their hand rubbed over both of my eyes and rid the water that'd been blurring my vision - I exhaled shakily, relieved, and moved myself further into the warmth of the person's chat after realizing it was Calum.

"Hold on, okay beb?" His voice was right beside my ear, his voice trembling at the slightest - he sounded scared, which confused me, considering this was my third panic attack that he'd witnessed. In fact, he was at my side during all three of the panic attacks I've ever really had. His hand brushed over an aching spot on my head and he cursed, staring at his fingers like there were eyeballs popping out of them. "I-I, shit, I don't have your meds with me, can you breathe? At all?"

I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head furiously, shooting him an inconceivable look - did it look like I could breathe?

It felt like all the times we'd gone to the beach, the ocean more specifically, when Elena and I were still little. It felt like the times where I'd convince myself I'd be fine going a couple feet farther away from the shoreline, a couple feet further into the ocean. It felt like the times where I'd stand there, in the middle of the salt water waiting for a gigantic wave to come at me, because I was twelve and I was a big girl and I could definitely take the power of a five foot wave over my barely five foot body. It was like the times where the ocean would slam into me and I'd fall backwards, under water, and the strength of the wave would keep me under water. It felt like the times where I couldn't breathe, and couldn't get myself up to the damn surface of the ocean - it felt like all the times I felt like I was positive I was going to die. That's how these attacks always felt in my eyes - like even though in reality you weren't dying, you were dying. Slowly, but profoundly.

Ashton appeared, looming over me and hissing to himself and bringing his fingers up to cover his mouth. Michael was the last one to appear beside Ashton, staring at me with his teeth clutching his bottom lip. Luke was the only one missing.

Michael looked over his shoulder and groaned loudly at something that I couldn't exactly make out - everything was blurry as shit. He rolled his eyes, "Go, dammit, just go!"

I heard the front door slam loudly and I flinched, whimpering. It felt like all of my senses were ten times stronger and ten times more sensitive at the moment. Ashton pulled his phone out of his jeans quickly, tapping away on the screen quickly. He looked down at me sympathetically once more before heading out of the room with his phone pressed to his ear. Michael quickly ran out of the room after him, yelling out something about wipes and bandages.

The living room then went silent aside from the sounds of me desperately trying to catch full breaths, and Calum lulling me softly. He was rocking me back and forth in his arms and I felt like a child - I didn't know how to feel about it. Calum pressed his lips to my forehead, refusing to pull away. It didn't take a lot for me to realize that the sniffling that for a minute, I thought I was only imagining, was actually Calum.

He was crying.

I whined lowly and pulled away from him so that the both of us were facet to face. His skin that had been so glowy and tan and bright just a couple of hours ago inside of that chapel had gone paler - I bit my lip. His eyes were red and puffy and all swollen-looking and it hit me only then that he must've been crying for a while now in order for him to look like so. I opened my mouth and tried to get a word or two out, only to end up coughing at how dry and rough my throat felt. It wasn't exactly easy, but I managed to swallow and clear my throat so that I barely managed to croak out, "I'm good."

Calum shook his head, staring down at me incredulously, like he didn't want to believe any of this was happening - the only problem was that it was. "You're bleeding, El, I knew something was wrong, I should've ran in here the first time I heard you scream-"

"I'm alive, Cal, I'm," I coughed loudly again, lurching forward slightly - my entire body felt abnormally drained and exhausted compared to the other two anxiety attacks I'd had. It was terrifying, to be honest. "I'm not my damn death bed."

He laughed and shook his head, like he was internally yelling at himself for laughing during a situation like this. "Hold on for me, okay? We're going to get you help."

I shook my head. This time, it was my turn to laugh, quietly. "It really hurts."

"What hurts?"

"Everything inside of me." I hiccuped, speaking getting slightly easier - what was getting more difficult was holding onto consciousness; I was beginning to feel myself drift off. After every anxiety attack I've ever had came sudden, satisfying sleep. I'd be lying if I said no part of me was excited to finally just rest. "I-I didn't want this to happen."

Cal squinted down at me, brushing my bangs that were currently covering both of my eyes away from my face so that he could get a better look at me, "What do you mean, El?"

"I'm a terrible person."

"I don't know what the hell she said to you, but you are not a terrible person, that's not true. That's anything but true, that's bullshit."

"You don't know half of it." I whispered, not being able to do anything to keep my eyes open any longer. He really didn't.

"Hold on for me, okay? Stay awake just a little longer."

I shook my head, and kept my mouth shut, deciding to refrain from promising Calum anything.

Then, I blacked out completely.

And my entire body felt a lot more at ease.