Before you all start sending me messages telling me that I've posted the same chapter JUST READ! Yeah:D

Anyway, please enjoy this chapter, and you may think it's a complete waste of time but… I can't say anything else now. Hmm.

Just read please! And review maybe?

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It Had Better Be-

Chapter 8 ½

"No."

"But I have to g-"

"Absolutely not."

"Please, I'm begging you, I'd- I'd go on my knees if I could. Please madre."

She looked at me with pitiful eyes and I saw her face soften and smile slightly.

Then it clicked quickly back to her stern face, "No. I am not going to repeat myself Hector, you are not going. Understood?"

"Si madre, I'm sorry."

My madre was not allowing me… I'm sorry my- my fate is so terrible, but-

My madre is not allowing me to go to school.

I know, it's horrific. It's terrible. And worst of all, I miss so many lessons of biology!

This is almost as bad as that time I almost failed maths… But I do not think about that anymore. I shouldn't. That is the only flaw in my record, and I don't want to remind my self of that period in my life. I feel insecure when I think about it.

I looked at myself in a mirror my mother had placed on a low shelf positions in front of my bed. I could walk around perfectly, but any movement of my neck made my nerves go haywire. I couldn't move. I had a thick, hard-sponge neck ring that held up my neck at a very uncomfortable angle. My arm was in a cast and I had bandages and stitches all over my chest and arm (where there wasn't a cast) I had also had to endure the pain of having my head stitched up while I was fully conscious, an ordeal that I must go through every 10 days. Terrific.

My face was covered in scabs and scratches, and at that precise moment I looked flushed for some reason.

Then, suddenly, there was a quick knock on the door, a brief calling of, "Hey, disabled guy!" and my door was kicked open. The girl who walked in took in her surroundings at a pace then double taking at where the indent of my body was on the wall; she also noted that half the ceiling was missing. Joy.

She turned to me, her chestnut curls brushing her neck slightly, her brilliantly green eyes looking at me amusedly.

"You know, Susannah, I really do not appreciate you calling me 'disabled guy'. Can you not call me something else…?"

"What, like, Jesse-poo? Cause I could really do that." Her smile was playful and it irritated me a little. I could feel myself flushing madly as I grimaced at the memory of Kelly and her 3-inch nails and 3-inch deep makeup.

I started to answer her, disagreeing with her choice of names, however she startled me by picking up my guitar abruptly and interrupting me, "You play guitar, disabled guy?" her delicately shaped eyebrows rose questioningly as her eyes were inquisitive. The thing that surprised me the most was that I never, never, allow people to touch such my guitar. It's one of my escapes from this world where I am harassed and, more recently, threatened by ghosts.

"Yeah, I-"

"Are you any good?"

"W-well, I think I'm pretty experienced I jus-"

"Teach me."

"W-what?"

"Teach me. Teach me how to play guitar."

"O-okay. Um, like lessons?" she nodded, "w-when?" Why did she have this affect on me that made me stutter and stumble so much when I was in her presence?

"Now." She stated firmly.

I smiled to myself as I turned away from her and stood up to get my old music books. Then once I had found them I turned round to face her, contemplating whether or not I should say what was on my mind.

"You know, Susannah," I said nervously, "actually, it doesn't matter."

Susannah frowned, "Disabled guy, what were you going to say?"

"It doesn't matter." I repeated.

I could tell she was extremely annoyed with me, yet she took the invitation to sit on my bed as I drew up a chair to sit opposite her and teach her the first lessons on how to play the instrument. Although something strange happened that I really had never experienced before many times.

I was concentrating more on the movement of her fingers and how soft and warm they felt in the nano-second that I held them to place them on the right strings. Or when I moved her hand up the neck of the guitar to get a lower note. It thrilled me a little, it sent tiny shocks from the tips of my fingers to the very end of my toes and I really did not know why. After at least a third of the hour, Susannah paused suddenly and stared at me with a confused look in her eyes, like she couldn't quite figure out what was going on.

"Are you ok?" I asked, concerned for her.

"Yeah I'm fine," she shook her head and looked back down at the strings but she didn't move her fingers. I leaned back and surveyed her intensely while her thick blanket of shining hair covered her face. "Actually, no I'm not." This time with more resolution.

"Why?" I asked immediately, then it hit me, I hadn't offered her a drink! Or anything to eat! How could I have been so stupid? Madre always says it's an insult to your guest if you don't offer them anything- I was so self-involved and concerned only for the woman in front of me I forgot my manners.

"Because… because I hate it when people do that! I hate it when people try to tell me something and then they just stop-" oh. But her voice was getting louder every letter she spoke and I felt myself shrink in her anger, "I hate it when you just sit there like you don't notice everyone looking at you, and I think its really annoying how you can stand Kelly frickin' Prescott!" she shouted the last word in my face and my fear was no longer present, it was replaced with anger that almost equalled hers.

"No, Susannah, no. No I cannot stand Kelly Prescott. I don't like that she's a clone of Barbie. I don't like that you always tease me about loving biology; I think your bossy and I absolutely detest that you allow Adam to handle you in such a way- I don't even understand why you like him! All he does is use you and you deserve much better treatment! You can't even see the people that love you really all you see is that cabron and his looks!" I was shouting furiously, I didn't have control over what I was saying, it scared me that I could say anything and not be able to take it back. It upset me that I was saying such things to Susannah in the first place. "And if you had bothered to see and I mean really SEE, then you'd know that Adam isn't the one you're supposed to be devoting you life to like you are!" I saw her sat on my bed, shoulders slumped, staring at me with her mouth hanging wide open. I turned round with a little jump of annoyance and ran my fingers through the hair that wasn't close to the deep cut in the back of my head; and action which resulted in shooting pains up my arm. But I didn't care because I had ultimately just told Susannah I was hopelessly jealous of her and Adam. In fact I told her before I even admitted it to myself. How could I be so stupid? Why didn't I just keep my mouth shut?

Breathing was difficult and heavy. I opened the window so I could breathe in the fantastically fresh air out side my home, so unlike New York.

Susannah's hand rested gently on my shoulder and my attempts to breathe stopped yet my heart raced faster than ever. I didn't look at her harmoniously beautiful features, I carried on looking at the wide sky and the sea, hoping against hope that it might allow me to relax.

And still my heart thudded uncomfortably in my chest. I was certain Susannah could hear it.

Her fingers held my chin with a touch so soft I might not have even felt it had I not been focusing so much on her every movement.

I brought her to me in a manner I would not have approved of ever. I was almost as bad as Adam.

No I was worse.

I was so forward with her, I brought her to me, and placed my lips on hers possessively. I wasn't rough with her by any means.

"Awww! Hey! Hey, Mercedes! Mercedes! Watch this! How-how cute, can, can you see them? I can just about make out- wait- no- can you- look! There! Ha! They are so cute! I told him he had a crush on her but- what? My voice is too loud? WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

Susannah pulled away from me quickly, pushing my body away from hers. I looked at Susannah, then out of the window, deeply unimpressed by the eldest of my siblings.

There lay Marta on a towel she had laid out on the ground, pulling earphones out of each ear as she sat up looking at Mercedes quietly telling her to lower her voice. From where Susannah and I were, we could hear her hip-hop pounding out of each tiny speaker. Then, registering what Mercedes was saying in a voice we couldn't hear, Marta's head snapped upwards to look in the direction of my window. She jumped up, alarmed.

"Oh, God," She mumbled, straightening her bikini set, "was I that loud? Did he hear me? Oh my god! He's going to kill me! Oh God, oh God! Dios! What am-"

"He's still there Marta."

Pulling Susannah back, I snapped the window shut and looked at her, my face beginning to break into a tentative smile. I expected the same from her, but she looked away and said awkwardly, "I have to leave… clean my room and do some homewor… Andy's dinner…" she continued to say things that jumbled together and didn't make sense till I could no longer hear her and she had walked out of the room with a final "bye." Before departing. And I stood there, feeling like a fool.

A deep sense of humiliation filled me. I sat on my bed hopelessly glaring at the broken wall. Consistent pain was in my arms and back and most of my neck. Usually when I was in a bad mood, I read my books. I played my guitar, or listened to my ipod.

But I didn't this time. I couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to move. I just thought. My light wasn't switched on and as hours passed I watched shadows grow longer and fainter as the sun sank inevitably into the magnificent ocean, along with the memories of earlier.

I felt nothing but hurt. I was shocked at myself, and at Susannah's abrupt leave.

Madre called for me more than once and I ignored her. It was 1am before I made my first movement. It was a sudden jerk from a screeching of tyres as a few roads away. I ignored the sound, mundanely noting that it was just another arrogant drunk.

But I made a lot more than just a jerk when, 45 minuets later, the phone rang and after quick, hurried, hushed and worried words, madre screamed up for me. Screamed with fear. I could hear her crying, sobbing making no attempt to hide her emotion.

I ran down the flight of stairs fast.

"What? Madre! What's wrong? Tell me, please!" I sounded desperate to know the reason for her grief. The voice that came from me was scratchy and unused.

"It… It's your… your s-s-s-sisters… M-m-marta and J-josefina," she gasped, her words coming out gradually, "T-there's b-been a- a car crash. We- Jesse we have to go!"

And we did. Along with Alex. He drove us to the hospital. Kara and Isabelle had been instructed to stay home with a most reluctant Mercedes who had had tears running down her face when we left her. I felt feverish but cold at the same time. The speed limit wasn't high enough, and the hospital seemed farther away than it really was.

Finally all three of us reached the un-necessarily clean reception area of Carmel Hospital.

We were led quickly to a waiting room where we were told we could see Marta and Josefina soon.

Marta was unconscious but breathing. She wasn't in a coma and with the exception of a deep cut on her hip, and a few cuts and bruises elsewhere (including a large greenish-yellow bruise on her temple). She didn't seem in such bad shape compared to Josefina.

Josefina wasn't in a coma. She had been sedated and given pain killers. She didn't sound all that bad. But she was. She was in a terrible state. And the fact that she was in an emergency procedure surgery added to my mothers already disturbed nerves.

I sat in the waiting room alone. Madre and Alex were with Marta. But I waited for Josefina. She needed me right now. To be with her. To be next to her. She was expected to be in for as long as three hours.

A paper cup filled with coffee was in my hands. I rested my elbows on my thighs as I leaned forwards, hunching my back over and staring at one spot on the floor that had several marks that I tried to distract myself with.

Large windows allowed the first rays of sunshine to flow through easily creating an eerie sense of calm. The twilight relaxed me. I felt my shoulders settle, I was surrendering to the truth.

I was surrendering o a truth I had made up in my own mind. I must have been expecting the worst, because a moment later I stood up, head hanging low as the doctor that had been operating on my sister appeared

"Hector?" He called, his red hair being one of the only flames of colour in the hospital. I nodded politely. "Hector, I'm afraid that I have bad news about your sister Josefina." I blinked. "She slipped into a coma after we stitched her." He paused as doctors do, "But we are almost certain that she will wake up soon. Her condition isn't as severe as we thought. She'll be okay." Then he smiled at me reassuringly, and my face cracked into such an enormous grin. I felt like nothing could go wrong. I felt like a child when I first watched Kara and Isabelle walk. I felt as proud as my father would have been had he lived that long.

I sat back down, not noticing I had stood up in the first place.

I sat back down, and saw my mothers eyes fill with tears of joy, she hugged Alex, both of them smiling with happiness that I felt strongly in my chest.

I asked the doctor how long it would be before I could go visit my sisters. He told me I could go immediately.

I visited Marta first, she was awake and was fighting with the nurses, screaming that she wanted to know exactly what ad happened to her younger sister, she was crying hysterically. Once she saw me she called my name out almost desperately and I told her Josefina was perfectly fine, the surgery had gone well and there was nothing to worry about. She fell asleep soon afterwards and I walked down that hall, oblivious to everyone around me. I was too happy to hear anyone.

Josefina awoke from her coma five hours after the surgery, she seemed completely fine. She was louder than ever, but he did request for her books to be brought to her immediately.

And when I returned home at 8am, I was exhausted. But I was the happiest man alive. My sisters were safe, and there was nothing else I could have asked for.