A new chappie! After what, four years? Awkward. Enjoy!(:

- tweedle.

Jealousy

Chapter 7: Frostbite

It had been a few hours now, and everyone was fast asleep. Everyone, it seemed, except for me.

I had never expected our party to get so wild or dramatic, not in a million years. Mary was just the quiet girl with glasses and knee socks; she wasn't one for drama or excitement. At least, that's what everyone thought about me. In a way, I guess they were right for the most part. This party had completely turned into something that I had never expected. I never thought that I'd be able to honestly tell a story like this. Sure, as an author, I was able to come up with stories to entertain others, but they were rarely drawn from personal experience. I was loving the drama of it all!

Claire still hadn't woken up yet, I guessed. I hadn't heard anything from the room next door for a while. I knew that Elli was in there with her, sharing the room. I didn't think that Doctor Trent was sleeping in there, though. Elli was experienced and could certainly take care of the girl herself.

That left me alone in my room to wonder. The girls I was with were all passed out, and had been for a while. I started to wonder about this new face. She was really pretty, I observed from memory. She seemed really mysterious though. When she came into the Inn, I noticed what she had been wearing. On her feet were a pair of really nice, but equally muddy cowboy boots. She also had on some faded overalls and a blue flannel shirt underneath. I also noticed quite quickly that she hadn't been wearing a jacket or a coat.

What on earth kind of girl was that, to dress almost completely practically for the weather, but to forget a winter coat in the middle of a storm! No wonder she had been freezing to the point of hypothermia! None of that explained, however, Gray's reaction to her arrival.

I always knew that Gray was a kind soul. He really cared about people and their pasts and what they were interested in. He had become increasingly more shy over the years I had known him, probably a result from his grandfather working him so hard and being severely critical of everything he did. Gray had been pretty outgoing when he first arrived in town, though. I knew that he had visited Barley and May quite a bit while walking to work in the mornings. I also knew that he talked with Pastor Carter occasionally when Cliff would invite him to church. But he had never been one to sit by a stranger's bed, holding their hand, looking at them like he was terrified of losing them. It was a strange reaction, really.

I didn't want to think too much about it, though, I was sure Gray would have done that for any girl who was in danger. I was certain that he would have done that, maybe even more persistently, for me.

Rolling over to my other side, I looked out the window for the first time since lying down for the night. Outside, the snowflakes seemed to have settled down a bit, and were silently flurrying down from the sky, calmly. I wondered if the storm would surprise us and clear out by morning, or if our prediction had been right and the storm would last for a few more days.

Hoping that the storm would clear so that things could get back to normal, sleep finally took me.

Faintly, I heard noises coming from the room next to mine the following morning. It seemed that I had slept through the night without further interruptions. I lay in my bed for a few more moments, my eyes still closed, mulling over the events of the previous night – or had it been early morning?

The door to my room opened and I felt someone jump on top of me, "MARY!" the person yelled.

I shifted onto my back before rubbing my eyes under my glasses. I had fallen asleep with my glasses on? That was unlike me.

"Whaddyouwant?" I mumbled.

"You need to WAKE UP!"

Opening my eyes, I saw Ann was already dressed for the day, looking as if she hadn't had anything to drink last night. How did she not have a hangover?

"What's wrong with you?"

She looked at me curiously, "What do you mean what's wrong with me? I'm perfectly fine. The girl next door is the one with something wrong with her!"

"WOW, Ann."

"What?" she said defensively, "It's just the honest truth!"

I pushed her off of me and rolled out of bed, looking around for the clothes I wore last night. Frustrated when I couldn't find them, I crawled onto the floor to look under the bed.

"What are you doing?"

I pulled my head back out and looked at my friend, "I'm looking for my clothes! I can't find them anywhere and I don't want to go out of here in a nightdress."

Ann laughed then, loudly.

"What's so funny?"

She got off the bed and pulled her rucksack off from her back. "I brought you some new clothes," she said, "Yours are in the wash."

Holding out my hands gratefully, Ann dropped a pair of pants, a striped green top, and some white sneakers onto them. I hurried and got dressed quickly.

"The storm is still going outside. It's still too dangerous to leave. My dad shoveled his way out of the back door and I guess he and the other fathers are out clearing the roads and putting salt down so that the ice will melt. There are feet and feet of snow out there. He came back for an early lunch about thirty minutes ago and said it would take the rest of the day and well into the night to be done. He still hasn't been able to get the front door open."

I looked outside the window from our room on the second story of the Inn to see Jeff, Pastor Carter, Doug, and – surprisingly – Siabara outside shoveling. It looked like they had cleared a path through Ann's back yard to the street on the other side, all the way to the Clinic and the Supermarket.

"Are Karen and Claire still here, then?" I asked, "Or have they gone home through the path?"

"Karen is still here." Ann answered, "But Claire, Elli, Trent, and Gray have all gone to the Clinic."

I turned to face Ann slowly, confused by her words. "Why did Gray go to the Clinic with them?"

She shrugged her shoulders at me, "I didn't know. I thought maybe you would know. You're the one closest to him, right? Shouldn't you know why he's so worked up about it?"

I shook my head, I didn't have a clue. Gray's reaction was actually starting to concern me.

Downstairs, Karen and Rick had prepared a brunch for everyone still at the Inn. The bar was laden with all kinds of breakfast sandwiches, eggs, sausages, and juice. Ann and I got some plates for everyone out of the cupboards and started helping pass out servings.

Harris, Popuri, and Cliff came over and helped themselves to some food before going to sit at one of the tables in the far corner of the room. Rick and Karen stayed close to the bar, seated by the telephone, and Ann and I sat down on the steps of the stairs, eating quietly.

After a few moments, Cliff cleared his plate and started washing it up before putting on his coat and walking out of the back door. I watched Popuri as he left. She looked after him sadly before returning to her conversation with Harris.

"Is there something going on between Popuri and Cliff?" I asked Ann casually.

She looked up from her plate for the first time since we sat down. "I don't think so, why?"

"Well, I noticed them dancing last night, then they were eating together this morning, and just now when he left, Popuri looked sad."

Ann rolled her eyes, "How should I or anyone else know?" she huffed, "Popuri is overly friendly with every guy in town."

As she went back to her meal, all I could do was stare at Ann open-mouthed. Ann wasn't known for gossiping or judging anybody in town. I didn't think I had ever heard her bad-mouth anyone. Sure, she was excessively blunt and that sometimes came across the wrong way, but she never outright said anything like what she had just said about the pink haired girl across the room.

Sitting there looking down at my food, I couldn't honestly argue with her, though, and maybe that upset me more than it should have.

Popuri and I had grown up together. I had known her all of my life. Even so, we had never really been very close during our childhood. I would never have called her a close friend like I did with Ann, Gray, or even Harris.

Popuri was Rick's little sister. Rick was about three or four years older than we were and he had been the man of the house for a while now, so he came across as a little domineering over her and their house.

You see, Rick and Popuri's mom, Lillia, was sick. She became ill when they were still young, and their father, Rod, had taken off on some journey to find the only known cure. It had been ten years, and Rod had not come home. As far as anyone knew, Rod had not even sent a letter to let the family know if he was coming home, or if he was even alright. Now, Lillia rarely left home, only to see Doctor Trent on Wednesdays.

For a long time, my father had blamed himself for Rod leaving his family. I guess when we were all small children, my father and Rod had been relatively close. They both spent time with Doug and Duke at the bar after the restaurant hours had finished, and my mother and Lillia had put us children to bed. One night, after Rod had found out that Lillia was ill, my father and he had spoken to each other for quite a long time, and my father had told him about the only cure he knew of. The next day, Rod had gone, and Lillia and her children had locked the doors to their farm, none of them coming out for a week after.

I remembered that time pretty well, Popuri and Rick stopped coming to the beach during the afternoons to play with the rest of us children. They stopped coming to school at my house with the other kids, too. They didn't come back. It was common knowledge that Rick started taking care of the farm, and Lillia started homeschooling Popuri.

Contact between Popuri and I was very limited after that, but we still saw each other in passing on the streets in town and at festivals. Mineral Town was very small, so it wasn't like you could go lengths of time without seeing everyone. The only people who I didn't see in town regularly were Won, a merchant who ran his shop on the beach, and Gotz, who was the carpenter who lived in the woods. I still saw Gotz pretty regularly, however, when I would accompany my family to the Mother's Hill on Mondays.

Anyway, I guess Popuri had grown to be flirtatious in her teenage years. Her boyfriend, Kai, travelled year-round and was only in town for the summer. During the other seasons, Popuri would spend time with different guys in town. I guess she had even gotten Gray to hang out with her a few times. However, everyone knew that Gray and Kai were friends. They bonded over the fact that they were both city boys. So, Gray spent little time with her and, occasionally, scolded the other men in town when he thought they were paying Popuri a little too much attention.

Everyone knew that Popuri was harmless, though. I didn't understand why Ann had reacted the way she did. Maybe there was some kind of rift between the two of them in the past day or so.

I shook my head before taking my plate to the sink to rinse it off. I didn't know what had happened and I wasn't particularly sure I wanted to. Ann's business was Ann's business and I felt uncomfortable sticking my nose in where it didn't belong.

Walking over to the front door, I retrieved my winter coat from the coat rack. I might not want to know Ann's business, but I sure did want to know about this girl, Claire. What was it about her that had Gray acting so strangely? Why had he left this morning without saying goodbye or anything else?

After waving goodbye to Popuri, Karen, Harris, and Rick, I started making my way towards the back door. Ann was no longer anywhere in sight. I guessed she had retired to her father's room for a few hours. I probably would, too, if the road had been cleared to my house by now.

"Hey, wait up!" Rick called out from behind me. He and Harris had gotten up from their place at the dining table and were now following me out the door.

Harris smiled down at me, pulling on his constable hat. "What'cha doing, Mary? Are you gonna brave the storm and help clear the roads?" he winked.

I smiled at him as Rick laughed, "Nah, she's probably checking up on that Claire girl. We all know how nice Mary is."

"Well, she did almost die at my party last night." I offered.

Harris was buttoning up his heavy coat now, "Yeah, that's what Gray said this morning when he took off with Trent and Elli."

"She's real pretty, that Claire." Rick added, "If I didn't think Karen would get mad, I might have gone with them, too."

"Don't worry, though, Mary, Gray is just being a stand up guy." Harris said.

I looked up at him, worriedly, hoping they didn't know my secret. "Why would I worry? Gray is my best friend."

Rick and Harris looked at each other, "Mhmm." Rick said, "Whatever you say, Mary."

I waved goodbye to the older men as I opened the door to the Clinic.

"Mary!" Elli smiled at me, "What are you doing here? How are you feeling?" she said.

I looked around the waiting room, Gray and the others were no where in sight. "I'm fine, Elli. Why?"

She looked puzzled, "Well, usually when people come in here they are sick." She began to laugh, "Did you come in to get some medication for hangovers? I'm sure a lot of the people at the Inn need that this morning."

All of my life, I had looked up to Elli and had admired her. She was a year older than I was and had short, choppy, brown hair. Her eyes sparkled when she spoke and she was much kinder than anyone else I knew in town. She looked troubled today, though, they must not have figured out much more about Claire.

"Where's Gray?" I blurted out.

Elli shook her head quickly, obviously taken aback. "Well, he's in with the Doctor right now. I'm sure he'll be out in a moment. He hasn't had much to eat today."

Why would Gray not have had much to eat today? I wondered to myself. Surely he isn't still sitting by Claire's bedside.

"I'll just sit over here and wait for him, then." I said.

Elli just smiled at me sadly. Did she know something that I didn't?

I settled myself on the orange couch in the waiting room, listening to the hushed tones behind the curtain dividing myself from Gray, Doctor Trent, and Claire. The voices sounded upset and I quickly noticed that the conversation lacked a female voice.

Minutes passed by slowly. How funny that is, that minutes always pass at the same rate of time, but sometimes seem to never end, while at other times they seem to fly right on by. I wished right then that the minutes would fly on by, but they seemed to drag out into hours. It hadn't even been fifteen minutes before Gray came out from the curtains and I had been sure we'd been there for hours.

Gray looked surprised as he rounded the corner between us, tugging his hat back onto his head and looking at me quizzically. "Mary, what are you doing here?" he asked tentatively.

"What am I doing here? What are you doing here?" I asked.

He stared at me for a minute. "Uh… well, I'm just visiting. Making sure she's alright."

"So am I." I said, matching his gaze.

I stood up to enter her room when Doctor Trent stopped me.

"She needs to wake up to the face of Elli or myself. We don't want her waking up to a stranger and going into shock."

That surprised me much more than anything else had in the past twelve hours. I couldn't visit the girl, but Gray could? What was going on?

"Why is it that Gray could see her, then? I'm just worried if she's alright or not…"

Doctor Trent looked from me to Gray, who stood emotionless, before fixing his gaze back to me, "She didn't wake up when Gray was in with her. We are approaching the twelfth hour of her sleep, so it is more likely that she will wake up soon."

Gray came up to me then, taking my hand in his own before leading me out of the clinic. He thanked the Doctor and Elli before opening the door and guiding me out into the snow.

The storm had started again, the wind was blowing – but not too harshly – and the snowflakes were swirling around us again. Looking up and down the street, I saw that the townsmen had apparently given up shoveling, and that the farthest they had made it was to Ellen and Stu's house. It made sense for them to have pushed that far – Ellen was advancing in age and needed someone other than her eight year old grandson to take care of her. I was sure that Harris was with the family now, as Elli had to stay at the Clinic with Trent rather than at home with her brother and their rocking chair-bound grandmother.

I turned back to look up at Gray, who towered over me. The cold was nipping at my face as I pulled my coat closer towards myself and tightened my scarf.

"Why are you so worried about her?" I questioned.

Gray looked down to meet my gaze, "Let's get you back to the Inn. The storm has started to pick up again."

Staring at him, I refused to move. I didn't want to have this conversation in front of a lot of people. I wanted to know what was going on with my best friend.

"No."

"No?"

I nodded my head, and then shook it. "I'm not moving."
"Why not?" He asked.

I simply stared at him.

Gray grabbed my arm and started walking towards the Inn. "I don't know, okay?" He said, "She looks like someone I used to know growing up, that's all. It isn't who I thought it was, though. She isn't who I thought she was. After I realized that, I kept watch simply because I was worried for her. Nobody else seemed to care after she was taken to the Clinic. Nobody even watched her go. Somebody needed to make sure she was going to be okay."

"You thought you knew her?" I asked.

"I was wrong." He said, clenching his jaw. He was irritated.

"Are you upset with me?" I wondered.

He stopped, pulling me to a stop alongside him. "I'm just trying to figure out why you're so worried about me being worried about her." He paused, "If that makes sense. Why do you care?"

I wiped the fog from my glasses when he finished speaking. He was only two inches from my face. "You just reacted strangely, that's all." I answered.

He stared at me, open-mouthed. "I reacted strangely? YOU reacted strangely! Did you even care?"

"Of course I care!" I shouted, "I followed you didn't I?"

"Out of curiosity for Claire's well-being or because you wanted to know why I cared?" he yelled back at me, "That's unlike you, Mary! I would have thought you'd be dragging me out of bed this morning, waiting in the Clinic with me! Not following me hours later!"

"We drank last night, I slept in." I said defensively.

"You drank last night."

I couldn't believe him right now. He was going to point the finger at me? He was going to pretend he hadn't had much to drink last night? He was crazy! He had been slurring at me for most of our conversation!

"Yeah," I scoffed, "right. You didn't have anything to drink."

He laughed then, "I don't let it affect me."

"You don't think you let it affect you, but you act differently when intoxicated." I answered.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're smart. Figure it out." I answered.

Gray softened then, reaching for my hand again. I ripped it away. "Go check on Claire." I said.

He sighed, "You know as well as I do that we can't do that."

"I don't want to." I snapped. "I want you to."

"Mary…"

"Really!" I threw my hand in the direction of the Clinic. "I want you to! I want you to sit by her bed – or in the waiting room – until she wakes up. I want you to be there to offer her your friendship when she comes to. We all know she hasn't got any friends here, nobody even knew who she was! Go be there for her, I can walk back to the Inn myself!"

And with that, I stormed off. Gray and I never fought. I didn't even remember the last time we had disagreed about something. Neither of us cared to get into arguments because we cared too much about our friendship to do so.

I felt my heart breaking as I walked away from him. He thought I only cared about myself. He thought I didn't care about other people's well-being. He thought I was selfish. He said as much when he yelled at me. Gray had never before raised his voice at me. I had never heard my parents raise their voices at each other. People who loved and cared about each other didn't do that. Even if Gray wasn't in love with me, he should care enough about my feelings to not raise his voice at me. I was shocked.

I didn't look back to see what Gray had decided to do, but I didn't hear his footsteps behind my own. When I went to round the corner towards the Inn, I stole a glance towards his direction.

Gray back was facing me as he walked furiously towards the Clinic. He gathered his jacket around him, and he had pulled his UMA hat down as far as it would go. I stopped and watched as he flung the Clinic door open in front of him, and almost felt a physical pain as I watched it slowly swing closed behind him.

The weather outside was freezing, our argument had been more than a little frosty, but my face was blazing hot as I closed the distance between Ann's backyard and the back door to the Inn. I felt my eyes prick with unshed tears and sucked in my breath before finally walking inside.

A/N: So, oddly enough, it's been FOUR YEARS since I updated this story or any of the other ones I was supposedly working on. I honestly have no words for that fact except to say that I'm sorry. In four years, I know I've changed my email address several times, graduated from school, entered the workforce, and stopped practicing writing. So, I'm sure that any of the readers I had collected for this story four years ago won't be here now. Hopefully, I'll be wrong. I actually intend on working this story through. It's been burning in the recesses of my mind for the past few months. I always knew where it was going and how it would end, I'm honestly just really lazy.

So, again, I AM SORRY. A MILLION TIMES OVER.

Hopefully you guys won't be rolling your eyes right now, thinking it will be four more years until you hear from me again. I honestly wouldn't blame you if you were, though.

Feel free to leave a review on your way out! They are much appreciated!(:

- tweedle.(: