Page 49 of Winter Glam in Amsterdam

Finally, the tension falls from all four of us at once. I lean my back against the wall, slowly sliding down until I sit on the ground, a relieved chuckle escaping me.

"Holy shit." My eyes are stinging with unshed tears, and I clutch my shirt right above my thundering heart as all the panic I felt for the past day seeps out of me. "Fuck."

“And you couldn’t have sent us a follow up message?” Adam asks, his voice eerily calm.

“I was about to. But the doctors said the surgery was super complex so it took six hours. When I woke up from the anesthesia, I was so groggy I slept through the night until about half an hour before you four stormed through my door. I was going to get to it now.”

“Of course you were,” Reed mutters, earning him an eye roll from Zoey.

"Guys, let’s be thankful it’s only a broken bone,” I chime in, catching me a glare from Adam. “I know emotions are high, but calm down, will you?”

“So what even happened?" Jackson asks, looking like his knees are about to buckle. He steps closer to Zoey and takes a seat at the side of her bed.

"I went skiing with some friends of mine and I fell." She shrugs. “Tried to catch myself, but it ended with me breaking both bones in my forearm.”

"Skiing?" Adam asks, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "You told me you had exams."

"I lied." She shrugs, and suddenly the air in the room thickens.

"You fucking lied?" Adam asks loudly, quickly wiping the smile off Zoey's face. "I can’t believe you. Zoey, we rushed to you from the other end of the world, from a family vacation you didn't join because you said you had exams. And not only did you make usworry that you were about to fucking die and we wouldn’t even make it back in time for half a day. You made all of us panic for a fucking broken arm, and you lied about why you couldn't come along in the first place. Can you even imagine what you’ve done to us here?"

“Adam,” Jackson tries to calm him down, but he shakes his head.

Zoey shrinks into herself, looking like a scolded puppy, her eyes filling with tears. She’s our little princess. Before scolding, we always had a calm conversation with her and more often than not, that was enough.

But neither of us has a calm conversation in them at this point. All of us are raw, trauma we thought we’d buried or worked out in therapy pushed to the surface. Adam forces himself to take a deep breath and rubs his hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tries to calm himself down.

"I'm sorry," Zoey whispers, tears running down her cheeks, but Adam shakes his head.

"Well, Zoey, this time, ‘sorry’ doesn't quite cut it." Adam gulps and gets up slowly, leaving the room without another word. My eyes jump between Zoey and the door.

"You know what?" I finally say into the silence, exhaustion enveloping me like a warm hug. "Adam is right. If you don't want anything to do with us anymore, just say so, Zoey."

"That's not it." She sobs, but all of us are too emotionally drained for empathy.

"Well, then what else is it?" Jackson jumps in. "You barely answer when we message you; you’re not joining our weekly gaming nights and even before you left for college you were stand-offish with us.”

“And when I wanted to visit you a few weeks back and you said ‘no,’” Reed chimes in, hurt, and my eyes jump to him. I didn’t know that.

“You’ve been showing us that you want nothing to do with us for a while. And now this?" Jackson shakes his head. "What else are we supposed to think?"

"Guys, it's not like that."

"Whatever it is, right now I need some space. Let’s talk when I’m not in the middle of an emotional crash, alright?" I say, taking a deep breath and finally getting up from the ground, not waiting for her answer. Now that we know Zoey is not dying and, in fact, is pretty much fine, there are a few logistics we need to take care of. "I left all my shit at the hotel. I’m going to have to call them and ask to pack it and send it over."

And with that, I leave the room, finding Adam in the hallway on his phone.

“Yes, she’s fine. Thank fucking God.” And I just know that it’s Lily he’s talking to. Our eyes meet and I motion for him to let me talk to her, but of course, just like the smart guy he is, he knows exactly what I want to ask her. “Sweetheart, can you do me a favor and pack our rooms together? No, no need to haul it to the airport, I’ll get the hotel to ship it. Thank you. It’s alright, you don’t need to come. Okay. Well in that case, I can’t wait to see you. Love you, too.”

“Can you read my mind?” I ask him as we trudge down the hallway, all of the earlier urgency gone.

“Hm, let me see. ‘I’m so fucking tired, I need to crash, I wish we could check into the hotel next door and sleep until tomorrow?’ Because same.”

“Now do the lotto numbers,” I joke, and for the first time since this whole thing started, I see a smile threatening to grace his face.

“Come on. Let’s check in there and get some sleep. God knows, we need it.”

I wake up again around midnight, feeling like someone took a sledgehammer to my head.

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