Amber's pov:

Silence.

Damien looked at the rest of his friend group with a hint of distress on his face.

It made my heart hurt.

Layla's sickness was and still is a sensitive topic to Damien. That's why he tried to avoid telling people about it.

He didn't want it to be one of the things that people thought about when they talk to him.

He assumed that they would approach him with pity if they knew about his sister, so he tried his best to limit the amount of people who knew about his sister.

Even his own friends.

If I'm being completely honest, I didn't quite understand. Your friends are there to be your support system, to lift you back up when you're down, and to make you more confident in yourself.

I have to admit that I was lucky to have had Liam all my life. I know for a fact that I wouldn't be the person that I am today without him.

But Damien, he has a group of friends who care about and love him, it's hard to understand why he kept such a big secret from them.

Well other than Julie and Ashton, and I think Zander too, the others barely know anything about his sister.

And as much as I thought that he should have told them about his sister, it wasn't my place to tell them.

....And it surely wasn't Annabelle's either.

As much as I didn't want to question it, it still bothers me greatly.

HOW does she know about Layla?

WHY does she know about Layla?

Damien said that I was the only person who he felt completely comfortable with introducing his sister to.

Why?

I can't tell you.

We had known each other for less than a day at the time, he barely knew me, yet he trusted me and let me in on a big part of his life.

Looking back, I guess it made me feel... special?

But now, I feel uneasy, hurt, and lied to.

He probably did the same thing that he did to me with Annabelle.

We spent the whole day together yesterday, so it had to have been over the weekend. Maybe that's what they were talking about yesterday at lunch.

Which means he didn't even tell me. I thought he was an open book when he was with me, I was starting to think that maybe this friendship was turning into something more...

I can't help but feel wrong.

"Well...?" Luke asks again, folding his arms over his chest while sending a questionable look towards Damien.

"I-I..." Damien stutters, I could feel his gaze on me, but I couldn't muster up the courage to look back at him.

It made me feel like an awful friend, but what could I even say? If I said that I knew, or Julie, that would make the situation even worse.

"Why are you guys getting so worked up about it?" Annabelle speaks out, I could hear the substantial amount of sass coming from her voice, and I would be lying if I said that didn't want to slap her across the face.

Harsh... I know.

That's more of a Liam thought, I guess he's finally wearing off on me.

"Why don't you shut the f*ck up for a second so you can find out?" Luke says to her. I could hear the sound of a smack, my guess being that Ella smacked him on the arm, but I doubt that she disagreed with him.

"You guys are clearly putting him in an uncomfortable situation, some friends you are." She says back, clearly angry at the comment he gave her.

"Oh really? You're going to come in here and call us bad friends, who the f*ck even are you?! I don't remember any of us wanting you to sit here, let alone talking to us. I find it best if you leave." Luke yells at her, and at this, I finally find myself looking up.

Both Luke and Annabelle were full on glaring at one another, whereas everyone else just watched. I could tell that they were angry, heck I could almost see the steam coming off of Gianna, any normal person would be scared.

I mean... I was scared.

"Who are you to tell me what to do?! I was invited to sit here, and your little pity party about Damien not telling you about his sister, is your fault. No wonder he doesn't trust you, you're an awful friend." Annabelle says.

At her words, I watch as Luke's head snaps to Damien, who was sitting there with his head down, chewing on his bottom lip in nervousness.

"Don't you dare tell me that her words are true Damien. I've known you for years, she's known you for what, a couple days? Do you really not trust us?" Luke asks, watching as Damien keeps his head down, ignoring the question.

"DAMIEN, answer the question!!!" Luke says louder, a pissed of expression on his face.

"Luke, don't-..." Julie tries to calm Luke down, but he only looks at her with the same expression.

"Not now Julie, I'm pissed off and I want an answer, don't you?" He questions her, but his eyes widen once he watches her eyes fall to the table. It wasn't hard to figure out that she felt guilty, and I knew Luke was quick to connect the dots.

"Unless you already knew..." he says slowly, watching as she sinks back in her seat.

"Luke, don't be mad at her, it's my fault-..." Damien speaks up, in an attempt to defend Julie.

"Damn right it's your fault! I feel like a f*cking dumbass sitting here. And let me guess, since Julie knows, Ashton has to know too. Hell, do the rest of the boys know? Is it just me? Have you never trusted me?" Luke says angrily, but also hurt.

But who wouldn't? Luke sees Damien as his own brother.

Imagine finding out that one of your closest friends was hiding a big secret from you?

What would you do?

I see Gianna turn towards Julie, going to hold her hand and try to talk to her, but Luke catches it and turns toward her, "Aren't you hurt also? Why are consoling her?"

"Because she's my best friend Luke, and I'm not going to let some stupid bitch get in the way of that." Gianna says, glaring at Annabelle who caught onto her glare and glared right back.

"It's not my fault that your friend group is keeping secrets from one another." It's as if the only thing that she can possibly say is that it's not her fault.

It made me angry.

"I'm leaving before I do anything that I regret." Luke says, standing up from the table quickly and walking away.

Ella quickly follows behind, mumbling a list of apologies towards everyone but Annabelle, who which she sent a cold glare at before chasing after Luke.

The feeling of a hand trying to grab mine causes me to look over at Damien to see him reaching over to try and hold my hand in his.

"Damien..." I say in a low voice, pulling my hand away. He looks up at me with puppy-like eyes, making my heart tighten in my chest.

"Can we talk in private, please?" Damien says softly, pleading me with his voice.

I felt hesitant. I didn't want him to pull away from his friends just to talk to me. Even if I do feel a little hurt by what's happening, his friends should come first.

"Damien... I really think you should talk to them." I whisper to him, tilting my head towards the rest of the friend group that was still here.

"Please, Amber." At this point he was at the verge of tears, causing my heart to swell in my chest.

Although my heart wanted to comfort him, my brain wanted answers and to quickly get this matter all solved, no matter what it takes.

In the corner of my eye, I see Liam motioning me with his head to talk with him.

And as if I couldn't feel any worse, it strikes me that since I was also one of the people who knew about Layla, I technically have been lying to Liam too. And after making just three second eye contact with him, I could already figure out that he knew that I knew about Damien's sister.

"O-okay." I answer Damien while slowly standing up from my seat.

I make quick eye contact with Julie after grabbing my backpack off the floor. She gives me a small head nod before continuing to hold onto Gianna's arm as Gianna glares at Annabelle.

After being friends with Gianna for so long, I am pretty confident that Julie knew that Gianna would take any chance that she can get to knock some sense into Annabelle.

Clearing his throat, Damien starts to make his way out of the cafeteria, while I find myself trailing behind him.

And surprisingly, Annabelle wasn't quick to notice our missing presence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After a three minute walk full of silence, Damien leads me into an empty classroom.

I continue to keep my eyes glued down to the ground as I feel Damien's stare on me.

It wasn't until the sound of sniffling that my head flicked up to see tears rolling down Damien's face.

"No, please don't cry..." I quickly rush to Damien's side, taking the sleeve of my shirt and wiping his tears away. But it was no use because as soon as I swept them away, another few would fall.

"I-I feel s-so guilty for wh-what happened." Damien says between breathes, covering up the side of his face to try to hide himself.

But I quickly swat his hand away and instead cup his face, now using my thumbs to wipe his tears.

"Hey it's okay. Don't take what happened back there to heart. Luke was just hurt, so he said some hurtful things back. We're humans, we say things that we don't mean but at the end of the day, you two are best friends, I'm sure you can work this out."

But Damien just shakes his head repeatedly, beginning to hiccup from the crying and his shortness of breath.

"B-but it's my fault. He l-like my b-brother and I should have t-told him. I'm such a b-bad friend and I h-hate myself for it." He cries.

I feel myself starting to tear up from his words. It hurts seeing him cry, and more so hearing him say something like that about himself.

"No, don't ever say that. You felt more comfortable keeping that information to yourself and that's understandable. It is your choice on who you let know about your sister, not anyone else's."

"I-I know. But I d-didn't even want Annabelle to know in the f-first place?"

"What?"

Damien takes a couple deep breaths for a few seconds before continuing, "She was a-at the hospital when I went to visit my sister. She s-saw us in the cafeteria eating together and f-found out that way. I didn't w-want her to know."

"Hey, shhh it's okay." I quickly snap out of my shocked trance as he begins to cry more again, his figure slightly shaking.

"No it's not! Luke is mad at me and I can't even blame him. I should have just told him to begin with, even if-..."

Damien's words are cut off with the sound of the door opening.