“I needed that gig! I’m broke. For fuck’s sake, Blue, what the fuck were you thinking? You had no right! Now no one is going to hire me ever again!”
His anger rolls over me. Bitter. Harsh. I hate it. It seeps into my veins, my lungs, my thoughts. It weighs me down. Dark and heavy.
“I know you!” I snap. “You were in my head. You were a part of me. I felt you in my heart and soul. I know damn well that you don’t like selling yourself. You don’t enjoy it. You don’t find it fun!”
Sammy moves on the back seat. My eyes go to the rearview mirror. He is sitting hunched over, knees drawn up, shielding hisnakedness. My throat tightens and I snatch my attention back to the road.
“Yeah? Is that right?” he snarls. “So why the hell do I do it then?”
I hear his unspoken,not everyone is a freak like you!,as clear as day.
I take a deep breath, but it doesn’t help. My rage is still boiling over.
“Because you think you deserve it!”
Sammy flinches as if I’ve struck him. An awful silence fills the car. Followed by a weak and breathy, “Fuck you.”
A few minutes later. The sounds of Sammy’s quiet sobs reach my ears. My heart breaks into a thousand pieces. He is crying. I made Sammy cry. And he is trying to hide it from me.
I am the very worst monster in all the worlds. Even in his anger and shock, he didn’t speak his hurtful words to me. It’s not his fault I heard them anyway. But I didn’t hold back in the slightest. I lashed out. I spoke the truth, and truth hurts most of all.
Wordlessly, I pull into the drive. Finally being home doesn’t even feel that great. Everything is still awful. Home has fixed nothing. The anger in the car has festered and turned acrid. It’s a sullen, ugly thing and I can’t breathe.
“I’ll get you some clothes,” I say quietly.
Sammy doesn’t reply.
I jog up to his room. It’s pristine. Everything meticulously in its place. A sob catches at my throat. I’ve made Sammy feel like he is not enough, that he has to change who he is in order to be welcome here. I’ve done nothing but wrong to him and I keep doing it.
I grab his robe that is neatly folded on the perfectly made bed. Then I run back to Sammy. I open the back door and hold out my offering to him. He snatches it from me and quickly covers himself.
Silently, I escort him to his room. His head is down. Shoulders slumped. Shame carved into every line of his body.
My eyes water. Oh Amphitrite, what have I done? I’ve made Sammy feel small. Ashamed of himself. This is a disaster. Why, ohwhy, am I not capable of thinking before acting when it comes to him? I didn’t want him to hurt himself, but all I have succeeded in doing is taking over that role and hurting him myself. I haven’t saved him at all. All I have done is inflict pain.
We reach his room. He steps inside. Turns and slams the door in my face. The force of it ricochets through me. I wince. It is no less than I deserve.
My hand reaches out and presses against the wood. If only it was merely this door between us. A simple physical barrier is so easy to fix. Not like this complex, tangled mess of my weaving.
I hear Sammy throw himself onto his bed. I hear him release all the sobs he was desperately trying to hold in. I shudder. He doesn’t know I’m still here. He doesn’t know I can hear him. I’m invading his privacy. On top of everything else.
Every part of me longs to open this blasted door and go comfort him. But that’s ridiculous. I can’t comfort him when I’m the very person who has upset him. He doesn’t want me.
Slowly, I turn away. Reluctantly, I drag my feet down the hallway. Each step breaks my heart a little more.
I don’t know how to fix this.
Chapter twenty-five
Blue
Snoozing while curled up in a corner of my pool is as far away from the pain as I am able to get. The water is soothing. The fish keep coming to check on me. They really are far too domesticated. The only reason I wouldn’t have eaten them in the ocean is because they are small. Too small to be worth the hassle.
I am a cruel and vicious predator. As Sammy is discovering. I only know how to hurt and destroy.
The sound of his sobs are haunting me. I made him cry. How many times is that now? It’s at least two. Two times too many.
I sigh as the water around me turns pink with the light of the rising sun. That’s another night with no sleep. I look up at the refracted patterns on the surface. They don’t seem to shine so much when Sammy is not by my side.
