Ozzy’s face softens a tad, yet he doesn’t utter a single syllable.
I don’t have time for this shit.
I’m about to go in on him for bothering me, but he raises a palm, and I swear my chest swells through some of the anger there.
“No,” I retort, even though I do want to press against him for more reasons than I can count. “You’re an asshole, and I’ve told you before Travis is a friend. You don’t?—”
“No.”
My eyebrows collide with his direct dismissal. “This shit again?”
He blinks.
“I’m tired of you.”
Ozzy doesn’t move a muscle, not even his hand from the air.
“Can I go home now?” I get nothing back and count to three before I begin to step around him for the third time, but Ozzy pulls the same bullshit blocking move, and I’m ready to lose it. “Stopdoing that to me.”
“Bay…”
I immediately avert my gaze because I can’t stand to look at him. His voice is soft, and I want violence.
I want revenge.
His empathy and concern only blanket those things around me and try to prevent them from turning into actions.
Ozzy has this mind-boggling effect on me I can’t seem to shake. He’s frustrating at times but not as much as I’d like. It’d be easier to brush him away if he’d fight back or come up with some shitty comment to keep me going, but he says nothing.
He lets me get everything out and then makes me think about everything I said.
And everything I’ve done leading me to this point.
I did this.
This is my fault.
My heart drops and crashes into the pit of my stomach at the realization I sent my best friend out to do something he didn’t want to do, and he died because of it. Levi went out looking for Reeve because he knew how much it was killing me that he was off the rails.
I did this.
I set up the domino effect.
If I hadn’t rejected Reeve’s offer to take care of me, he wouldn’t have gone on a binge. He wouldn’t be in the fucked-up state he is now, where people are having to search for him.
Levi went because he knew how much I cared about Reeve without me having to say it.
I sent him to his untimely death. He put himself on the line for his enemy. Men he doesn’t like, but I do.
Most of them, anyway.
Stepping away from Ozzy, my brain runs a million miles a minute. How reckless and selfish I’ve been. How I just can’t do anything right or be with anyone correctly.
I’m like Paisley, my shape-shifting mother. A burden to everyone around her.
A fucking bitch.
Someone who just takes and doesn’t give a shit about the consequences.
