Leo suddenly whistles up a taxi with his thumb and forefinger in his mouth. I’ve always wished I could do that, but I’ve never managed it.
My heart sinks. I wish I could stay next to Dean all night. I feel certain that histhank youwas about more than the song. I think he’s reached his limit for socialising tonight, and although his hand holds mine a little tighter when the cab approaches, he’s already pushed himself a long way this evening, and it’s best not to overdo it. Just holding his hand is a huge leap, and I know it.
I say a friendly goodbye to everyone, and am grateful when they turn their backs and talk among themselves so I can have a private moment with Dean.
“See you soon?” I sound more openly hopeful than is usually considered to be cool and confident, but fuck that. Authenticity and radical honesty has value, too, and from what he’s said about liking how unfiltered I am, I think he’ll respond better to that.
He nods, smiling at me, and then…oh my god…he leans down, and I close my eyes as he kisses the top of my head, lingering and…smelling my hair.
And when I get in the cab, he holds my hand for as long as possible, fingers trailing as I’m driven away.
It’s my turn to quiver.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dean
Idry heave as I slam awake from my latest nightmare, drenched head to toe in sweat, clammy and shivering and rigid with hot terror. It was the one where Rashon and Mr Williams and Lacey Bordeaux and Mrs O and so many others glare at me as they lie dying, asking me why I didn't save them. It's one of the worst.
I can’t move. Except for the way my head jerks from the disgusting wrack of retching, I’m paralysed, frozen where I lie.
This happens sometimes after my nightmares. It takes ages for my muscles to unclench enough for me to move and breathe freely again, and it usually comes back piece by piece.
Once I’ve near enough stopped heaving, I try to drag air through my lungs. It brings little relief, but I’m grateful that at least I didn’t throw up all over myself this time. That’s never fun.
My mind races, and I feel like I’m in a bubble where no-one can help me, no-one can reach me and pull me out. Not even Eli.Callie, her blood, all over me and in my mouth… I know, Iknowit’s not there, but I can feel it, I can taste it, and for the milliontime I scream out in my mind,why? Why did this happen to her? To me? Why us?
Why was I chosen by the universe for this terrible hell of surviving? What did I do to deserve it?
I can’t live like this much longer.
I can’t see the point in enduring this endless suffering.
Tears pour silently down my face as I consider this solid truth, and I can’t stop them even if I wanted to.
I can’t stand any more therapy. No matter what kind, it’s all basically the same, and in the end none of it works. Nothing that they tell me sticks. I’ve been rolling that rock up that mountain for too long, and I’m tired. I’m fuckingtired. I was given an antidepressant once, and nothing really happened except dizziness, relentless diarrhea, and a strong desire to hang myself. No help to be had there. And I got so close, much too close, to becoming a valium addict back when I’d just been released from hospital and this shitty new post-shooting life had just begun. It was only my mom’s strict, lightning fast intervention that stopped me from getting strung out on benzos all the time.
God fucking damn it, but I miss the calm vacuum valium created. With every cell of my body, every fiber of my being, I want to go back there.
Maybe forever this time.
I close my eyes. Maybe it’s finally time I stopped kidding myself, stopped putting myself through this hellish tortureevery single dayof my miserable life, and picked up enough diazepam to take with my stash of sleeping pills and check out for good.
I silently groan with longing as I think of it. No more nightmares. No more pain. No more struggling to get through the day, only to have to battle to get through the night, and then doing it all again the next day, and the next, and the next, with no respite. Just getting some actual, proper sleep, all the hoursI lost and then some. Melting away into silent blackness, the peace of total oblivion.
Please, god. It sounds like bliss to me.
Listen to your heart…
For no apparent reason, I have a flash in my mind’s eye of Liaden singing to me in the pub last night, singing to all of us, but especially to me. Those ink blue eyes of hers focused on mine. Blue is supposed to be one of the cold colors, but if that’s true, why did I feel scorched when she looked at me?
And her voice…
Jesus Christ, she blew away any other singer I’ve ever heard because she gave the songs everything she had to give. So powerful. So strong. She sang it like she meant every word, and my mind warns me against dwelling on that too much, given the eye contact she gave me while she set my heart on fire singing to me.
Wait.Myheart?
Yeah. Becauselisten to your heart.
