“Is it me? Did I do something wrong?”
My fingers tremble with a need to reach out. To touch him. To console him so that he knows he’s safe.
Doesn’t he know he’s safe with me?
“No,” he mumbles low, then shakes his head along those bony knees and I know it must hurt. “Yes.”
Everything in me freezes up. His singular word locking up every muscle in my body until I feel nothing but shame. Guilt.
Quiet.
I need quiet.
My chest blossoms with that familiar ache, the fluttering of my pulse, and I suck back a breath. Hold it so long that it burns and he finally,finally, lifts his head. Scans the tile floor from behind wet lashes and something in my chest splinters.
Quiet, quiet, quiet.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs and digs his fists into his eye sockets too hard.
It’s too difficult to watch. To sit and do nothing.
To not grab him and wrap him in my arms.
Not beg him to tell me what he’s been hiding beneath my hoodies. To not rip his clothes off until he’s bared andshows me.
To not demand his story.
Who made you tremble when the TV is too loud? The sound of a chip bag too much?
Why did I find you in a blacked-out house, alone and dying?
I swallow hard.
Who made you want to end it all?
Shooting to my feet makes my head spin and the edges of my vision dance but I have to back away before I upset him further and give in to all these tingling urges tosave him.
I … just want to see that smile of his.
The shrill sound of the tone alarming makes the world tilt and my heart rate increase.
No. No. No.
“Emmett,” I choke out, my collar too tight, my uniform too heavy.
“Go,” he murmurs from behind his legs, his forehead back against bone.
I’m stuck. Trapped in my indecision, crippled by my duty. My responsibility to both my job and Emmett.
He needs m—
He needs someone.
Just like the person or people on the other end of the tone. Someone to find them. To help them. To resuscitate them and piece them back together.
Just like Em did.
“I’m … I’m so sorry.”
