“What does?”
There’s a soft cry that wrenches my heart from my chest and he wraps his arms tighter around his middle.
“My stomach but not.”
“I’ll move so you can go to the bathr—”
“No!”
That wrenching in my chest becomes unbearable.
“It’s okay, Em. I can just scoot over.”
“Noooo,” he cries this time, his shoulders shaking. “I can’t go in there.”
I have to hide the way my voice shakes. “I’ll go with you.”
“B-b-but it’s thebathroom.”
“And this is thebedroom.”
The smack of his lips is water-logged, and he wraps himself tighter. Moves farther away.
My throat goes thick.
“I can go with you,” I try again, my voice softer. “I’ll watch the door.”
The room is silent for a long time aside from his pitchy breaths, long enough that I roll off the side of the bed and pushto my feet. My ass hits the dresser, and it takes everything in me to not turn around and fucking destroy it. To not yell out all of my frustration to the broken pieces.
“Baby, c’mon. Please,” I say, and it feels so fucking loaded. “I’ll be right there.”
When he rolls toward me, I nearly cheer out loud.
“You’ll watch the door?” he asks, and my knees threaten to give out, my heart in my fucking throat.
“Yeah. Yes. Absolutely.”
He chews on his already gnawed lip before huffing out a small “O-okay.”
Blowing out a breath of relief is short lived when he pushes to sit up slowly—too slowly—and cries out in pain, curling in half once again.
“Tristen, I can’t,” he cries and a piece of me breaks on the inside. “It hurts so bad.”
Another part of my resolve chips away.
He’s got a fucking UTI.
“I need you to trust me, Emmett. Do you trust me?”
I know it’s asking way too fucking much from him. That I shouldn’t hold him to whatever the fuck comes out of his mouth right now.
But I hold my breath as I wait for the answer to beno.
“It hurtssss.”
He curls tighter and my chest aches that much more.
I bite back the tears burning my eyes, the thumping in my chest, and bent down to his level.
