“You shouldn’t be here,” I say aloud this time instead of keeping it in my head. “It’s tainted you. So just fuckingstop.”
So very slowly, he looks over his shoulder at where I’m balled up on the bed, covered from head to toe and shaking. I’m always shaking. On top of the sweatpants and the hoodie with the hood pulled up, I’m buried under the blankets, too.
There’s no way for him to know how much weight I’ve lost. How many fresh scars there are. How many new ones are being formed.
Still, his gaze softens on me. Almost painfully. Like he’s looking over me withpity.
I hate it. Him. This fucking place. This brain of mine. The feeble body I’ve been trapped in.
“I’m not going away, Emmett,” he whispers and it’s so goddamn thick that it strokes that tiny thing I am beneath all the terrible shit.
But I can’t let it.
I can’t let him.
All I’ve ever done was try to protect it, I’ve just been too weak. Too queer. Toosmallto do anything about it.
That’s no different now, but that doesn’t stop me from kicking my foot out and landing solidly against his side. His yelp of surprise cuts me, and yet I add it to my growing collection of wounds that’ll never really heal as I do it again.
“Get out,” I breathe out, slamming my foot into his arm. “Get out. Get out.Get out.”
“No,” he growls vehemently, his grip catching my foot, and I scream.
“Leave me alone!”
“No!” he yells so loud, it makes my ears ring, but I don’t stop planting my feet in him. Pushing and pounding away at him with everything I have left in me.
When he wraps up my legs in the blanket, rendering them useless, I use my fists.
Even when he pins me to the bed, his weight holding the blanket across me like a harness I don’t stop thrashing around.
I land a punch right on his brow, breaking the old wound open, and he grabs my sleeves. Uses them to wrap my weak armscrisscross my body. Then leans down so close to my face that I feel his nose close to mine. His breath hot over my face.
It’s a long moment before he speaks, his glassy eyes flicking between mine and full of so muchhurt. Finally, he speaks, and my heart shatters.
“I’ll leave you alone if you promise me I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I breath heavy and squeeze my eyes shut.
“But I don’t want to see tomorrow,” I admit barely above a whisper, tears leaking out passed my tightly shut lids. “It’s just as ugly as today.”
“Baby, you don’t know that.”
His forehead drops to mine, warm and damp.
I want to wriggle away from it, but I don’t. It’s not like I have much room to go anywhere with the way he’s pinned my arms like I’m in a straight jacket, his weight baring down on the tops of my thighs.
That little thing inside me sighs against the pressure and I curse it.
Because normally, my skin crawls. When someone touches me, I want to scream.
But I’m so damn tired, worn down and broken, that Tristen being on top of me almost feels like …relief.
Chapter 64
Tristen
“You can’t save me,”he whispers, and I crack open, my chest aching.
