I burrow deeper beneath the covers, pulling them up over my head.
“Still with me, bubbles?”
It sounds just as sad as I feel. Flat and distant and croaked with sleep.
At least he got some.
“No.”
“Me, either, baby.”
“Stop calling me that,” I snap and yank on the covers when I feel the bed dip.
“Stop wearing my hoodies.”
My eyes burn.
I don’t want to.
It makes me feel close to … someone … without having to be close to anyone.
It should have been me.
“Fuck you,” I mumble back and swipe my nose on the cuff of my sleeve.
“Emmett,” Tristen sighs like a weathered old man, his weight shifting. “They won’t postpone again.”
“I don’t care.”
“You’ll need the closure.”
My eyes flood. “No, I don’t.”
“You want her buried without you there?”
The flood leaks over my lids, running down to wet my temple in a puddle that grows cold quickly.
“No,” I cry, my heart aching, my stomach churning.
“Then c’mon,” Tristen says lightly, too lightly, and the bed lifts. For a moment, relief floods me that I’m left alone again, but that fades fast when the covers are yanked out of my grip, and something is shoved beneath me.
“What thefuck?” I screech when I go airborne, my voice cracking. “Put me down!”
“Not today, bubbles.”
His arms beneath me ache against my sore muscles, their stiffness just another reminder of all the things I got wrong.
He shouldn’t be here.
I am nothing but a burden on everyone. A frail character. Weak minded and fuckinggay.
Should have let Eric kill me.
The permanent welts across my back are a reminder of what happened when I tried to run. When I disobeyed. When he was just too angry.
He was faster. Always faster. Stronger. More of a man than I’ll ever be.
“Please forgive me,” Tristen whispers and I don’t bother to ask why when he enters the bathroom and presses his lips to my temple. We’ve been through this already. Every day, at least once, he brings me in here and sets me on the toilet.
