Though I cover it up with a soft hum.
“Now you can say two people are on that list.”
His swallow is so thick that I hear it click.
A silence falls over the bed, one that stretches long and gaining heft with each second, minute, that passes. It gets thicker and I can’t tell if it’s coming from me or him.
Is this too much?
I know he’s the one choosing this. The one in control.
But that’s exactly what’s making my palms start to itch.
The numbness in my leg grows painful.
The clawing inside my chest too much to handle and I clear my throat.
“I gotta piss.”
It’s not entirely a lie but it certainly feels like one when he jerks his limb back and fuckingapologizes. As if any of this is his fault. As if touching me in his sleep is somehow …wrong.
“It’s not your fault,” I rush out, my chest clenching as I scoot down to the foot of the bed and scramble to my feet.
My bladder screams when I stand and my leg damn near sends me right back down to the floor the mattress is sitting on.
“Fuck,” I mutter as I force myself to walk on the needles shooting up my foot.
All the way to the bathroom, my teeth clench.
What the fuck am I doing with Emmett?
Chapter 19
Tristen
“Up you go.”
For two days, Hatley has gone through the different stages of not only detox, but depression.
I laid next to him while he silently cried himself to sleep. Rubbed his back as the drugs purged from his system. Wrapped him in blankets when the chills became too much and brought him cool packs when he ran through a fever.
All the while, I hid my tears every time he begged me to make it stop.
I want it to stop, too.
“Ten,please,” he begs as he pulls against my hold and falls back to the mattress next to Emmett who watches this train wreck unfold with a furrow to his brow and a level of strength I could never possess. I mean, fuck, Em wasjustin the hospital for the very shit that Hatley did, and yet he’s been next to me every step of the way. Grabbing Hat’s water. Laying with him so I can shower. Watching my best friend all but fall apart in my arms.
He’s somehow managed to be my rock without saying much. Just knowing that if I turned my head and he’d be there on my other side?
I … I don’t think I could do this without him.
And when I wrap my whimpering best friend up in a fireman’s carry he doesn’t fight, his body limp and too-thin over my shoulder, I meet Emmett’s gaze and nearly break.
A mist gathers in his sweet, honey irises, and I have to swallow back the cry that wants to escape as I rise to my feet. Only looking away when I make it to the door.
“Ten,” Hatley whispers thickly. “Just one. Please. We don’t have to tell Emmett.” A sob works its way out of his throat when I set him on the toilet and turn on the water.
“I can’t, Hat.”
