The scream tears out of me.
I wake up gasping, hand flying to my mouth to muffle the sound before it fully escapes. A choked sob fights its way up my throat, but I clamp down on it hard, remembering Emma and Chase and Ethan are all asleep down the hall.
My throat is raw like I've been screaming anyway. The guest room is dark except for the streetlight bleeding through the curtains, casting everything in sickly yellow.
I press my hands to my face, trying to ground myself, but I can still feel it: his weight pinning me down, Lily's ribs breakingunder my palms, the flatline that won't stop ringing in my ears even though I'm awake now.
The clock on the nightstand glows red, mocking me. 3 a.m.
I need to breathe, need to ground myself. Five things I can see. Four things I can touch. Three things I can hear.
But all I can see is Lily's face, her eyes empty and accusing. All I can feel is his hands bruising my wrists. All I can hear is that monitor flatline playing on a loop in my head.
The blade is in the bathroom, under the sink, waiting.
I told myself I wouldn't, told myself I was strong enough to resist after what happened at the club, after almost cutting, but managing to stop myself.
I'm not strong enough.
My legs carry me to the ensuite before I make a conscious decision to move. The bathroom is cold, the tiles icy under my bare feet, and the shock of it barely registers. I open the cabinet with shaking hands and pull out the hidden bag and unwrap the blade.
I should throw it away, flush it down the toilet, and call someone. Or do literally anything except what I'm about to do.
Instead, I sit on the floor, back against the tub, the porcelain seeping cold through my thin t-shirt. Slowly, I pull up the leg of my sweatpants and press the blade to my inner thigh.
This will help. The pain will quiet everything else, will give me control when I have none, will make the nightmare fade, and the memories blur and the guilt manageable.
The femoral artery runs right here, just beneath the surface of the skin. If I cut deep enough, angled right, I could bleed out in minutes.
It would be fast. Quiet. Everyone's asleep.
They'd find me in the morning. Emma would blame herself. Jackson would?—
Jackson.
His face outside the restaurant flashes through my mind.The way he looked at Tyler like he wanted to kill him, the fury in his eyes when he grabbed Tyler's shoulder and hit him. The way he crouched in front of me after, careful not to touch, voice steady when everything else was chaos.
Just breathe. In and out. You're safe.
I press the blade harder and feel the skin start to give, a thin line of red welling up.
Do it. End it.Stop being a burden. Stop pretending you're okay when you're drowning. Stop taking up space in their house, in their lives. Emma doesn't need this. Jackson doesn't need this. Nobody needs you.
The blade bites deeper.
A knock on the door makes me freeze.
"Maya?" Jackson's voice, muffled through the wood. "You okay?"
No, I'm not okay. I'm sitting on a bathroom floor with a blade to my thigh, thinking about how easy it would be just to stop existing, to make all of this someone else's problem instead of mine.
"I'm fine." My voice comes out strangled. "Go away."
The door opens anyway.
Jackson stands in the doorway wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, hair messy from sleep, eyes alert despite the hour. His gaze goes straight to the blade in my hand, then to the scars covering my thigh, then to the fresh line of blood where I pressed too hard.
He doesn't yell, doesn't panic, doesn't look at me like I'm crazy or broken or beyond help.
