He’d only solidified everything I’d always felt.
My chest heaved,my hands trembling as I swept them across my desk, spilling the contents on top of it to the floor. Old mission reports and books scattered across my floor haphazardly, sprinkling throughout the room as a mockery of my failures. Fingers curling in on themselves, I clenched my fist before driving it into the wall, sheetrock crumbling beneath my wrath.
“FUCK!”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t fucking think. I couldn’t. I couldn’t?—
Through blurry vision, I spotted the box at the foot of my bed, a container filled with the memories Oren had attempted to mend for me; the memorieshe’dwillingly destroyed just like my fucking heart. In a state of disassociation, I closed the gap without realizing it, flipping the lid open to reveal the contents inside.
The taped photos and the drawings. Apologies from him that I didn’t fucking want anymore, because they’d all been fabricated. None of it had meant a damn thing to him.
My hand dove into the box, gathering the items. Without wasting another second, I ripped my desk drawer open, grabbing my pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Moving from my room, a space that’d become safe once he’d finally occupied it, I passed the other dormitories determined to be left alone.
I needed fresh air. I needed to get thefuckaway from this, away from everyone.
Losing track of my travel, I shoved the double-doors open, stepping out into the heat-filled early afternoon. Commands filtered through the air, other squads running through regimented drills, each conversation nullified into nothing more than white noise. Overhead, the golden beams lathered the asphalt in their warmth, and I leveraged the heat that emanated from it.
Flicking the lighter once, I lifted the balled mess of fabricated devotion. With one breath, I brought the flame to meet the photographs and drawings, watching as its orange hue ignited. It grew in intensity, its hunger swallowing every lie and ounce of deceit I’d been fed, devouring it until mere ash remained. An ash that’d come to represent all I was, the remnants of my soul scattered with no plausible cure.
I tossed the ball of fire to the ground, basking in watching the destruction unfold. Reaching into my pocket, I freed the pack, peeling the top back to free a cigarette. With one step forward, I knelt, leveraging the damage Oren had caused to light my only remaining reprieve.
Bringing it to my mouth, I inhaled, savoring the burn that roared through my throat and lungs, rendering me numb to everything once more. As the smoke polluted my essence, vulnerability vanished beneath its clouded influence, the stone-cold exterior that’d become my mask for far too many years returning home.
They’d won.
He’d won.
And I was nothing more than a dead man.
The double doors clicked open, footsteps reverberating against the pavement before stopping next to me, a sigh escaping his lips. “Spare a cigarette for me?” Matt asked, a neutrality to his tone.
Ignoring his question, mine came with a monotonality I’d completely forgotten about. “Did you know?”
Reaching across to grab the pack from my hands, he tugged one free, using the flames to light his cigarette. He took a drag slowly, slow enough I knew the answer before he parted his lips to confess. “It’s not that simple.”
“Yes or fucking no,Matthew.” I snarled. “It’s a yes or no question.”
“If I answer with the response you’re looking for, you’ll shut down completely. You won’t hear me out.”
Laughing, my tongue trailed over my lips. “So fuck our friendship, right? That was another mirage in my life? Another painted image to what?For what?God,” I ran a hand down my face, praying it’d somehow wake me up from whatever nightmare I’d stumbled into, “I’m such a fucking idiot.”
“You’re filling a rolewedecided for you to play. We needed you?—”
I cut him off, my blood boiling. “Oh? Payback then?Lovely.”Flicking the unfinished cigarette from between my fingers, I snuffed it out with a boot. “Fuck you. Fuck every single one of you. I’mdone.Whatever ploy you wished for, whatever end game you were trying to reach? Congratulations. You fucking won in breaking me. Hope you’re happy,best friend.Don’t worry though, that title is long gone now, considering you chose Oren over me without batting an eye.”
Matt’s jaw feathered, but his response remained neutral. “End game? The end game is for all of us to get the fuck out of here.”
“Alive? Good for you guys.” Pivoting on my heel, I turned my back to him. “Because I’m already dead. And at this point? When my best fucking friend turned his back on me and the man I gave everything,” my voice cracked, emotion splitting through my words, “fuckingeverythingto drove a knife so deep into my chest… You can enjoy your freedoms, but in working to gain them, you murdered me with your bare fucking hands.”
“No one turned their backs on you, Thorne, and God, Oren of all people never would.Never.”
“Bullshit.” I seethed, my hands trembling at my sides. “This? THIS?!” Whipping my head over my shoulder, I narrowed my gaze at him as I gestured between us. “Is a key example of turning your back on someone. But if you can’t see that, if you wish to deny that, then you never loved or valued me to begin with.”
“If it helps any, Oren wanted to tell you, but the group decided against it. We needed his father to believe you, wholeheartedly, otherwise we’d never be able to take him down. The mission? It’s a mission to kill him, Thorne. To rid us of?—”
“And you’d rather the general be convinced than save me from the anguish? Good to know, Matthew. Really fucking good to know.” A manic chuckle left me, the definition of disbelief. “Go fuck yourself. It’s beyond apparent your only care for me derived from your position, and now that Oren’s in those shoes, you’ve happily elected to ride his cock. And look at you, you’re doing a damn good job, even speaking like his groomed little bitch. I’ll catch you on this mission that was deemed far more pertinent than me,second.”
“Thorne, that’s notit. To solidify this proposition, we?—”
