Matt let go once my eyes met his, his breathing even and his lips pressed taut. “Box breathing. I start, you finish. Got it?”
“I-I can’t… I-I…” Each attempt to speak came out as a pathetic sob, my body trembling as I battled against the talons wrapped around my throat. “M-Matt… P-Please… I-I…”
“I know. I’ve got you.” Matt settled on the bed, his frame blocking the image plaguing my mind at seeing those fucking eyes. “In for four.”
Swallowing, I shook my head. “J-Just… Please… J-Just kill m-me… I can’t… d-do this… I can’t do t-this… a-anymore…”
“You focus on me.” Reaching to the side, Matthew grabbed a pillow, stuffing it against my chest. “What’s in your lap?”
“W-What?” The question caught me off-guard, deterring my attention briefly.
“What did I give you?” Matthew asked again, the sincerity in his tone continuing to catch me off guard.
“A-A pillow…?”
“Good. What’s it feel like?”
“Like a pillow…?”
“Sure, like a pillow,” he repeated. “What color is it?”
“T-That’s a stupid q-question when you c-can see it yourself, i-idiot…”
Matt chuckled. “Maybe I’ve lost my eyesight, and I’m relying on you to tell me. What color is it?”
“Fucking w-white.” Securing my grip around it, I tossed it at him. “God, y-you’re annoying.”
“I would say it’s more of an off-white color, but we can agree to disagree.”
“I thought you said you lost your eyesight?” I shot back, not even realizing my panic had nearly subsided.
“What’s a friend for without a lie here or there?”
Those words. That playfulness. The underlying meaning.
Anger rolled forward once more. “Right. You’re familiar with the concept aren’t you?”
Matthew sighed, raking his hand through his hair, the stubble along his jaw noticeable as it tightened. “Right.”
Every emotion that’d rendered me breathless shifted into something far more sinister, a fire reigniting within me that I knew they’d never be able to put out. “You’re fucking unbelievable. Leveraging vulnerability now too? God, how fucking pathetic have you become?”
“I came here to apologize, Thorne. For betraying you. For hiding it from you in the first place and for how I acted outside while you burned the drawings.”
“Drawings?” Oren chimed in, the shaking of the word unmistakable. “What… What drawings burned?”
“As if you have a right to be upset after what you pulled,” I snarled, wrath consuming my ability to think straight. “But since you inherentlylovemaking everything about you andyourfeelings, it was the ones you’d thrown together as if you could somehow make up for the damage you fucking caused.”
“T-Thrown together? The ones… The ones I’d drawn for you?”
“Sucks when someone destroys something you love, doesn’t it?”
Oren took in a breath, swallowing whatever lies he wanted to throw my way. “I’m sorry.”
“Lies,”I snarled, my teeth grinding together. “Everything you utter is a fuckinglie.”
“Thorne, if you want to take your anger out on someone, you can do it to me. I’m the one who dropped the ball. I’m the one who pushed for this mission. It’smymistake, and I?—”
My knuckles collided with Matthew’s mouth before he could continue speaking, the force of the punch enough to send him off the bed and onto the ground. Shoving myself up from where I sat, my feet collided with the cold wood, its temperature doing nothing to dampen the ire seconds away from consuming me.
