“Right,” Oren said. “I strictly remember a party you attended on campus where you shed?—”
“Past. In. The. Past.”
With a half-eaten slider in his mouth, Liam chuckled. “Mhm, the party you left early to come find me.”
“Okay, before you two delve too far into fucking one another with your words. Simon.” Tugging the garage door open, I glanced over my shoulder. “Modelo? Bud Light? Corona? What do you want?”
“Corona.”
“I knew I liked you,” I stated playfully with a wink, slipping from sight but keeping the door cracked with my foot to eavesdrop on the continued conversation.
“Wait,that’swhy you left early, Simon? You went to find Liam?”
Simon groaned. “It was a moment of despair for me.”
Rolling my eyes, I tugged the refrigerator open, coiling my fingers around two bottles. With a subtle shift, I closed it with my hip, nudging my way back into the kitchen.
My gaze met Simon, and I tossed him the beer, a chuckle leaving me. “Seems you may need this.”
“Seems you might be right.” He grimaced beneath Oren’s probing stare, one I knew far too well. The fucker didn’t stand a chance next to that man.
“To be exact,” Liam cut in, “it was a moment of utter devotion to me. He showed up at my door sobbing, explaining how he’d always loved me, wanted me to hold him and never let him go, and that he’d always?—”
“They get the picture,” he muttered, the undeniable pink hue to his cheeks spreading. “It was?—”
A knock sounded at the door, my attention snapping to Oren. “Who else did you invite?” I asked, my grip tightening around the bottle in my hand.
There was no way.
There was no way.
Oren’s gaze softened. “I… I’ll let him do the talking,” he said before shuffling to the door, his shoulders hunched over.
Releasing a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, the glass shattered in my hand, beer spilling across my skin to mix with the fresh cut on my palm. “Shit—fuck.”
I turned to the kitchen sink, dropping the shattered remnants of the bottle inside it. Continuing to curse under my breath, I quickly flipped the faucet on, running my hand beneath the steady stream to clean the stickiness that coated my skin.
As I worked to cleanse myself, my eyes locked on the steady trickle of scarlet flowing between my fingers. And with one inhale, I was back in the hospital room, on my knees in front of Oren, begginganyoneto see me, tohold me,tofucking listen.
“Hey, thanks for coming.” Oren’s voice floated between my mangled thoughts beforehistimbre cut through like sharp steel.
“I brought a pack of Corona and some brownies. I’m not sure if that’s?—”
“It’s plenty, Matt. Come on in.”
He cleared his throat. “I won’t stay long. I don’t… don’t want to intrude.”
Of course, he wouldn’t stay long. He never stayed. He never fucking fought for me. He never…
Hissing between clenched teeth, I kicked the cabinet, the thud of the collision reverberating through the tension. With one glance down, my curled fingers greeted me, carving into the fresh wound in my palm. Part of me never realized that I’d started digging with every intention of hurting myself; the onslaught of my memories nearly numbed my essence to completion.
Footsteps echoed, barely audible above the screams inside my head. Screams I’d released that day in the hospital for someone… forhimto help me through it, but he’d let me go. Discarded me as quickly as he’d entered my life.
“Baby, Matt… Oh my God, are you okay?” Oren’s panic rose at the sight of crimson staining my hand and counter.
“Thorne?” Matthew paused at the entrance to the kitchen, his eyebrows furrowing as if he cared.
Instinctively, my body flinched as he said my name, the single syllable rolling from his tongue like a lashing from a whip. “I’mfine.”
