“I was eating. I was –”
“You’re not going back there.”
I press my spine into the pillows. “What?”
“You’re not going back to St. Mary’s after this,” he declares.
“I’m sorry?”
“I’m taking you home as soon as they discharge you. I –”
I raise my hand. “Hold on a second. What… What are you talking about?”
He flexes his fists, curls and uncurls them, at his sides for a second before growling, “I’m not leaving you in that bullshit place. That place with all those rules and bullies. You don’t belong there. You…” He shoves his fingers into his hair and almost tears out a clump of his sun-struck strands. “You’re there because of me. You got sent there because of me. And all ofthis, you not eating, you sneaking out,happenedbecause of me too. Because I was being a stubborn fucking asshole. But not anymore. Not –”
“Stop.”
This time, it’s him who flinches because I was so loud.
So abrupt.
But I had to do it. I had to stop him.
Because look at him. He’s… flooded with regret.
His features are pulsing with it. It drips from his body, from his glassy eyes, his agitated movements.
My fingers go limp in the sheets. My toes uncurl. I stop pressing my spine into the pillows as I watch him.
As I watch him doing exactly what I never wanted him to do.
Beat himself up.
He’s beating himself up, isn’t he?
That’s why he’s here.
Because he thinks it’s his fault. Because he thinks it’s anobligationto be here. Not because he wants to be.
And I’ve had it.
I’ve had it with him.
“Get out.”
He goes rigid at my words.
“Get out,” I say again.
“I’m –”
“No, you don’t get to talk. You don’t get to say anything. Just leave. I want you to leave.”
He grits his jaw before shaking his head once. “Salem.”
And God.
God.
