“I just want him to talk to me.”
“Maybe he needs time to figure things out.”
It dawns on me—even in the midst of imminent destruction—that my mother’s hostility toward my unofficial ex has taken a leave of absence. “You’re giving him the benefit of the doubt,” I whisper in shock.
She uses the hem of her sleeves to clean up a night’s worth of emotional drainage, bringing some much-needed feeling back to my cheeks. “I guess I am. I…I didn’t realize how much you loved him. And as furious as I am with him, I’m even more furious that you think you aren’t deserving of him. Because you are.”
I perk up, sniffling. “So you don’t want to kill him?”
If her smile wasn’t evident, she would’ve denied it. “Not tonight, no.”
“Thank you for being here for me,” I say, my gratitude half-muffled by another influx of incomprehensible gibberish.
For the first time since I stepped inside, I can see through the intermission of a teary brigade. Being in my mother’s arms reminds me that she was my one and only support system before Knox.
“I’m always going to be in your corner, Staten, even when you drive me crazy. What’s meant to be always has a way of working out. You just need to give both of your hearts time to heal.”
If only it was that easy.
30
DON’T SHOOT THE MESSENGER
KNOX
It’s been three days, fifteen hours, forty-eight minutes, and eleven seconds since I gave Staten one hell of a Judas kiss before leaving her in the dust.
I haven’t spoken to anyone. Not her, not my teammates. I’ve missed a couple of hockey practices, and school has ceased to hold any importance.
I don’t remember the last time I took a shower. I’ve become an unfortunate cautionary tale as I hug my bed, letting my body fossilize against the unwashed sheets, wading through a phantasmagorical wasteland where time loses all meaning and the shadows play tricks in hypnagogia.
My whole life, it’s as if there’s been a blade to my throat,pressing, one nick away from drawing blood, yet nobody—not my mother, not my father, not my sister—cared enough to confiscate it.
Staten, however, cared.So deeply.
I hear her cries in the hulls of my ears, worming themselves into my skull to fester and rot until mind-numbing medication isn’t potent enough to bury her voice. I can’t stop thinking about that night—about howcruelI was to her. I didn’t meanthe things I said. I just—I needed her to get as far away from me as possible.
To save herself.
Fuck, the look on her face—I took the coward’s way out. I practically dressed up the usual “It’s not you, it’s me” speech with fancy wrapping paper and a pretty bow to defer from the fact that I didn’t have the guts to tell her the truth.
And I’m going to die with my guilt.
Limbs in torpor and mouth dry, I don’t even get up to silence the unrelenting growls from my belly. Maybe it’s because I’m too mentally exhausted to imagine doing anything that requires energy, or maybe it’s because a part of me believes I don’t deserve grace.
I thought I’d experienced pain in all its seasons, you know? The thaw after a minor scratch, the consistent simmer of an ingrown infection, the boil over of a wound that refuses to close, and the freezing point of a scar that still carries trauma in sutured flesh.
But this time, the pain is different.Lasting.There is no physical manifestation. Everything operates inside my psyche, subjecting me to the harsh rejection that cycles on repeat—a peephole into my true self, one that I terrifyingly realize resembles my father’s worst qualities.
It makes me sick to my goddamn stomach.
My vision gyroscopes in the darkness; my eyes burn from a lack of sleep. Ironic, given that I’ve been in the prime position to turn off every pesky voice taking residence in my head.
I broke the only girl who showed me what it felt like to be loved. Ihurther. I can’t come back from this. I can’t make things better.
My heart kicks weakly against my sternum—a cry for help that’s immediately drowned out by the thunder that still rules over the tenebrous sky. Webs of lightning crack in unspokensupport, briefly illuminating the room that will serve as my sarcophagus for the foreseeable future.
Piles of laundry tower in the corner, the meager rations of midnight cravings gummed to wrappers and disposable paper plates, and there’s a pollution-like ring of body odor that infects the atmosphere. Thankfully, I don’t have any roommates who are going to be pestering me. It’s just me, my nihilistic thoughts, and the rabbit hole that looks increasingly more inviting to spiral into.
