I shook my head, refusing. “Weston called me; he didn’t want you to be alone. I didn’t want you to be alone.”
David’s chuckle was devoid of all humor. He started another round of scrubbing, this time employing his nail to scrape the skin. “I don’t want you here. I don’t want you to…”
He took a deep breath as if there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room. My brow furrowed at the hot steam engulfing his bruised fingers. I moved close enough to turn off the tap. David’s hand gently covered mine before I could switch it off, fingers on fire as he said, “I’m not done.”
“You’re done,” I insisted, placing my free hand between his shoulder blades. The muscles underneath my palms flexed with tension.
“I’m not.” He met my gaze, icy determination in his dark eyes. “Please, Yara, let me finish. Please.”
This was more than just a different side of him. It was a truth underneath the well-laid concrete. The darkness shoved into the basement of the boarded-up house.
My mind raced, wondering how I could pull him back toward me when he was tugging in the opposite direction. I felt so unprepared, so ill-suited for providing the support andcomfort. I knew exactly what he was doing. Exactly how deep his mind had buried logic underneath the rubble. I understood so deeply I could almost feel the burn of the water myself.
“How many rounds do you have left?” My stomach twisted at having to ask. At the thought of him going on for any longer than he already had.
Color drained from his face when he realized I knew exactly what was going through his mind. Shame latched itself onto his jaw, making movement near nonexistent.
“I don’t know,” he whispered, turning his gaze to the running water. His hands returned to the burning stream. “I don’t know.”
He sounded determined to stay trapped, as if this was all he could become and all the world would allow him to be.
“You know,” I urged, ignoring the tightening in my throat. “How long? Give me minutes. Or rounds. Something.”
“It’s… I’m not…” He shook his head as if to shake off the weight of it all. “Go, Yara. Please. You weren’t supposed to be here and see this. I never wanted you to see this.”
He looked at me when he whispered the last part. His shoulders dropped in defeat. He looked so much younger and isolated, like the middle-school version of himself, just trying to get through the day. Not knowing why he needed to count the cracks in the sidewalk or tap the edge of his desk before getting up. My heart felt like it’d shatter into a million pieces, but I barely blinked. He couldn’t have me breaking down. I was of no use to him in shambles. It was his turn to be looked after. My turn to love him through this.
“I don’t want you here,” David’s cold order had morphed into a quiet plea. “Not when I’m like this.”
“Well, that’s too bad.” I wrapped my hand around his arm. The skin-to-skin contact gave us both something to find shelter in. “Because my plan was to stay here the entirenight. And you know how much I hate a change of plans. So tell me how many.”
He swallowed; his neck bobbed as he stared at the soap in his hands. “Until it stops hurting. I can’t stop until I stop remembering or else…”
“Or else what?” I snuck my hand closer to the faucet as he spoke, moving as slowly as my trembling fingers would allow. Much like my picking, the burns on his hand were the punishment he never deserved. My eyes burned with frustration with his foster parents. He never deserved to be this alone and to feel this helpless.
“Or else I won’t make it.” David released a shaky exhale. “I’ll be stuck in New Harbor. I won’t make the team. I won’t figure out how to stand up to Mary or that other asshole in my nightmares. I will die on a concrete floor at the bottom of a staircase he pushed me down, and no one will find me. No one will… want me. I’ll be nothing. If I don’t learn how to live with this pain, I will be nothing.”
I bite the inside of my bottom lip to keep it from trembling. There were no words that’d undo the pain and horror that had latched onto his soul for over a decade. But I could pull him into me. I buried my hands in his hair, coaxing him to rest his forehead on mine as I whispered, “None of that’s true. It never was, never will be.”
David shook his head. His frantic breath was hot against my skin.
“You are everything to me, David,” I said firmly. “I need you. I want you. That’s not going to change anytime soon.”
My words gave him pause.
“Hurting yourself like this will not ensure your ticket out of New Harbor. You’ve already done that. You made Westbrooke’s team. You figured out how to stand up to more than just those assholes.” I cupped his jaw, urging him to open hiseyes and meet my gaze. “You figured out how to live. That’s not nothing, David. It’s everything.”
His hands went slack, fingers curled around the edge of the sink. I took advantage of his retreat. The air buzzed with silence when I shut the water off. David frowned at my hand on the faucet handle but said nothing. He let me wrap my arms around his neck and bury my face in his collar. David’s shaking arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me tight against him. His heart continued to race, pounding hard enough that I vibrated along with him.
“It’s everything,” I promised over and over again.
30
I gotDavid into bed and crawled underneath the sheets with him. The night was quiet, most of the campus either asleep or abandoned thanks to the upcoming weekend.
David rested his head on my chest, tightly fisting my shirt as he tried to calm his breathing.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured after almost half an hour of silence. “I’m so sorry, Yara.”
