“Leave me alone.” He breaks away from me, but I stand in front of him and stop him from moving forward.
“I’m certainly not letting you go like this!”
He shakes his head and turns around to walk in the other direction, but I stand in his way again.
“Just leave me alone.” His voice breaks, and I see an unmistakable plea. Part of me wants to grant his wish, but I can’t. He’s falling apart, and I can’t leave him alone.
“No,” I say calmly. I take the bottle and work it out of his fingers. I put it carefully out of his reach and take his hands. They’re cold as ice.
“Please.”
“Would you leavemealone if I were like this?”
His shoulders tense. I know that he wants to say yes, but he can’t do it.
“No,” he sighs.
“Then don’t try to send me away. Let me be here for you,” I say simply. I take off his jacket and put it awkwardly around his shoulders. I hold him tight, even though he’s fighting my embrace. I can’t leave him to his own devices like this, even if I wanted to.
Not him. Not this broken boy who doesn’t want to be saved and has stolen my heart.
I can’t save him, but maybe I can help him save himself. Just like he helped me.
Chapter 40
Jase
I dreamed about you a lot last year, even though I really just wanted to forget you. But in my dreams, everything was easy. It was all good.
—Jase
Zoe gets me into a car. I don’t know where it came from, but when Ethan gets behind the wheel, I figure it belongs to her parents.
She slides into the back seat next to me, and then we’re driving off into the dark night.
I should say something, do something, anything. But my mind is totally blank, and my body is numb. It’s not because I’m cold; I hardly feel the temperature. I can’t feel anything anymore. There’s only emptiness.
Zoe says something to her father that I can’t understand. The world around me is spinning. I’m drunk, and yet far too sober.
I don’t want to discuss it with you now.
I don’t want to discuss it with you now.
I don’t want to discuss it with you now.
Dad’s words replay in my head in an endless fucking loop. I hear them again and again, and I just can’t turn them off, nomatter how hard I try. It’s not long before the car stops and Zoe gets out. I know where they’ve taken me even before I look out the window. We’re at her parents’ house. Her dad gets out too, but I stay where I am. I don’t want to move. Maybe they’ll just forget I’m here.
But a moment later, the door opens. I grimace as a wave of cold air hits me.
Ethan holds out a hand to me. “Come on, Jase. It’s time for bed.” He beckons to me, and for some reason, I do as he asks. Maybe because he’s taken on the role of a father for me more often than my own dad has in the last five years. I heave myself up from the back seat with a groan and hit my head on the top of the doorframe as I get out, but I barely feel the pain. I turn toward the house, look around for Zoe, and start to move, but Ethan stops me.
“Jase.”
I turn toward him slowly. My vision is blurred, and I have to blink until the double image clears.
His eyes are hard and cold. He’s never seen me like this before. “She likes you. You know that, don’t you? So if you ever do anything to hurt her, I’ll break your neck. Is that clear?” His voice is firm and determined but completely calm. His presence isn’t threatening to me, and he doesn’t come any closer.
Still, the warning is clear. I nod. I would never do anything to hurt her.
