I don’t move. Not an inch. Even though my heart is racing furiously in my chest.
You’re more inept than I thought. You can’t even face him. You can’t accept the truth you’re good for nothing, you don’t deserve him, you’re a poor excuse for a human being.
Just as quietly as he entered, Santino slips out. The door closes with a light snick. I suck in a breath as the ache returns in full force, a monster tearing me apart from the inside out.
Panic seizes me and my heart lurches like it’s trying to chase after Santino. Don’t leave. Come back. I don’t want to be alone. Please. I don’t want to be alone.
But you’re better off alone. You’re better off dead and gone.
I clutch a pillow to my chest, as if I can stuff it inside me to fill the enormous empty cavern. Fresh tears spring to my eyes, gathering on my lashes. I turn my face into my pillow and let the pillowcase soak up the moisture.
A muffled moan escapes my throat. I can’t let him hear. I can’t let him know just how weak and pathetic and stupid I am.
I struggle to breathe, the darkness doing a better job of smothering me than the pillow. It’s seeping into every crack and crevice of my body, expanding and growing inside me, blockingup my airway, choking me. It’s consuming me, this ugliness, thick and heavy and greasy.
The door opens again. This time without any warning. I try to swallow down the anguish, but instead, I make a gasping, strangled sound. I try to be still, but I can’t stop my body from shaking.
The door closes and a moment later, the bed dips. Santino climbs over the covers, scoots in close, and lies down behind me. He wraps himself around me with an arm and a leg thrown over my body.
He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t try to ask me what’s wrong. Doesn’t try to tell me everything will be okay. Doesn’t even say my name. He just holds me. Tight.
A solid weight. Real. Grounding. Sure.
The tears return and so do the sobs. They flow like some dam inside me has burst, the hurt and pain pouring out of me in sweet, terrible relief.
I’m not alone. Santino’s with me. He saw me when I didn’t want him to see. He came when I tried to push him away. I don’t deserve him, but I want him. I shouldn’t have him, but I don’t want to let him go.
Santino holds me as I cry, as I empty myself in wrenching, heaving sobs. The pillow is soaked through with my tears and snot and spit, and not once does he pull away. If anything, he holds me tighter and squeezes me harder. He stays until I sink back into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
SANTINO
I don’t know what’s happening, but I know it’s bad. Mom never looked like this. She was sad and tired a lot. But she never looked like she was getting axe murdered by some invisible demon.
I couldn’t stop worrying about him all afternoon. At Rockefeller Center, when we checked out a few shops, when we went up the Chrysler Building. I was only half there, half registering the stuff around me. The other half was back home, wondering what Hayden was doing. Hoping he was okay.
Bellamy asked if I wanted to grab dinner before heading home. I said I was going to have dinner with Hayden.
The apartment was quiet when I let myself in and my heart sank. I’d kept telling myself Hayden just needed some downtime. That he would be in the living room reading or maybe in the kitchen cooking. That I was getting all worked up over nothing.
But the apartment was empty.
And not just empty, but like, eerily silent. It felt like there was some other presence in the space. Lurking in the corners.Making the air toxic. A shiver of fear ran up my spine and my stomach filled with dread.
Hayden was a lump in his bed when I cracked open his door. He looked like he was sleeping and I stood there for a few minutes, not sure what to do. My gut told me something was seriously wrong, but I didn’t want to wake him up and demand he start talking.
For a moment, I thought about calling Sebastian. The others don’t seem to have the slightest clue about anything, but Sebastian obviously knows there’s more going on with Hayden than meets the eye. I just don’t know why he hasn’t done anything about it. I mean, they’re all supposed to be close, right? Why aren’t they helping him? Are they really too preoccupied with their own lives to watch out for him? To make sure he doesn’t slip through the cracks? Why am I the only one who sees this?
I quietly stepped out to let Hayden sleep, but the moment the door closed, there were a bunch of muffled sounds. Kind of like he was suffocating. Like someone was strangling him and he was thrashing around, trying to escape.
I hesitated. Mom sometimes wanted us to leave her alone, even when we didn’t think she should be by herself. Hayden was probably pretending to be asleep, so maybe he didn’t want me to see him like this. I feel like I’ve gotten to know him pretty well over the past weeks, but maybe he’s had too much of me. Maybe I should follow his lead and give him some privacy.
But I couldn’t make myself leave. Not when the sounds got worse. Like he was in agony. Like he was dying. How could I ignore that? How could I leave him to suffer through that alone?
I couldn’t.
