My stomach dropped.
“W–what?”
“You seriously need to chill the fuck out.”
He let go of me and flopped backwards onto the bed before I could react. Iggy shifted until he was propped on his elbows, legs dangling off the edge like he was sunbathing instead of detonating his life.
“I feel fucking amazing,” he murmured, head tipping back. “God, I missed this.”
“Iggy,” I breathed, the tremor in my voice betraying me. “You—you took Oxy?”
He lifted his head and grinned, smug and bright, like a kid who’d gotten away with something.
“Fuck yes.” He stretched out flat on the mattress, arms wide like a crucifix, fingers wiggling in a sloppy parody of jazz hands. “You should join me.”
I choked on air and stumbled back from the bed.
“Yeah,” he went on, nodding towards me like this was themost reasonable suggestion in the world. “I can get us more. We can just... ride it out together.”
Then he sat up too fast, the suddenness of it making me flinch. For a moment, it was like he’d snapped back into normal speed. He kicked his legs, grinning, hands gripping the mattress to steady himself.
“Are you fucking serious?” I asked, my voice barely holding together.
I knew he was high. I knew his brain wasn’t firing correctly. I knew this wasn’t calculated or cruel. But hearing it still felt like a punch to the chest. Offering drugs like you’d offer candy. Like it meant nothing.
Two people who were supposed to be sober. One already gone, the other standing right on the edge.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, frowning.
He slid off the bed and started towards me. I stepped back. He reached for me, and I lifted my hands instinctively, ready to bat him away if he touched me.
I’d thought I could do this. Thought I could walk in here and help him if he needed me to. I’d hoped, stupidly, that after I left this morning, he’d have some kind of revelation. That he’d stop. That he’d choose to get back up and try again.
That it would be simple.
That was how rehab made it sound.
Standing here now, watching him sway towards me, his judgment wrecked, I realised how fucking naïve I’d been. But fuck, I hadn’t expected to walk in here to help him, only for him to turn around and offer me drugs. To ask me to throw everything away and get high with him.
We’d made a pact. A promise that felt doomed from the start. To keep each other on the straight and narrow. And the longer I stayed in the room with him like this, the more I could feel thepull. The danger of being dragged down into the depths with him, no matter how badly I wanted to believe I was stronger than that.
“Bodhi, come on,” he whined, shuffling another step closer.
My back hit the wall, and panic flared sharp and immediate. I had nowhere left to retreat. My phone was still in my pocket, and I could’ve called Riff. Asked him to come get me and to help Iggy too. Because it wasn’t just me who needed saving right now.
But I couldn’t.
Riff didn’t know about Iggy. And I knew, deep down, that Iggy would hate it if I let anyone see him like this. Messy and stripped bare. Completely out of his right mind.
Iggy took another step forward and pressed his palm flat against the centre of my chest.
“Get high with m?—”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
He didn’t finish because I pushed him.
His hand on me, the words, the feeling of being cornered, the fear clawing up my throat, it all collapsed into one blinding moment. My vision went white for half a second, and in that half second, I pushed him. Not violently. Not with intent to hurt. Just enough.
