It’s unbearable.
“Don’t give me the twin link nonsense. I hate that crap.” I try to turn it in a direction that’s lighter and doesn’t feel like he’s backing me into a corner.
“Brighton.” He pushes, and I know I’m trapped.
“Yeah, it’s fucking heavy, Boone.” I snap. “But it’s mine.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” he argues in the most nonconfrontational way he can. “You can let it go, or at least try to talk about it.”
“I go to group,” I scowl.
“And never talk…” Boone raises an eyebrow. “And you’ve been missing because that Landon guy called me to see if you were still around.”
“Fucking…” I sigh. “I’m going. Landon’s a nosy asshole.”
“I want to trust that, but I don’t,” Boone says. “Because I know you, and the second you feel like you’re being forced to do something, you turn tail.”
“That’s not true.” I scoff.
“Riona.” Boone stares at me coldly. “She pleaded for you to go to therapy, man. Publicly, more than once, and I’ve never seen that woman beg.”
“Don’t,” I warn him. I wasn’t having this conversation with him.
“Ri would have laid down on a sword for you, Bri…” He trails off because we both know it’s true. Riona was always too good for my ass, and it became blindly apparent when I returned home. “But you made her question her intelligence, her strength. All because you won’t talk to anyone, you don’t even have to talk to us.”
“I’m sick of this back and forth,” I groan.
“Yeah, well, so are we.” Boone shrugs. “But I’m not going to stop because I’ve seen you at your lowest and I refuse to see it again.” He sounds so unbelievably sick of me.
“Yeah.”
“Did you book that therapy appointment?”
“No,” I answer honestly, because I won’t be doing that. No matter how hard they push me. No matter how much guilt eats at me, it’s not going to change a damn thing.
“Stubborn dickhead.” Boone scoffs.
Iroll over in bed to reach for my water bottle, but my sleepy fingers catch it awkwardly, and it tumbles from the dresser to the floor. “Shit,” I sit up and lean down to grab it from the floor, but lose my balance and end up on the ground with it in a pile.
“Of course it’s empty,” I groan as I open it.Drunk Rhea, you are useless.I push off the ground, my legs and arms sore and heavy from all the booze, and make my way to the kitchen. Brighton would scold me for filling it out of the tap, but I’m too tired to care, and the light from the fridge is too bright at three am. I turn the water on, running it as cold as it will go and struggling with the tight lid on my bottle for too long before it pops open.
At this point, it would have been better to die of dehydration.
I yawn loudly and stick the bottle under the water when I hear a noise to my left. I pause, listen, and turn my head slowly to look through the darkness of the apartment, but don’t find anything.
Or at least nothing I can see. Comforting.
“Brighton?” I whisper when the noise happens again. I turn off the water and set the bottle on the counter to investigate more. Padding across the tile floor to the pitch black hallway where the noise is stemming from, it rattles again, like someone trying to unlock a door.
I peer into the darkness and listen, but it’s silent, which is almost instantly worse than the unknown noise. I put my hand on the archway and lean forward more, not quite willing to explore it completely.
“Hello?” I say,yeah, because if there’s something in the dark, it’s going to answer you, Rhea. Dumbass.
The rattling is gone, and I straighten out, thinking maybe it was the tap shaking? I look over it and scowl, but as I go to walk away, I hear the noise again—this time louder, almost urgent, and it causes me to step forward in the darkness further.
As my eyes adjust, I realize that Brighton is at the end of the hallway at Daisy’s door, rattling the doorknob but not opening it, and my chest tightens.
“Brighton?” I say to him, but it’s like he doesn’t hear me. His torso is drenched in sweat, and he’s all but banging his head against the wooden door as he violently tries to get inside. “Bright?” I try, it feels weird having his name roll off my tongue like that, but the situation is uncomfortable, and I don’t know what else to do.
