Before she stopped eating. Stopped sleeping. Stopped being anything resembling a mother and became a ghost living in our apartment. Pale and thin and hollow-eyed, moving through rooms like she was not really there. Like I was not really there either.
I remember trying to talk to her near the end. Tugging on her sleeve, asking if she was okay, if she needed anything, or if she wanted to watch a movie with me like we used to.
She would look at me—through me—and nod. Say something like “later, baby” in that distant voice that meant she had already forgotten I existed.
But later never came.
I remember making her food she wouldn’t eat. Drawing pictures at school that I taped to the fridge, hoping she would notice. Hoping she would smile, ruffle my hair, and tell me I did a good job like she used to. But she never looked at them. Not even once.
I swallow hard.
Why couldn’t you love me enough? The question rips through me like a knife. Why wasn’t I enough to make you stay?
I was six years old, and I tried. God, I tried. I made her breakfast even though I could barely reach the counter. I stayed quiet when she had her friends over—the ones who looked at me like I was an inconvenience. A mistake.
I did everything a kid could do, and it still wasn’t enough. She still chose the drugs over me and left me alone in that apartment for days while she chased her next high.
Tears burn behind my eyes and I blink them back hard. But they come anyway, hot and unwanted, blurring the photo in my hands until I cannot make out the lie of that smile anymore. The illusion that we were ever anything close to happy.
I grab the bottle off the crate and take a long pull, letting the burn chase away the ache in my chest.
It doesn’t work. It never fucking does.
What I did today was wrong. I shouldn’t have lost my shit on Marcus just because he was talking to Lola. But something inside me snapped like a rubber band pulled too tight for too long.
He was looking at her as if she hung the damn moon, as if every word she spoke was the most interesting thing he’d ever heard.
And when she smiled at him. God, that smile. The one that makes her eyes crinkle at the corners and her whole face light up. The one I have been chasing since the first time she aimed it at me and made me feel maybe I wasn’t a complete waste of space.
Only now she is giving it to him.
Jealousy doesn’t look good on me. Hell, feelings in general are not a good look on me.
Except she matters so fucking much, my chest caves in every time I see her, and I don’t know what to do with that. I can’t be that guy who admits he’s terrified of losing her because everyone he’s ever cared about has left.
Watching Marcus move towards her—close enough that I noticed the way her breath hitched just slightly—made me want to put my fist through a wall. Or through his face or anything that would stop this feeling tearing through me like broken glass, shredding everything in its path.
I laugh under my breath, and it comes out bitter and harsh.
Who would have thought I would become the jealous and possessive type? But here I am, losing my mind over a girl who smiled at another guy. Acting like some unhinged psycho who can’t handle the idea of her talking to anyone but me.
I am completely fucked up when it comes to her. Totally and utterly destroyed by the way she says my name. I am so in love with her that I can’t figure out how to handle it.
I have no idea how to be the guy who admits that out loud. Who tells her that she is the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing before I pass out at night. That the thought of losing her makes me feel like I am drowning. As if I cannot breathe.
And as for Nicole showing up after that incident in the hall. She knew exactly what she saw.
Me losing my shit over Lola and Marcus. She still followed me out of the building and across the field toward the back gate like some pathetic puppy who doesn’t know when to quit. Believing that because I am pissed off and spiraling, I will fall back into old habits.
“Jace, wait—” she said.
I didn’t stop or slow down. I just kept walking because I needed to get the hell out of there before I went back inside and finished what I started.
But Nicole, the stupid bitch, persisted. She caught up to me, grabbed my arm, and spun me around with a look on her face as if she thought she had some claim on me.
“What the fuck do you want, Nicole?”
“I just thought maybe you needed—”
