A tear rolls down my cheek, and he pushes it away.
“Let’s make some grilled cheese, yeah? Let’s just have an easy night.”
And I smile at that, grateful for the diversion, grateful for some normalcy, grateful for his and his father’s gentleness.
“Okay,” I whisper.
I follow behind him and Rusty, but not before peeking over my shoulder to see Chase taking a seat at the edge of the pier.
The notebook couldn’t have weighed more than a pound, yet the weight of it in my palms had a way of making the bones in my hands ache.
Needles prick at my fingertips, a dull pain throbbing through the length and wrapping around my wrists.
I heave a sigh, let it clap to the weathered pier beside me, shifting my weight as I reach for the blunt I’d shoved into the front pocket of my jeans earlier in the day.
Biting it, I light it, then I hit it, pinching it away from my lips, reclining my head and resting it on the splintered pole behind me.
The smoke is trapped in my lungs, and I don’t let it go until I find the balls to reach for the book again.
My heart is slamming inside my chest, fighting for oxygen while blood rushes to my head.
“Give her something to believe in, or let her go.”Harlen’s words cycle on repeat.
I return the blunt between my lips and reach forward, turning the first page.
Severed Veinsis scribbled at the top in capital letters, a sharp scratching of lines beneath it, pierced through the lined paper.
I hadn’t written since the day in the tunnel, four weeks after Jade’s death. Each time I tried, I bailed, choosing to bury myself in blow instead. And the thought of returning to it today has a nervous sweat collecting in my palms.
Music had been my whole life; before I lost Jade.
It was an escape, a place to bleed, a reason to breathe.
I fucking loved writing. Singing until I could taste blood at the back of my throat. But words, they’re what I loved most. The unspoken, finally finding their tone.
I always hoped that even if no one ever heard my voice, perhaps one day they’d at least see my words, and thattheywouldprevail.
But I wasn’t even doing that.
I wasn’t singing and I sure as hell wasn’t writing.
And I knew my sister would be fucking pissed about that.
I press my eyes closed, thinking of the words she’d carved into my desk.
Let’s fucking bleed.
I had to cut vein now.
I had no choice.
A cold sweat licks across the back of my neck and I can feel the tension in my vocal cords, taste the grief, when, for the first time in almost three years, I let myself whisper over the words I’d written.
You were never a number
A bright spirit of wonder
A soul that should have grown older
