She shrugs, crosses her arms. “And I don’t care, Chase.”
I palm my jaw, adjusting my T-shirt on my shoulders, a cold sweat beading across the back of my neck.
Silence descends around our vulnerable truths.
And the air is charged and thick, because Laiken wasn’t just my sister’s best friend, she was mine, too. And she meantsomethingto me. And what I said was the goddamned truth; I could have fucking lost her too.
I watch the back of her legs hit the window bench. She takes a shaky seat and pushes her knees to her chest.
She couldn’t look at me again, and she couldn’t look at Harlen either—who was sitting on the floor, head between his shoulders.
Laiken’s quivering fingers brush the delicate chrome chain necklace wrapped around her neck. A home for the cubic zirconia ‘J’ that dangles from the center. Jade had the same one, only hers held an ‘L’.
Laiken’s mother had bought those for them a few Christmases back.
I’m sliding down the wall when Laiken’s voice carries on a quiet whisper. “Th-there’s more…” She pauses to look betweenHarlen and me, before settling her gaze on mine. I watch her swallow. “It’s my mom, she…”
Every bone in my body snaps, and Harlen is shaking his head because we knew what she was going to say without her even having to say it.
Because we’d all been waiting for it,even if we never gave voice to that fear.
I didn’t know if now was the right time to tell Chase and Harlen about my mother. However, what I did know was that I may never get another chance.
Because losing someone close to you changes you.
With every death, a part of who you are dies alongside the person you are forced to bury.
I’m not the girl I was before I found my father dangling in the shadows.
I’m not the girl I was before I watched evil rip my best friend's life from her bones.
And I’m not the girl I was before I found out my mother had maxed out her veins.
Truth is, I didn’t know if the Chase I knew today would be the Chase I’d remember tomorrow.
Same for Harlen.
My fingers are cool when they wrap around the crease in my elbow, my thumb brushing across the pale blue vein. My eyes remain screwed down, locked to the floor. “She did it this time.”
I don’t look up. Not when I hear Chase cuss beneath his breath, and not when I hear him shuffling toward me. Instead, Isit flicking at my vein, watching how it flinches beneath my pale skin.
Dread fills every blue line, the opposite sensation of what my mother would have felt in the moment she sank the needle in.
“She…” I can barely get my words out when his shadow falls over me.
He is on his knees, his hands at my forearms, guiding me toward him.
My arms coil his waist, my head finding its place at his chest, over his thumping heart, and I focus on the way his large hand runs down my spine.
I fist the back of his shirt, tears are a wet puddle beneath my cheek, seeping through the already damp fabric turning it thin and bleak.
“She’s gone, too.” My throat feels swollen, each word expelled as a croak, “My best friend, and my mother, both just…gone.”
They don’t speak. Instead, Chase grips me tighter and Harlen reaches for my shoulder, offering a comforting squeeze.
And I knew it was better this way.
I didn’t need them to tell me they were sorry for my loss. I never understood why people apologized for things out of their control. And I didn’t need them to tell me that I was going to be okay, we all knew the girl I used to be would never see the light of day.
