I squeeze my eyes shut. It’s too painful to look at him in this moment while spilling my own truths. “I overdosed,” I whisper, wanting to crawl into myself the minute the words leave my mouth.
“No,” he growls, tightening his hold on me.
“They found me,” I say as tears slide faster now. “I just… I couldn’t survive it.”
His forehead drops against mine but his body shakes with rage.
“I’m here now,” he whispers roughly. “You hear me? I’m right here,” he says, whispering into my hair. My fingers clutch his hoodie tightly.
“Please don’t leave me again. I won’t survive it,” I beg “This hurts so fucking much.”
“I know baby, I know,” he says as he tilts my chin upward until my eyes meet his. “Spend the weekend with me.” And I blink.
“Hayden…”
“Not asking.”
I should say no. I should walk away before I drown in this boy all over again but his arms feel like home and my heart has belonged to him since I was thirteen years old. So instead…
“Okay,” I whisper.
Saturday becomes something dangerously close to normal. We spend the entire day tangled together in his apartment eating junk food and watching terrible movies neither of us actually pay attention to.
He steals a fry off my plate just to piss me off and I spend the day wearing one of his hoodies and a pair of his sweatpants rolled at the waist. Every time he walks past me, he touches me somehow. Fingers against my hip, a kiss to my temple. Hishands sliding along my thigh while pretending to focus on the movie.
It’s like neither of us fully believe this is real yet. Like we both need constant reassurance the other person is still here.
Small things. Soft things. Things that somehow feel more intimate than sex. At one point, I catch him staring at me from the kitchen while I’m curled on the couch eating chips straight from the bag.
“What?” I laugh, but he just shakes his head slowly like he’s caught somewhere between love and heartbreak.
“Nothin.”
But the way he looks at me says everything anyway.
Hours blur together after that.
Laughter.
Kissing.
Arguments over movies.
Falling asleep tangled together on the couch before waking up again wrapped around each other like magnets.
For one stolen Saturday… we almost feel normal.
Almost like we’re a real couple instead of two disasters stitched together by grief, obsession, and violence.
And maybe that’s what makes it hurt so much.
Because somewhere deep down…
We both know moments like this don’t last forever.
Right before sunset, Hayden suddenly kills the TV before standing up and holding his hand toward me.
“C’mon.”
