Page 11 of Breathe Like Hell

Nobody knows how to take care of you, do they?

And you’ll never let anyone try.

I closed my eyes, letting sleep pull me swiftly under its rolling waves.

CHAPTER FOUR

DAKOTA

The morning light was bleak and gray, filtering through the pines surrounding Micah’s house. I’d heard Mason leave last night while laying in bed with Micah, so we were alone in the house now. A mostly-untouched bowl of cereal sat on the table in front of me and I swirled my spoon around, watching the milk eddy in the wake.

Thoughts of the demon—Aamon—had made it difficult for me to sleep much, and I felt all those restless hours now tugging at my eyelids, slowing my brain. I had a million questions about it, but I didn’t feel ready to ask them. I didn’t feel ready for anything. I wished I could go back in time, back before I fucked up so bad with both Mason and Micah. But there was no way for me to undo any of what happened.

Micah was working on his laptop, and he hadn’t spoken much to me all morning. My stomach twisted with nerves and self-hatred, the same compulsive need for reassurance I’d felt in all my relationships thrashing around inside my brain.

I knew I wouldn’t get that reassurance now.

Not with Micah knowing what he knew.

Not now that he’d confronted me about it.

But knowing that didn’t make the feeling go away. My brain was incurably infected with this sickness—among many others. It spread like rot in my skull, digging deep and irreversible. I didn’t want it to, but it did. And Micah wasn’t talking to me about anything, despite what he’d said in my ear with his and Mason’s fingers inside of me.

Go on, pretend this is your first time letting him touch you like this.

But remember I always know when you’re lying, Masters.

I bit down on my tongue, hard, trying to focus on breathing through my nose. Trying to find a way to get out of the mess I’d landed myself in. Trying to focus on being a more stable, rational, self-assured person.

Micah’s typing was too fast, too important-sounding, too sure.

Fuck.

I’ll never be that person.

I’m messy and annoying and needy and I can’t fucking stop myself from being that way.

Why would he say that then never bring it up again? Why have me stay at his house, sleep in his bed, sit with him at breakfast, if he knew I’d been unfaithful? Why do any of this? The cereal I was eating now had been bought solely for me. There was shampoo and conditioner and body wash and a razor in his shower, also for me.

He’d bought it all for me, knowing what he knew.

Did that mean he wasn’t bothered?

I tightened my jaw, crushing my tongue harder between my molars, feeling the loop quickening in my brain, in my thoughts. The cyclical anxiety.

All of it was only made worse by the urgency I felt because of the demon. My own death was getting closer, circling me, leaving the distant horizon where it’d long resided to finally show itself to me. It’d been happening since the day I met Mason; I only realized it fully now.

How much time do I have left?

“Are you mad at me?” I asked before I could stop myself. Immediately, my lips rolled together as if I could somehow force the words back into my mouth.

I regretted it the second I said it, because I didn’t really want to hear Micah’s answer. Small, naive parts of me were still hoping he’d say no, and I wouldn’t be able to protect those parts once he answered.

It was a question I’d asked him before, but I had a feeling his response was going to be different this time.

Silver-blue eyes lifted, meeting mine, holding so many secrets I couldn’t even begin to untangle them. I knew next to nothing about Micah, and I felt it more with each second I spent in his company. Somehow, I even knew more about Mason than him.

“Yes. I’m angry with you.”