Page 129 of Defend Me
“I thought it was because they were guys.”
“You have to learn to stop thinking the worst.”
“And you need to be super direct or I’ll jump to conclusions and assume that you hate me.”
“How about this. Once a month, you come here for the day. And we’ll come up there to see you once a month. We won’t have to harass you about visiting and you don’t have to wonder if we want you here.”
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
“And bring Brooks or Miranda might poison your food.”
I smiled as I watched Alex grab the gift from Brooks. I didn’t know what it was since he’d refused to tell me, the ever mysterious bastard. My eyes widened when Alex pulled out a drone that definitely didn’t come from Walmart.
“It has a camera!” he shouted.
“God help us,” my dad muttered.
Chapter 36
“It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.”
Brooks
Right here, right now, the tornado might start up again
Mom:Brooks, what is going on with you? We’re worried. Please call me. Or text. Something.
Was I doing anything wrong? No. Not directly, at least. I was being a dick by ignoring them, but ever since the situation with Holly, I’d been spiraling. It wasn’t in one direction either.
There was the descent into madness, then I crashed when I sought out Tilian and lost myself in the physical. Sleep claimed me for over twenty-four hours and when I woke up, it felt like the dust had settled for the first time in my life. Of course, a tornado is bound to kick it back up when it comes around again.
I was clinging to these attachments I’d formed and maybe, if I allowed the self-awareness to creep in, I was using them as a crutch, leaning on the people in my life when I was at severe risk of falling into a pit full of venomous snakes. When you got hurt, a crutch was a helpful tool and eventually, you tossed it aside and walked on your own again. Was that what was going on here?
Tilian wasn’t rubbish that I could just discard. He meant too much to me and, if it was possible, I wanted to hold onto him forever. I couldn’t shake the fear that somehow, this entire thing would slip away from me.
No matter how good my intentions were, I couldn’t trust myself not to hurt him somehow. Since the day Tilian agreed to do this with me, I’d felt pretty calm, but at any moment, I could start spinning.
That was why I didn’t answer the phone again. It was the reason I didn’t want to be alone. The hour car ride to get here had been too long. Too quiet. The space had been filled with the putrid scent of my contemptible soul.
I couldn’t escape it, but I could delay it for now. If I didn’t answer, I could pretend that I was this person. The guy who dropped responsibilities to be at a thirteen-year-old’s birthday party. The one who was open and honest about who he was. The man who tied himself down and spent hours at night holding Tilian while I thought about how to make him happy when we woke up.
It was laughable, actually. If I wanted to give him what he deserved, I would cut myself out of his life right now.
I wasn’t being honest. I never had been. Lies sprung to life on my tongue before I opened my eyes in the morning. Clever ones were what convinced people you weren’t fucking worthless.
How many millionaires were truly altruistic? Philanthropy was a tool, that was all. Everyone who’d made it big in this world had done it by playing the fucking game. If they convinced you otherwise, they were just smarter than the rest, and you fell for their pretty lies.
My toes curled in the grass beside the lake. Leaning my elbows on my knees, I dropped my head into my hands.
If I picked up the phone, what I had here would shatter. One way or another, I was a liar and a manipulator. I brought flowers for Miranda and got Alex a really badass drone that I knew he’d love. It made Tilian look at me like I hung the moon. Every day, I did things that made him smile because it made me feel less empty, but it made him think I was worth something. What was that if not manipulation?
I’d somehow convinced him that I was a good person who he could trust with his heart. I hadn’t meant to do that. Was I so far gone that I didn’t even realize what I was doing anymore?
I was spinning again, picking up speed, and I had no idea where I would land.
The sound of footsteps behind me forced me out of my head. It made the quiet flee and my toes uncurled while I drew in a breath that didn’t make my lungs feel cold.
Tilian sat behind me and scooted forward with his legs on either side of me, pressing his chest against my back. I dropped my head onto his shoulder and stared up at the stars.
