She never left me and I almost destroyed her anyway.
She was my last chance. My redemption. My savior. Now, I have nothing.
The rage hits the second I make it into my house. There are too many emotions bottled up inside of me. The pain in my chestcracks wide open until I swear I’m bleeding out. I scream into the nothingness that is this place that I built. For her. Everything was supposed to be for her. A safe place away from everyone else. A quiet place. A haven.
I pick up whatever is closest—a lamp—and throw it as hard as I can. It smashes against the far wall, splintering into a thousand pieces. Just like me. I punch the wall, over and over again, until it collapses around my bruised and bleeding knuckles. Then, I kick a chair, overturning it and still, it’s not enough.
Tears burn hot in my eyes. The things I did to her. What I said to her… they can never be taken back. The tears break free, sliding down my face.
Why? Why do I always do this? I always break the people I love. I’m the bad guy. I’m the villain. I’m the monster.
Your father was different before you were born.
You stress him out, that’s why he’s this way.
Don’t talk. Don’t leave your room. If you don’t want to make him angry, pretend you don’t exist.
Old hateful words from the past spiral through my head. I collapse to my knees in the center of the living room, surrounded by dry wall and broken furniture, and bury my face in my hands.
There is an emptiness inside of you, Lexy boy,Aunt Jane’s words spear into my brain.You’ll try to fill it your whole life, but the only thing that can fix it is you. Not a girl. Not a friend. Not a lover. You.
But she did, I want to argue. She did fix me. For a short time, I was whole.
Maybe the universe made a mistake in creating me, and that’s why my father—a good man by so many others’ standards—was so angry. He tried to fix it, but I escaped again. Maybe I’m someone who didn’t die when he should have. Maybe I am not meant to be.
Head full of weight and heart bleeding all over my rib cage, I don’t know how long I stay like that, kneeling on the hard floor of my own home, staring into the void of nothing around me. It was only a few months, weeks really, but for those moments with Juliet—I was real. Ifeltreal.Seen.
Hours pass. Maybe days. I don’t know. The sun rises outside of the windows and falls. The room grows colder. The heater shutting off and not turning back on. The near-silent crackle of something—like firewood popping—touches my senses. There’s no fire. Snow? Is it snowing?
My phone buzzes. My stomach rumbles. Life moves on. The things that I did haunt me, the words that I said spear through me like whips of fire, and yet… the Earth continues spinning. Uncaring. Indifferent.
I will live and I will die. I will love and I will suffer. And in the end, everything continues on as if it never happened in the first place.
My tears dry up as does my mouth. I’m so lost in my own head, I don’t even hear the voices of others until they’re inside. Familiar brown eyes appear in front of me and then fingers waving. Nolan says something to someone else out of sight. His lips move and I see them, but I don’t hear. My ears are full of cotton and everything is hazy.
Nolan tries speaking again, his attention wholly on me, which means he’s probably trying to talk to me. I don’t reply. I can’t. Arms lift me up, big, heavier than my own. I blink as the room tilts, my perspective changing as I’m forced upward. A face like my own but with cold gray eyes that can’t deny our familial bond stare down at me.
Fucking Mitchell Vikson. What the hell is this bastard doing here? In my fucking house?
If I had the energy to yell at him, though, I would spend it doing something else. So, instead of demanding to know whyhe’s here, I just stare back at him. The hollowness in my heart expands outward. My fingertips tingle with numbness.
Viks says something, but his chin is turned slightly. Is he speaking to Nolan or is there someone else here?
My silent question receives its answer in another second as Gio steps into view. He takes one look at me and shakes his head before jerking his thumb over his shoulder. He says something and I’m lifted again. It strikes me as odd that I’m so easily moveable. I haven’t been lifted this easy since before I was a preteen. Viks, however, matches me in both height and size and combined with Nolan’s efforts, they don’t seem to struggle too much as they heft me through the house and to my bedroom.
Slow blinks follow as they usher me into the bathroom and without stripping me of a single item of clothing, they push me into the shower stall and yank the water on—ice-cold spray slaps me in the face. It’s not just cold, but frosty. Thousands of needles pierce my flesh and I suck in a sharp breath.
“Good, are you back with us?” comes Nolan’s dry question.
“F-fuck you,” I stutter, slamming my palms out flat against the tiled wall.
“He’s talking,” Viks says. “He’s fine.”
“He looked comatose there for a while,” Gio adds, coming into the room behind them.
“Get out!” I snap. “This isn’t a party.” God, I want to fucking die. My hands curl into fists and I let my head sink down on my shoulders as the water that’s so cold it fucking hurts rinses all over my head and neck.
“Not happening,” Nolan tells me. “We’ve been trying to reach you for days. We need to talk about Juliet.”
