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On a bad day…like today…there’s no keeping the festering guilt and helplessness from making itself known.
It doesn’t escape me that my bad days all have one common denominator:
The boy who currently has his head in my lap.
How will I ever move on if he keeps me chained here?
How will I ever have a chance of feeling whole again, if I’m forever torn between hope and acceptance?
Can I even be whole again?
Footsteps approach, and this time I lift my head, my burning gaze slowly dragging up to lock on Waylon’s bright hazel eyes.
I don’t miss the pain that flares there—the burning familiarity.
He sees her in me too.
Lowering to a crouch, he gently pries the bottle of vodka from Mason’s slack grip. I tense, waiting for an explosion. But it never comes. Mason doesn’t so much as blink, or twitch.
“Mason,” Waylon murmurs, setting the bottle to the side.
Finally, movement—a sign of life.
But it’s the last thing I’m expecting.
Mason reaches up between us, brushing his fingertips over my jaw in a cool, featherlight touch. And I just stare, frozen, eyes wide and locked on Waylon’s equally round gaze.
A palpable tension falls over the room, so thick, it’s a wonder I can even see through it. It’s then that I vaguely register Will hovering in the doorway. Watching us. Everyone’s…
Watching.
Waiting.
Holding their breath.
I slowly, slowly, lower my gaze.
Gone is that glassy vacancy from moments before, and in its place is a world of agony and desperation peering right into me, through a thick veil of tears that make his eyes look hauntingly beautiful. Ethereal.
“Don’t leave me,” he whispers, voice breaking.
My breath catches.
Eyes creasing, like he’s in actual, physical pain, he curls his fingers around my jaw, wrist visibly shaking with the effort.
“Please don’t fucking leave me, Iz.”
I flinch back. My body reacting before I even have time to process what he said.
The pain is so sharp and unexpected—brutal and unforgiving—that I actually glance down between us to make sure there’s not the hilt of a knife sticking out of my chest.
Bile races up my throat, and a roar fills my ears, drowning everything else out. I stare dead ahead, not seeing anything.
Don’t leave me, Iz.
My lips tingle.
A phantom pressure.
