I break.
Everything in me gives out.
My legs go weak. I reach for the edge of the desk, but even my arms give up. I collapse hard onto the floor.
Tears are streaming freely down my face now, each breath a battle against the rising panic.
I want to scream, scream endlessly, but my voice is still stuck.
My hair falls forward, hiding my face as I curl into myself, wrapping my arms around my body to keep warm.
Except, it doesn’t work like that when the frost comes from deep inside.
The floor is as hard and cold as my veins. It bites into my skin. I let it.
Maybe this is exactly what I deserve. Maybe this is how it always had to end.
It feels cruel. So unfair.
With the last pieces of myself, I let go of all my thoughts, allowing myself to drown into a darkness deeper than anything I’ve ever known.
Black waves carry me under. The storm in my head goes quiet.
Just stillness.
Calm.
Even as I feel the shadow slowly rising, first at my neck, then my ears, I don’t resist.
I close my eyes as it drowns me.
Then there’s nothing but darkness and its dangerous comfort.
Chapter twenty-six
Tom
My head is a warzone.
Thoughts slam against the inside of my skull like a tornado, circling, crashing, colliding into chaos. Nothing makes sense.
What’s real? What’s lies?
I can’t tell anymore. I don’t know how to tell anymore.
Fuck.
Why did I slam the door so hard behind me?
Why didn’t I calm down and let him explain?
I already know why. Because I got fucking angry and I let that Terrence cockroach crawl under my skin.
I couldn’t see straight in that room where all those doubts were choking me. I needed the truth, so I confronted him, but then things escalated fast.
No, Tom. You escalated. Because betrayal feels like the worst of its kind.
But him betraying me doesn’t make sense.
