The prison walls.
My mother's grave.
Lilah standing in court.
Every sleepless night.
Every damn year.
Every second I spent convincing myself I hated her enough to survive it.
Seven years. Seven years. Seven long years.
"Jude!" Lilah screams, but her voice barely registers above the roaring in my ears and the rage in my soul.
Hands grab at my arm. I hear Charlie.
Charlie.
Lilah.
Both trying to pull me back.
I shrug them off.
"Jude, stop!"
Axel wipes blood from his mouth. The bastard is still smiling. Because he knows. He knows exactly why I'm angry. Not because he's wrong. Because he's right.
Guilt crashes into me so hard I nearly choke on it. The room suddenly feels too small.
Too loud.
Too full.
I take a step back.
Then another.
I can't look at Lilah.
Can't look at any of them.
"Don't follow me." The words come out harsher than I intend. I turn and I walk. I’m numb, but I need to leave, get away from Lilah from Axel from everything. It’s the same feeling I had before when I got out of prison, the need to escape. The need to run, to get out, to solve nothing despite knowing that my mom would never commit suicide. Her and dad had been fighting more she said she’d tell me when she had more information.
“It’s a burden a child should never have to bear.”
“And you do?” I said.
“It’s my job to protect you even if it means from your own father. He said he was done with all of this. It’s so much worse than I could imagine.”
And that was it, our last conversation. She was gone the very next day.
The last thing I see is Lilah’s face as I numbly walk, the last thing I think of is her kiss and every reason I had to pursue her, to get revenge, and I come up completely blank like I’ve lost the plot of the story, lost my mission, because I no longer recognize who I am anymore. My revenge has always been a sort of armor I put on every day, every night, and she pulled away at that and made me see that maybe, just maybe I was looking at things wrong and now I don’t know what to do. I’m vulnerable and I’m afraid every enemy can see it. Forget The Dean’s List, right now I’m more concerned that I’ve messed up too bad.
I hurt her.
But I will only ever hurt her.
