"No." I close my eyes. "I can't. It hurts too much to say out loud. The parts I've said have already cost me so much—" I stop. "I can't keep bleeding and tearing myself open for people who might not stay."
Blake nods slowly. "I hear that," he says. He gets up. Picks up his jacket off the back of the chair.
"Blake," I plead.
"I'm just going for a walk."
"You're going to his dorm."
"He needs someone to push him," he says. "And you won't do it because you're protecting yourself. So."
"Blake, you don't have to—"
"I know I don't have to." He picks up his keys. "I want to." He looks at me from the doorway. "You still being willing to try after everything you've been through — that really means something. Someone should tell him that."
He leaves. I put my head down on the table and stay there for a while.
Chapter 49
Jamie
I've been sitting on the floor with my back against the bed for two hours. Not the bed. The floor. The bed has Rhys on it still in some way I can't currently deal with — the indent, the smell, the evidence of a person who was here and trusted me enough to stay — and the floor is just the floor.
I've been on the floor for two hours and I've written and deleted fourteen texts and called none of the people I should have called and stared at my phone like it's going to tell me what to do and it hasn't told me anything.
A knock on the door, fast, repeated a couple more times. Forcefully. I stare at that spot on the bed for a second. Then I get up and open the door. Blake looks at me the way he looked at me in the kitchen — arriving at conclusions he keeps to himself. He's in his jacket, hands in his pockets, calm.
"Can I come in?" he asks.
I step back. He comes in. Looks around my room once. Sits in the desk chair like he's been here before and turns to face me.
I stay standing.
"I'm not going to tell you what to do," he says.
"Okay."
"I want to talk."
"Fine."
He folds his hands in his lap. Looks at me with that patient,unhurried quality that I'm starting to understand is just how Blake operates — he's got all the time in the world and he's decided to spend some of it on this, because he cares about Rhys.
"How are you?" he asks.
"Fine."
"Not fine," I finally say.
"Okay. What's going on?"
I drag a hand through my hair. "I don't—" I stop. "I woke up and I couldn't—" I stop again. "I care about him. I care about him in a way I don't know how to handle and every time I've felt something I couldn't—when the answer has been to shut it down before—" I press my hand flat to my sternum. "I don't know how to do this without losing myself."
"Who told you caring about someone means losing yourself?"
"My father," I say.
He nods once. "Do you want to know about Rhys?" he says. "When he first got here."
