Page 56 of Save Me

“No.” I drop my head back against the wall. Help is the last thing he should be offering. Because if he sticks around for long enough, I’ll take it, consequences be damned.

I think I hear Micah slide against the wall and sit down, but I’m too tired to move. It’s like every limb is filled with lead, but at the same time, all kinds of strong feelings rush through me. Fear, desire, shame. I drank to avoid these things, and yet they’ve caught up to me.

Fuck. I’m never drinking again.

I must pass out because I’m opening my eyes and I don’t remember shutting them. For a second, I don’t remember where I am. Then my mouth is dry, so dry, and I peel my aching body off the floor. The bathroom floor. Right. Because I almost lost my mind.

I get a drink out of the sink. What time is it? I have to work early.

I creep out of the bathroom and almost trip over a soft form in front of the door.

“Mads?” A sleepy voice asks.

I jump straight up, whirling to face the form that is Micah, lying on the floor. Panic laces through me.

He slept on the floor? Is he keeping tabs on me? Why didn’t he get bored and go watch TV?

Danger. Danger. This is a play that I don’t understand. Does this mean he has some sort of advantage over me?

My face burns. I’m weak. Alcohol makes me weak.

“I…I’m going to bed,” I say hesitantly. Is he going to fight me on it? Slam me into the wall? Or mock me for getting so drunk I passed out, following me to my room and shoving through the door when I try to shut it?

I should just leave, go sleep in my car. I look at my escape route in the dim hallway, heart racing.

“Oh, okay, sure,” Micah’s sleepy voice says. He’s halfway sitting up, acting stiff. Stiff like he wouldn’t be able to chase me if I ran.

And so I do. The bedroom is closer, so I dart there and shut the door, but at the last second, I close it softly so he doesn’t take the slam as a challenge. Then quietly, ever so quietly, I lock the door, then back away in case he throws his whole body at it.

There’s a brief silence, then I hear rustling and a quiet groan.

I brace, looking around the room for something to hit him with. I’m not going to take it quietly this time, goddamn it. I’m going to fight.

Only, the door stays quiet.

My heart is fluttering faster than normal, and I feel unsteady.

Then, I hear his voice murmuring in his room, then silence.

What the hell?

I don’t get any more sleep. I’m up all night, waiting restlessly for Micah to do something, coming up with every possible angle he’s working. And when the gray light starts to peek over the horizon, I leave the house, pissed and exhausted. Because the angle that makes the most sense is the least probable one–that Micah left me alone because I asked him to. He has to be trying to create a false sense of safety. But every time I think that, I think about the way he parted his lips for me. That moment where he let go of control. Let me lead.

Why in the hell would he do that?

I get to Mr. Parker’s hours early, and I just sit in my car, waiting for my shift to start. Shamefully, all I can do is replay last night, my dick hard as stone. No matter what I do, I can’t get it to come down. All I can think is Micah, Micah, Micah.

I take care of Mr. Parker in a blur. It feels like both the longest and the shortest shift, with moments of pure agony thinking about how I’ve failed. How I’ve lost my own game.

And yet, nothing bad happened. Yet, anyway. It will. I know it will. Right? It has to.

By the time I’ve gone out to my car, I’m exhausted. I barely register the slam of a car door as I unlock my car. I slide into the driver’s seat just as the passenger door opens, and a large form slides into my car.

I suck in a breath as none other than Arthur, with his graying hair and a Cleveland Guardians hoodie, grins at me.

“You don’t answer my calls.”

Panic floods my system, freezing me in place. Arthur is here. Arthur is here.