Page 157 of Breathe Like Hell

His eyes held mine and for an instant, there was a flicker of something vulnerable in them. It was gone just as soon as it came, but it’d been there.

I looked away quickly, feeling nauseous all over again.

Bad things happen in Heaven, too.

Did something bad happen to you?

There had to be more he wasn’t telling me. I was certain of that. But what? I didn’t like thinking about it. I wanted to know, but at the same time it was going to destroy me. The concept of someone hurting Micah that bad made me feel like dying.

“Do you need to pack anything to stay at my house tonight?”

I swiped under my eyes to catch the fresh tears sliding off my lashes. “I’ll get a bag.”

“Just sit on your bed, and I’ll get whatever you need. Alright?”

“Okay,” I whispered, padding over to my messy bed and slumping my body down, beyond exhausted. I wanted to go to sleep and not wake up for a million years. Or maybe never wake up. If I never woke up, I would never feel like this again.

“I’m going to take care of you, Masters. Always.” Micah looked at me, brushing strands of hair off my wet cheek. “No matter what happens, you’re going to be okay because I’m going to make sure of it. Do you trust me?”

My lower lip was wobbling.

I want to, and I think I do. I do trust you, even when I shouldn’t.

Should I trust you now? Or am I being desperate and naive if I do?

I just nodded.

“That’s good,” he murmured.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

MICAH

If I fixed her too much, I’d break her. Previously, I didn’t think enough about that to stop myself, but now I’d started to see the pattern in her that I’d seen in Mason before our eventual demise.

It terrified me.

Mason near the end had been so reliant on me that I was killing myself by staying with him.

As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I wouldn’t survive that spiral twice.

The more times I took strong emotions from Dakota, the less capable she’d become of handling them herself. When that happened, the bad emotions only became more violent and destructive in nature, building on themselves, now only capable of being lessened by an external force. Lessened by me.

And while I was probably capable of continuing to take that heaviness from her forever, it would damage her ability to process anything.

With a normal person, I could consistently take emotions from them for a prolonged period of time without struggling much. But with someone self-destructive like Dakota or Mason, it wasn’t good for their brains. It created this dependency loop. After so many years with Mason, that loop started to feel like a noose, getting tighter each time I protected him from his own brain.

I wasn’t even sure Mason knew the extent to which dampening him affected me. Physically, mentally, emotionally. It wasn’t easy. I could’ve talked to him about it more, should’ve talked to him about it more, but I didn’t want him to see me as weak—I was terrified he already did. It didn’t matter how many times he assured me he didn’t, because it was how I felt at the core of my very being.

Like I had this huge vulnerability I’d never learned how to heal, and all I could do was push people away before they got too close to it.

More than you expect.

More than you expect, and more than I’ll ever tell you, I understand.

But Mason had no assurances for me now. He knew me better than anyone and hated me in equal measure. He was perfectly content with slicing me open in the places that hurt the most, and all I could do was pray that he wouldn’t. If he did, he might see how easily I still bled there.

More thoughts I didn’t want to have circled the edges of my mind. Thoughts about Dakota not caring about me beyond my aspect.