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I shoved him away again, hands trembling. I needed a hit, a pill, anything to numb this panic beginning to set in. My old cravings were returning, desire delicately crawling up my back like a spider. “What are you doing to me, Silas?”

Everything was going so fast.

A look of pure dread crossed Silas’s face. His eyes were wide, searching to meet contact with mine, the urgency sparkling there was gradually sending me over the brink and into the pit of madness.

I was stumbling over my words. “I-It’s not your place, it’s n-not—”

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t get the words out. Silas’s arms were back around me.

“I can’t believe you—”

“Don’t you hate that bastard?” Silas’s arms slid down to my sides, attempting to pull me closer. “He hurt you. What do you care if he’s gone for good?”

Don’t I hate him? I thought, allowing the idea to roam freely. For a moment, I acknowledged what Silas was trying to say to me.

Wouldn’t it be such a relief if David actually were gone?

The thought seemed like a dream. An impossible one.

Too often, this world tried to make decisions for me. I couldn’t escape the control, and no matter where I was, someone was always trying to steer my life down their path, make choices for me, decide my outcomes.

“I can take care of myself, Silas!” I hissed, ripping away from his grasp once more. “I am not a child anymore! I can fight my own battles.”

I’d lived with the pain this long. Who did Silas think he was, trying to disrupt that?

The rage bubbled into my chest and throat. If David had died, my family would have blamed me. For all I knew, my mom and Damian did blame me. Somehow, I knew I’d take the heat for this family’s downfall either way.

“Do you know what could’ve happened to my family if he died?” I questioned.

My mother. I could still see her face. Her trying to take over the chest compressions. Her tears.

“My mother would have been destroyed! I don’t even know if she could’ve come back from that.”

I could still remember her feeble form, desperately trying to explain our situation to the officers.

“I don’t need you fucking up my family anymore than it already is!”

“What the hell does that even mean?” Silas snarled.

I threw my arms in the air. He wasn’t getting it, and I was sick of trying to explain it to him.

“You, the drugs, the sex, it’s not making me any better than I used to be!”

“So what?” Silas barked. “I didn’t know I was running a rehabilitation center!”

I let his words sink in. Really deep. To the point where I nearly felt tears pricking at the corner of my eyes. Because that was the truth, wasn’t it? I was a fucking project. I was a mess, and Silas knew it too. And he didn’t care. Not one way or the other.

Our views didn’t line up at all. And that realization hit me like a semi truck going 80mph. What we wanted out of life was so different. I’d liked to have believed that deep down I wanted to reform myself. And if that was the case, then I needed people in my life who took that seriously. Maybe even helped me to take it more seriously…

“You’re a fucking asshole.” I muttered, searching the room for my shoes. Why was everything so damn hard to find here?

Finally, I spotted my pants and slid them back up to my waist.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Silas questioned harshly.

“Home! You got a problem with that?” My eyes were surely blazing when they met his. I silently dared him to talk more shit.

“You need to calm down, Noah…” Silas whispered, and for the first time, his voice sounded unsure of itself. His tone was weak and cracking.