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"Come on," I plead. "Don't do this."
Ripping his arm from my grasp, he narrows his eyes at me. "I thought you understood."
"There are other ways to get better, Jace."
He shakes his head, as if he doesn't even want to hear it. "Not for me."
Pouring the pills into his hand, he goes to put the rest back in but stops. He spins around to face me, with eyes wide and a broad smile on his face.
"I have an idea," he tells me excitedly. "Why don't you try it?"
His words catch me off guard. "What? No."
"Seriously," he presses. "I mean, think about it. You're going through shit, too. I promise, this takes it all away. It feels like you're floating. We can feel it together!"
My subconscious is screaming at me to run. Red lights are flashing in every goddamn direction. And yet, for some reason, I stand there, looking at the pills like they're some kind of salvation. They're peace. They're calm. They're Jace's approval.
As if my body is moving on its own, my hand reaches up to take one from him, until the reality of what I'm doing washes over me like a bucket of ice water.
Holy shit.
Carter was right.
In seconds, the hold Jace has over me becomes so apparent I can’t even try to deny it, and the only thing I can think to do is bolt out of the room. I take a step back from Jace and shake my head.
"I-I have to go."
I turn around and run out, not even paying attention to the calls of my name in the distance.
SKIPPING CLASSES IS NOT something I do often, but given the fact that Jace has tried calling me over thirty times, I don't know that I trust myself to go back to campus yet. After I left last night, I ran all the way out the building and to my car without looking back. The thought of what I almost did, what I almost let him talk me into, haunted me the whole night and most of today.
I pace back and forth across my bedroom. There's no way I can avoid Jace forever. He's bound to come to my house eventually. Hell, if I don't answer him tonight, he'll probably show up after dinner under the pretenses of seeing my dad. And I couldn't even blame him. My dad lights up whenever Jace walks into the room.
Picking up my phone, I dial the one number I know will always tell me exactly what I need to hear. It takes a few seconds for her to answer, but the moment her voice meets my ears, I'm flooded with emotion.
"I didn't realize how much I missed you until now," I tell her, starting to cry.
Becca scoffs. "It took you until now to realize that? Rude."
A wet laugh flows from my mouth. "I could really use one of your hugs right now."
"Why, babe? What's wrong?"
I take a deep breath and sit on the edge of my bed. "Jace is involved in some pretty shitty stuff. Stuff that I don't know I can save him from. And I don't really know what to do about it."
In the background, I can hear her leaving wherever she was and going somewhere more quiet. "Honey, it's not your job to save him. Jace is a grown man."
"I know that. I do," I tell her. "But I also can't leave him to completely ruin himself either. I just don't know what to do."
She hums. "I think you do. You've always been logical. I mean, you walked away from him when we left for SCU because you knew trying to do long distance was going to break the both of you." She pauses for a second and then sighs. "Sometimes, you have to put yourself first, and that doesn't make you a bad person. That makes you human."
I know she's right, but that does
n't mean it would be easy. Leaving Jace when he's like this, breaking the promise I made to him that I won't go anywhere, it feels like stabbing him in the back and ditching him when he needs me the most. But at the same time, I don't think that I can handle watching him head down the path he's on.
THE SUN IS SETTING by the time I answer Jace's one-hundred-and-four text messages. And no, that's not an exaggeration. I don't even read half of the ones waiting for me, knowing that they're just a bunch of begging for me to talk to him, and promises he never intends on keeping. Then again, I'm not one to really judge on broken promises right now. Not with what I'm about to do.
I take the stairs one at a time, trying to prepare myself for what might happen when I go in there. I even made sure Carter was going to be home. Despite how wrong he handled things last night, I know he cares for Jace's wellbeing just as much as I do, and Jace is going to need someone to make sure he doesn't do something stupid after I leave tonight.
