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“Are you all right?”
I swallow harshly. “I think so. Are you? You’re bleeding.”
He wipes his chin with the back of his hand and hisses when he grazes the cut. I get up and go into the bathroom, grabbing a damp paper towel. Easton sits down on his bed, and I stand in front of him. I lightly dab at the cut to clean it and he whines.
“Don’t be such a baby,” I sass. “If you didn’t want to get hurt, you shouldn’t have fought.”
“And let him get away with what he did to you? No fucking way.”
I toss the bloodied cloth into the garbage and sit down next to him. “Well, thank you. You really didn’t have to do that.”
“Of course I did.” He turns to me, using his finger to gently brush the hair out of my face. “Don’t you get it? I’ll do anything for you.”
“Easton,” I breathe with a shake of my head.
He sighs. “I know. I’m sorry. I just miss you, Tess, and I hate everything about being without you. I want you back. Want us back.”
I’m frozen in place as he leans in. Everything in me is screaming to move, but I can’t. I’m too numb. Too damaged. Too broken. His lips brush mine, and I feel nothing. It lacks the excitement I got when Asher would do the same, the feeling of needing to breathe him in just to get a dose of him.
“E,” I murmur, trying to push him away.
“Please,” he begs. “I love you, Tess.”
Those three words are everything I’ve been unknowingly dying to hear, but they’re coming from the wrong person. I’m not enough for him. I’m never going to be enough for him. A tear flows down my cheek, and I don’t put up a fight as Easton lays me down on the bed and kisses my neck.
“I love you,” he repeats against my skin. “I love you so much.”
RELEASING INTO THE CONDOM, Easton pulls out and crashes into the mattress next to me. I roll onto my side, away from him, and pull the covers up to my chin. The sound of his labored breathing fills the air, making my stomach churn. He pushes up onto his elbow and drapes his arm over me.
“I’m going to get a beer. You want one?”
I shake my head. “No, thanks.”
He bends down and kisses the side of my head. “The pills are in the second drawer in the bathroom, pushed toward the back. It’s been a few more hours. You can have another.”
Climbing off the bed with a newfound energy, he throws a pair of sweatpants on and leaves the room. I wait until the coast is clear before I get up to put my clothes back on. There’s a half-full bottle of vodka on his dresser. I grab it and take a swig, hating the taste but needing the effects.
My bare feet pad across the floor into the bathroom. I lock the door behind me and place the bottle on the sink. Pulling open the drawer, I find the large prescription bottle filled nearly to the brim with oxy.
As I look up, my reflection stares back at me, but it’s not someone I recognize. Mascara is running down her face, her hair a piled mess on top of her head. Her cheekbones pop out, as if she hasn’t been eating, and there’s no life left in her eyes. She looks cold. Dead to the world. Dead to herself.
Thoughts of everything I’ve been through flood my mind. Everything that happened in the underground, at the party, here. It’s all too much. The trauma is an unbearable force that’s constantly creeping up, threatening to break me at any given moment. This is no way to live.
I take a deep breath and open the bottle, grabbing the vodka to swallow them down.
One pill to numb the pain.
Five more to erase the memories.
And the rest to make it all just…stop.
Stumbling onto the floor, I sit down and lean against the bathtub, vodka bottle still clutched firmly in my hand. A small laugh bubbles out of me, and the tears turn to happy ones, knowing it’s all about to stop. All the nightmares, all the pain. All the memories.
I’m going to be free.
Easton knocks on the door, calling my name, but I can’t answer. The panic in his voice builds as the knocks turn to pounding. He kicks the door in, looking from the empty pill bottle lying in the sink to my place on the ground.
“No, no!”
