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“Yeah, let’s get on with the room and shit.” Adam smirks in my direction, raising an eyebrow in what looks like a mix of a challenge and amusement. “You have quite the way with words, little Layna.”
“Don’t call me that.” I glare at his cheeky smirk, narrowing my eyes until they’re basically non-existent. Thelittlepart grates on my nerves, reminding me of all the people who used my smaller stature to their advantage. If he’s going to say shit like that, he gets to call me only by my first name. “It’s Alayna to you.”
Adam chuckles as he walks away with a shake of his head. Rhys and Riggs are staring at me with soft expressions, both of them seem to see through my anger pretty easily to the pain words like that bring me. Thankfully, neither of them say anything as we all get up and follow Adam out of the kitchen.
My heart is pounding rapidly in my chest from the anxiety and anticipation of seeing where Dec lived the last few years of his life. It continues to pound louder, drowning out all of my thoughts, the further into the house we get. I’m both ready for answers and yet not ready to face Dec’s space. The guys are all quiet and withdrawn as we move, seeming to feel the same way as I do. Even Adam looks depressed as he paces in front of a simple white door just a few feet in front of us. The few feet feel like miles though as the hallway stretches before me, no longer feeling warm and comforting, but dark and foreboding.
The four of us stand in the ominous hallway for a long time, staring at the nondescript door like it's the entrance to our worst nightmares. That’s actually not too far off for me. Losing Declan was definitely a bad nightmare I never saw coming.
"Just fucking open it already," Riggs snaps after an eternity of silence. Apparently the big guy doesn't like the oppressive atmosphere we've created here.
"Chill, dude. I'm getting to it," Adam grumbles, rolling his eyes at Riggs. "Haven't you ever heard of waiting for the right moment? You need to stop steam rolling everything!"
"I don't steam roll, I just get shit done instead of standing around contemplating the world like you assholes. Not you, Alayna," Riggs tacks on to the end, giving me a small sheepish smile that reveals the cutest dimple on his left cheek that I've somehow missed until this point.
Shrugging, I return his smile with my own, letting him know it's all good even if he was including me. Standing around contemplating the darkness and oppression around Declan's room is exactly what I was doing with the others. Riggs giving us shit definitely cut some of the tension from the air, making it easier to breathe and helping calm my racing pulse.
"Should we count to three?" I suggest as we continue to stare at the door.
Adam looks at me with one raised eyebrow, his eyes hooded with slight contempt at my childish suggestion. His hand quickly snakes out, grabbing the doorknob and twisting it before another word can be uttered by any of us. The door opens slowly with the slightest creak that adds an eerie feel to the whole thing.
Inside is what's left of Declan's world. The walls are deep navy, each one covered in half written songs and band flyers. The bed is haphazardly made with a black comforter thrown lazily over rumpled grey sheets. It looks lived in, like Declan is going to come back at any moment and sprawl out in his bed, a music notebook in his hands.
"Fuck," Rhys curses, rubbing a hand over his mouth, his eyes shining with unshed tears. "It feels like he's going to call out to close his fucking door at any moment."
"You assholes have your own rooms, get your trashy eyes off of mine!" Adam yells out with a sad chuckle, deepening his voice a bit to try and mimic Dec's. The guys all shake their heads with sad smiles, reliving the memories of their time with him.
My chest tightens at the thought of all the memories I missed out on. They can hear those words in his voice, I can only guess at how they sounded. There’s so much I missed out on simply due to my own insecurities.
Why was I so goddamn stupid to wait so long to find him? I thought I needed to be more whole, that he wouldn’t want me when I was broken. In my mind, Declan was living this grand life that he deserved and until I could be fixed enough to not destroy him, I couldn’t be near him. Now that he’s gone it sounds so fucking stupid, even in my own head.
Looking into his room, the wounds that just barely stopped bleeding tear open again, filling me to the brim with grief so agonizing it takes my breath away. This room may give me insight into who he turned into, but it can never give me those memories. They aren’t in the things he left behind, they’re in the heads of the people that were actually there for him. My band-aid solution of finding closure in his stuff dissolves before my eyes.
“I can’t do this,” I whisper, my breaths coming out shallow and strained. My back hits the wall behind me with a thud, my body trying to get away from whatever is hurting me. I should know by now that that’s not possible, the pain isn’t an outside threat, it’s inside of me and you can’t run from yourself.
Chapter Eleven
Adam
Fuck, the pure agony in those beautiful grey eyes is tearing out my fucking heart. How I ever thought her grief was anything but genuine, I have no fucking idea. You can’t see someone break like she did at the funeral or witness the raw, brutal torment written across her face and think she’s anything but one hundred percent sincere in her emotions.
I’m such a fucking stupid dick.
Rhys kneels in front of Alayna, her body crunched into a ball against the wall in front of us. He’s trying to gain her attention with soft words and soothing sounds. Riggs looks like someone kicked his puppy and he wants to comfort the puppy as well as destroy the threat. The same look is probably written across my face, but we both know the threat is nothing physical. It’s the kind of threat that infests your mind and eats away at everything until you’re left with nothing but a blackhole of negative emotions.
Her crying fills the hall, the sobs shaking her shoulders tear away at my heart with every tortured sound. If I could get my hands on Declan I would kick his ass into the ground for doing this to all of us. For doing this to her. Suicide may have seemed like the only answer to him, I know I’ve been in that position myself before. That doesn’t make it okay. There is always another answer, every fucking time.
Riggs is pacing the hallway to my right, trying to keep his own emotions in check. His protective instincts are probably trying to overtake him right now, the sound of a woman crying is a huge trigger for him. It goes back to his sister and the night she was killed. He’s been doing really well so far with Alayna, he hasn’t been too overbearing or insanely protective. That’s not to say I haven’t seen some of the looks he’s given her or the way he hovers near her whenever she’s around, but he’s been respecting her boundaries at the same time.
“It’s my own fault,” Alayna cries out, her face buried in her hands. Moving closer, I stand off to the side in case I need to catch her again from another panic attack.
“What’s your fault, Lay?” Rhys asks softly, his eyes never leaving her even as Riggs and I move to stand by him.
“I should have been here. I wasn’t here for him, I wasn’t around when he needed me. I thought he would be better off without me until I could be stronger for him,” she rambles, her face streaked with tears and mascara. “It was my turn to save him like he saved me. I finally felt strong enough to be in his life so that if he needed to lean on me he could. I was too late. I was selfish and now he’s gone and I can never undo the distance between us. He’s gone and it’s my fault.”
“No,” Riggs rumbles out, shocking all of us. Her face turns to him in disbelief, the tears running silently down her cheeks. “You do not put his decisions on you. We were here. We were all here for him and he still killed himself. You made a decision for yourself, one you felt would make both yours and Dec’s life better. No one can fault you for that.”
Alayna opens her mouth to argue, but I jump in before she can. “He’s right. Declan made his own decision taking his life and he damn well didn’t take anyone else into account when he did. You felt that you needed to work on yourself before reuniting with someone from a painful part of your past. That was probably one of the best things you could have done for both of you. When we met Declan, he was homeless, distrustful, and down on his luck pretty bad. It took us months to gain his trust and a solid year for him to pull himself together enough to be able to function outside of this house. The two of you needed to grow as people away from each other so that you didn’t bring each other down. It’s the same thing you do with a drowning victim, you need to find stability before you save the one drowning or you will both be pulled under.”
