AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Don’t go.”
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” I murmur, surprising myself with the softness in my voice. We don’t do soft with each other.
I debate getting up anyway.
He shakes his head, keeping his eyes closed. “Please, stay.”
I hesitate before sliding to lie down next to him. He wraps his arm around me and pulls me in tightly. His warmth and heavy oak scent instantly surround me and everything else in the world fades away.
It’s just me and him.
Nothing else matters tonight.
“What were you dreaming about?” I ask, my lips brushing against his collarbone.
He pulls me closer, holding me like I’ve always wished someone would.
“Nothing.”
16
Liam
Guilt tugsin my chest all afternoon.
Wynn cried again this morning during the music session, and while that’s good from a therapy standpoint, it still hurts to see. I thought if she heard me play again, it’d make her happy—I thought it would inspire her to play too.
Maybe I should stop playing. It’s not like I even enjoy it anymore. It’s just a cold reminder of the life I used to have. Of before.
I hardly remember what it was like on the outside of these walls. It’s been, what… two years now? Time jumbles together here. All I know is I’m far more content in the walls of Harlow than I ever was on the outside.
My time in the army haunts me. I watched all my short-term friends die until I learned to stop connecting with others. It’s easier that way. It always has been. The pain I felt watching them bleed and cry, begging for their mothers and for me to help them, is a feeling I’ve lost over the years.
The punishment I self-inflict has remained the same, if not worsened.
If I could go back in time, I’d tell my seventeen-year-old self that the car accident with my brothers was just the first tragic scene of my unfortunate play. I’d tell him that it gets much worse before he ends up in an institution.
Before he findsher.
I look at Wynn.
Lanston laughs at something she says but I only hear their muffled sounds. I glance down at my hands.
That itch pulls beneath my skin, the desire to feel pain, to hurt myself. I want to hurt as much as she and Lanston do; I want to feel the pain they experience. I want to punish myself for not being a better man… for not being good enough.
For being so mean to her… My thoughts muddle as the warmth in my chest ignites like it did when she crawled into my bed and let me hold her.
I know it’s wrong. I know they worry. But it makes the weight in my chest evaporate every time.
It’s euphoric.
My thumb brushes over the edge of my room key. Dull things take longer to break skin, but the wounds they leave last longer. They fester worse and keep the edge away.
The last remnants of the garden are dying, the orange and yellow mums bend in the breeze, and the green vines that climb the stones of Harlow curl with slumber. I shut my eyes and take a deep breath of the fresh air, telling myself I don’t need to do this.
I don’t need to hurt myself.
That’s why I’m here; Ihaveto get better.
