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She straightens and stares at me as if I’ve grown a few heads, then backs away from me, probably sensing the murderous energy oozing off me.
I lean against the wall after she’s gone, but I still can’t expel the fucking migraine pulsing through me. Maybe I shouldn’t have come home.
No.
I breathe in.
I wouldn’t exchange the past week I’ve spent with Nikolai for the world. Holding hands, being in public, introducing him to my family, and being showered with their acceptance. It’s been the happiest week of my life.
Until now, that is.
It’s going to be okay.
I’ve survived years. I can handle a few more weeks.
I plaster a smile on my face as I push open my studio’s door. “Sorry I’m late, baby. I was held up—”
My words get stuck when I hear the sound I’ll never forget, not after one night, one year, or eight of them.
“Mmmmno… Mmmm… Mmmm…”
Ink explodes from the back of my throat and I choke on it like I did that night beneath the shower. It floods my eyes, nose, and ears. It swallows my whole body until I can only see Nikolai through a black haze.
His eyes are glued to the screen of his phone as that noise echoes on and on, cracking my ears open like a sledgehammer.
I don’t know how I walk to him when I can’t feel my legs.
I don’t know how I breathe when I’m wheezing.
Blood drips from his hand as he grips the bottom of a broken glass. On and on, his blood seeps into the black lake that’s swallowing me whole.
I don’t think he hears me. He definitely doesnotsee me, because his beautiful eyes are now as empty as mine.
I went ahead and ruined him just like I ruined fifteen-year-old me.
It’s all because ofme.
Iam the fucking problem.
Nikolai finally lifts his head, and when he looks at me, for the first time since I met him, I don’t see my reflection in his eyes.
That’s what happens when heseesme. That’s what will happen when everyone else sees me.
This is why I hid. This is why I didn’t even want to come out.
I knew it was only a matter of time before every other fucked-up admission followed.
I was naive to think I had time.
But I don’t.
I never did.
“You…you saw…yousaw…” My voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater as my vision blurs with moisture.
“You saw…”
And now you can’t look at me anymore.
