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The only sign of life is a bottle of water and an empty box of tissues on the nightstand.
My concern for the girl living—existing—inside this room only grows.
Why didn’t the girls tell me things were this bad?
This isn’t the room of a girl who’s dealing with her grief and trying to find a way forward.This is the room of someone who is drowning.
My eyes land on the closed bathroom door, and my heart jumps into my throat.
She’s hiding.
By the time I get to it, my hands are trembling as images of what I might find inside race through my head.
Memories threaten to assault me, and I fight to shove them deep inside the lockbox they belong in.
She wouldn’t.
I have to believe she wouldn’t do something like that.
Fear makes me move faster, and the second the handle is in reaching distance, I twist it and throw the door open, unsure if I’m prepared for what I will find inside.
All the air rushes from my lungs as the girl I haven’t stopped thinking about for the last few months finally comes into view.
I don’t know what I was hoping for.
But she’s not in her doing her hair or makeup. She’s not fighting against her grief and the darkness.
She’s drowning.
And she’s going down fast.
7
ABIGAIL
My eyes connect with Elliot’s but the horror in his gaze barely touches the ice around my heart.
“What the fuck?” he rushes out, storming toward me.
Cold water beats down on me still, but I no longer feel the sting of it against my skin.
I’ve been in here too long.
“What the fuck happened?” he grits out, reaching in to turn off the shower. It’s only then, with him looming down on me, that a shiver runs through me.
He’s… furious.
“Red, talk to me. What happened? What the fuck are you doing?”
I climb shakily to my feet, aware that my thin pyjamas are stuck to my body. But if Elliot notices, he does a really good job of hiding it.
Because he doesn’t want you like that, the cruel little voice whispers in my ear.
I screw my eyes shut and inhale a steadying breath. He wasn’t supposed to find me like this.
When I open my eyes again, they dart from his thunderous gaze to the mirror above the sink. Or, at least, what’s left of it.
Shattered glass litters the sink and vanity, a pile of shards on the tiles. A trickle of red blood leading into the shower cubicle.
