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“I stopped a while back.”
“Waylon…”
Even in my daze, I know that tone. Disappointment. She doesn’t believe him.
“I know, I know,” he says quickly, his voice cracking. “I just…I needed to get us out of there.”
“You should’ve called someone. Me. Your uncle–”
“Not him.”
There’s another pause. “Fine, then me. Or-or?—”
“Jeremy?” He scoffs, and it’s a bitter sound.
I try to curl myself tighter, but my limbs won’t cooperate. My heart pounds sluggishly in my ears, and I wish I’d just pass out again. I don’t want to be here. I just want to go back to that dreamless blackness they yanked me out of.
“I didn’t want to bother him again,” Waylon admits quietly. “He’s the last person who should have to deal with this.”
“Again? How often has this been happening?”
To that, Waylon says nothing.
A sigh fills the room, and then Mom says, “We’ll talk about it in the morning. The three of us, when you both sober up.”
A moment later, a hand brushes back my hair, and lips find my temple in a soft kiss. “Love you kid,” Mom murmurs.
Footsteps fade, and then it’s quiet.
So quiet, that all I can hear is my heart still chugging away, stubborn thing that it is.
Just when I think maybe Waylon left too, and I somehow missed it, he bites out a curse. And I finally manage to crack my eyes open, blinking as the word spins around me. “Way?” I croak no louder than a whisper.
A shadowy figure I assume is him crouches down in front of me, dropping to his knees.
Blinking, I finally pull his face into focus. Hidden mostly in shadow, I can only make out his glassy eyes, and the pale sharpened edges of his face.
“Yeah. I’m here.”
Our eyes lock, and stay there.
No more words are spoken.
We just stare at each other.
Waiting…
For what, I don’t know.
To wake up from this nightmare?
“You should probably be careful,” he says after a moment, and I frown, not sure what he means. Not until his next words register. “You’ve been…you’ve been drinking a lot lately.”
I scowl. Or at least, I think I do.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m one to talk,” he mutters. Something tells me those words weren’t for me.
He huffs a harsh, humorless laugh and drops his head, running his fingers through his dark hair. “It’s not just every weekend now though.”
