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“Mason,” he breathes this time, and his face bunches as he starts to shake his head.
“Hey,” I utter in a hush, stroking back his hair.
Tears fill his eyes, and my heart rate kicks up.
What’s happening?
“I’m sorry.”
I shake my head. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“Yes. I do,” he mutters so softly I nearly miss it.
Frowning, I study him more closely, taking in the way his nostrils flare with a sniffle. He sounds sick—congested—but I know that’s likely just because he’s drunk.
“Shoulda been me.”
At first, his words don’t register.
For one impossibly long beat, I just stare at him, unblinking.
“What was that?” I finally say, barely feeling my lips move.
Glassy amber eyes the color of the richest bourbons lift to mine. “S’all my fault.”
I’m shaking my head, slowly, then faster.
He keeps talking…mumbling…slurring.
Some of it makes sense. Most of it doesn’t. But I catch enough.
“…better off…me ’stead a her……died…s-sorry, Mase, so sorry…”
My vision blurs, and it feels like there’s a fucking elephant sitting on my chest.
“Stop.” The word slips out of me, inaudible over the ringing in my ears.
“Wish it was me…” His words taper off into a silence so heavy, so profound, I’m helpless to avoid what comes next.
No. Nonononono?—
Gasping, I scramble back, staring wide and unseeing at the boy sprawled out on my couch, lashes falling over tear-stained cheeks.
This time, his eyes stay shut.
I’m shaking my head, faster and faster.
From quivering lips, he murmurs sleepily, “Mason.”
And something inside me just…shatters, right down the middle. Punching a low, keening sound from deep, deep within me, and taking what little oxygen I had left.
No.
Fuck.
No.
But it’s no use trying to push it away. It’s too fucking late. I can’t unhear what he said…any more than I can unsee the images his words conjure up. Images I’ve never even fucking considered, as if some part of me just…knew I wouldn’t be able to handle it.
