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His words dulled some of the anger and fear dancing behind my ribcage, but I’d heard excuses from my mom a thousand times before. Addicts would say anything to rationalize their actions. The reasons why they ‘needed’ to use.
Itried. I tried not to let those past experiences taint what was happening right here and right now, but the fear-fueled rage inside was already building.
“I couldn’t let myself sleep,” he added when I said nothing. “I needed to stay alert. I needed—”
I shook my head and he stopped talking.
The rage that’d been building didn’t crescendo, instead it shattered, my chest aching. Because it wasn’t rage at all. It was sadness. Fear. Guilt.
“You can’t do this to yourself,” I whispered. “I won’t let you.”
I opened my fist, looking down at the repulsive shining ball in the center of my palm, looking up at him.
Before I could drop it to the floor and stomp on it, Rook plucked it from my palm and did just that, grinding it under the toe of his black boot. “I don’t need it anymore,” he said quietly.
He reached into his jacket and grabbed the pack of cigarettes there, offering them to me along with a small metal flask he pulled from his back pocket.
“I don’t need any of it. Take it. I just…”
His Adam’s apple bobbed.
“I just need you, Ghost. I can’t do this without you.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat, my eyes burning. “Do what?”
He gestured vaguely all around us. “Any of it. It’s like I’ve been living in the dark, buried six fucking feet underground since you…”
He dropped his arms, defeated. “It’s like I can finally breathe. Finally feel the sun. I couldn’t go back. Ican’tgo back. Not now that I know what this feels like. So take it. Take it all. I’ll be whatever you want me to be.”
I shakily took the pack of cigarettes from him, fingering one out to put it to my lips, looking up at him expectantly, a ball of emotion tight in my chest.
His lips twitched at the corner, and he held back a laugh as he took the lighter from his pocket and leaned in, lighting the tip as I inhaled long and deep.
I blew the smoke over our heads, my whole body sighing at the release from the tobacco.
“I don’t want you to change for me, Rook.” I tried to sound strong even though I felt far from it right now, with his words ringing in my ears, whispering that I was loved deeply. More than I ever thought I deserved. “Don’t brighten your darkness or blunt your edgesfor anyone. You’re perfect the way you are.”
I pointed to him with the ash end of the cigarette, waiting for his eyes to align with mine, for him to see the darkness there, before I spoke. “But if youevertouch that shit again, I will fucking destroy you.”
He grinned. “Mmmm,” he purred, and a gear shifted between us. “Is that a promise?”
“I’m not fucking around.”
He bit his lip ring, crowding me in against the closed door until I could feel his heat against my chest, his breath against my cheek. I took another drag of the cigarette, outwardly ignoring his antics even though inside, I was aching with a need for him so strong I thought it might tear me apart.
“Swear to me,” I said, back arching of its own accord as his teeth scraped along the sensitive skin below my ear.
“Hmm?”
“If you get an urge that you don’t think you can suppress on your own…”
He gripped my left hip, pressing his semi into my belly as he continued a torturous trek of teeth and tongue down my throat to my collarbone.
My toes curled.
“…that you’ll tell me. So I can help you.”
He pulled back, and I saw the war he hid from everyone raging inside. The one I was willing to bet he waged on himself every day, hiding behind an aloof exterior but always fighting the darkness, and the need to dull it by any means necessary.
