Breakaway

24. Pope

Chapter 24

Pope

I force my tired eyes open when I hear a sound near the doorway. It’s worth the effort when I find myself looking at the man I’ve been waiting for. He’s standing in the opening, his hands in the pockets of his pants and the sleeves of his quarter-zip pushed up. His posture is relaxed, but his face is full of tension and worry.

Fuck me.

“Hey,” I say like an idiot, my voice rough with exhaustion.

“Hey, baby.” My mind feels fuzzy, almost lagging, as it tries to process him approaching. It takes a second for me to even register when he crouches down, placing a hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”

My throat clenches.

I can’t lie to him.

I shake my head.

No. I’m not okay.

I’m not okay at all.

Please help me.

Please make it stop.

“Jules just left. He was worried about you.” He smiles, but it’s sad. “He’s a good friend.”

I nod, knowing he’s right.

But I can’t help but wonder what Jules told him. Did he mention the panic attack? Did he tell him what we talked about?

Have they figured it out now that my dad told them about my mom?

I should leave. Before he can ask, before he can ruin everything, I should leave.

I picture that, though—leaving.

I’d have to walk down the hall. Go to the doorway. Pull my jacket on. Bend over. Get my shoes on. Walk out. Call Jules for a ride. Wait for him. Climb into the car. Answer questions he’ll no doubt have. Get out of the car. Climb the apartment stairs. Walk into the apartment. Take a piss. Go down the hall to my room. Climb onto the bed.

Exhausting.

Every step is so fucking exhausting my body is trembling with just the thought of it all.

“Ethan?”

My throat clenches. My eyes burn.

I force my body into a sitting position, not wanting to do this lying down. I can’t stand, though. My legs feel like they don’t even exist anymore. Hayden tilts his head to be able to look at me, his hands settling on my knees. I wonder what he’d do if I just let myself tip forward. If I just gave in and fell. He’d catch me. This is Hayden. Of course he’d catch me.

I don’t make him catch me, but I still move forward until his hands have fallen to the sides and my head is on his shoulder. He grunts in surprise before wrapping his arms around my waist and holding me close. I shudder with relief.

“Okay, baby,” he murmurs. “Okay. I’ve got you.”

A little bit of weight falls away from my chest as I settle in his arms.

“I’m so tired ,” I whisper, my voice thick with impending tears.

“I know.” He holds me for a while—I can’t begin to process how long, my head is too full-yet-empty. It’s long enough for him to have to lower completely to the floor, sitting on his ass with me in his lap. It’s long enough for my knees to ache from the position. It’s long enough for me to start struggling to stay awake again.

Eventually, he guides me away from his shoulder so he can look into my eyes, his hands cupping my cheeks. There’s a whole lot of worry in his gaze, but there’s something more too. Something I really hope is love.

Does he love me?

Does he know about the depression now?

If he doesn’t, how long until he does?

Would he still love me if he knew?

“What can I do?” he asks, his voice tight with desperation.

My bottom lip trembles. I suck it between my teeth and close my eyes, trying to keep the tears and sobs locked away.

“Oh, Ethan.” His breath is warm and coffee-scented as it wafts over my face just before his forehead rests against mine. “Please tell me what’s been going on. Let me help you. Please. Whatever it is, let me fucking help.”

No.

I’m scared.

I’m stupid.

I knew you wouldn’t fix my depression, I knew that’s not how it works. Training camp practically confirmed that no amount of happiness can banish the darkness forever. But I’d hoped, Hayden. I’m an idiot and I’d fucking hoped, just this tiny sliver in the back of my mind, that this—you, us, love—would be enough to finally pull me out of the ocean I’ve been drowning in.

What if my mom felt like this once? What if she told herself she’d never end things because of me or my dad, but the depression won anyway? Will that happen to me? Will my determination not to put my dad through that again stop being enough?

I don’t want to be like my mom, Hayden.

I don’t know how not to be.

“Hey. Hey, baby. Okay. Woah, there. It’s okay. I’m right here. You don’t have to tell me.”

I don’t realize why he’s saying those things for a moment. Then I hear a sob, and I come back to reality. That’s me crying. Me shaking violently in his arms. Me digging my hands into his back so hard I’m probably hurting him.

I force myself to loosen my hold. To swallow my sobs. To calm my body.

He helps me move to the bed, his hands bracing me. I can’t look at his face, tears still streaming down my cheeks, so I focus on the team’s logo on his chest instead.

He gives my forehead a kiss before moving to my side, pressing up against it so I can lean into him.

I should apologize for falling apart. Apologize for being such a handful.

I picture myself saying sorry. I picture it again and again, working myself up to making my vocal chords expend the energy. I picture it so many times I start wondering if I already said it out loud.

It isn’t until he has me lying down, him sitting beside me looking down, his hand stroking my hair, that I manage it, my voice barely more than a croak. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he whispers. “Do you need some sleep, baby? Maybe that will make you feel a little better?”

“It’s not—” I hesitate, wanting to tell him but knowing I shouldn’t. I try thinking of a way to spin it somehow, but all the words in my head feel cluttered and sharp around the edges. And I’m just so fucking tired, too tired to sift through them for half-truths that will placate him. “It’s not that kind of tired. It’s… inside.”

There’s a long stretch of silence before he whispers in a broken voice, “I know.”

Something twists in my gut. Fear, most likely. Maybe some grief. A touch of sadness for the possible end of our relationship.

Because he knows .

When I force myself to look at him, I see it in his face, in the tilt of his head, in the way his chest is heaving, in the sadness of his eyes. He knows.

Hayden knows.

“It’s depression, isn’t it?” he asks.

The words are like a detonator, setting off the bomb that’s been lingering in my life for years.

Except, I don’t feel the explosion. There’s no shockwave, no fire and shrapnel, no panic. There’s just… calm . Like that moment in the movies when the bomb goes off and everything goes perfectly quiet. Usually, it means the character has momentarily lost their hearing before it all comes rushing back like a second blow.

I grasp onto the calm—the fucking relief— in case it’s just as fleeting.

“Yes.”

“Okay.” He nods slowly. Processing. “ Okay .”

The second blow hits. My whole body rocks with the force of it. Shockwave. Fire and shrapnel. Panic.

Panic, panic, panic.

“You can’t tell!” I nearly shout, my voice sharp and frantic. “Promise you won’t tell!”

“Hey. Hey .” He wraps his hand around the side of my neck, his thumb steady against my racing pulse. I don’t realize until I have his calm touch on me that I’m shaking. “I promise. It’s just you and me, okay? Just you and me, baby.”

I swallow. Then swallow again. I feel a tear fall, slowly rolling down my right cheek. I’m not sure if it’s the first or not. His eyes track it as he nods slowly, understanding. Accepting. Calculating. Because he knows.

He knows.

He knows and I’m terrified.

He knows and I’m so goddamn relieved.

“I’m not going to bombard you with questions tonight.” I sigh, relieved by that too. I’m so fucking tired. “But I need to at least ask one and you have to be honest with me, Ethan. That’s the only way I keep this a secret, understand? You have to. Not just for this question, but for all of them I ask tomorrow and anytime after.”

I swallow hard, wishing he wasn’t right. “Okay.”

“Do you want to hurt yourself?”

I have to look away, unable to see the fear that’s now in his eyes. Unable to look at him as I spill my secrets. “No. It’s not—it’s never been like that.”

“Never?”

“Never.” I shake my head. “It gets bad enough where I stop caring sometimes. I don’t want to get out of bed or eat or take care of myself. But I’ve never felt this urge to like… do something, if that makes sense?”

“Because it’d be too much energy?” he asks, his voice holding a slight tremble to it.

I distract myself with the blankets, rearranging them around me. It doesn’t make it any easier to answer though. “Yes.”

“That’s—” Dangerous? Terrifying? Passively suicidal? He can’t get himself to finish the sentence, but he doesn’t have to. I get the gist. “What if it weren’t too much energy, baby?”

“I guess maybe there has been a time or two when, if it wasn’t too much energy, I—I might have, yeah? Maybe. I don’t think I’d be able to do that to my dad, though.” I close my eyes. “But not tonight. Not—I’m not there tonight, tired or not.”

“What about this past week?”

“No. I— fuck .” Suddenly needing to be closer to him, I curl onto my side and rest my head in his lap. He adjusts himself so we’re both comfortable and begins stroking my hair. Tears start to well up in my eyes as I admit, “I’m afraid, though. I’m afraid of how dark things are getting. How tired I am. How fucking hopeless it’s all starting to feel.”

The hand that’s not in my hair comes up to grab my shoulder. It’s shaking. “It’s not hopeless. We’re going to get you help. It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”

“No doctors.”

“Ethan—”

I sit up, quickly wiping my face. He needs to know I’m serious about that. It’s not up for discussion. “No doctors. Please, Hay.”

“I think this is chemical, baby. Medicine helps when it’s chemical.”

“ No .”

“If you had diabetes, you’d take insulin or—”

“It’s not that. It’s not shame or being tough or any of that bullshit. I know I need it, okay?” I look away from him, gritting my teeth. “But I’ve spent over a decade hiding this from my dad. I won’t let him find out now.”

I can practically hear all the questions that pop up in his head at that. Even without looking at him, I know the confusion he’s experiencing. The worry.

“You’re going to have to back up,” he finally says.

“Not tonight,” I beg, looking at him again. More tears fall down my cheeks. “I’m so tired . Please. You said only one question.”

It’s clear he doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t push the issue either.

“Okay.” He cups my face, wiping my tears away. “Okay, baby. You’re right. That can wait. I know this is a question too, but don’t hate me, okay? It’s the last one.”

“Okay?”

“Is there anything I can do tonight to help?”

My lips twitch toward the ghost of a smile. “You already have.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I felt like I was drowning back there, Hay. I was drowning and then I looked up and you were there and now I can breathe again.”

“Anytime you need a shot of oxygen, I’m here, baby.” He smiles, lifting a hand to wipe my tears away. “I’ll always be right here.”

I suddenly realize I can’t go to sleep yet. There’s one more thing I have to tell him. A big thing. Maybe even bigger than the secret he’s now discovered. “Hayden?”

“Yeah?”

I lean forward, resting my forehead against his. His hands grab my waist, holding me steady, never letting me fall. My lips twitch toward a smile. “I’m crazy in love with you.”

His breath hitches. Then he moves one hand to the back of my head and touches his lips to mine. It’s a slow, lazy kiss, but that doesn’t mean it’s lacking in emotion. Everything I want to hear him say spills out of that kiss. He still puts it into words when he pulls away. “I love you too, baby. So much.”

“Good.” I exhale. “Good.”

“Very good,” he agrees with a warm chuckle and one last kiss. “Now let’s get you some sleep, okay? We’ll talk about the rest tomorrow.”

“Will you stay?”

“Yeah. Let me just change into some comfortable clothes, okay?”

I smile then, just a tiny one. “Okay.”

Waking up comes too fast. Especially when I nearly startle out of the bed when I open my eyes to find Hayden watching me like a total creep. Or like a guy unbearably worried about the one he loves, I suppose.

“Hey,” he whispers.

“Hey.” Guilt sparks heavy in my chest. “Did you not sleep?”

“I managed some.” I’m not sure if I believe him. He looks rough, which is hard to do when you look as beautiful as him. “You want time before we talk? Maybe some coffee?”

“No. I—no.” I hesitate, then give in and turn onto my side, burying my face in his chest and winding my arm around his waist to pull him close to me. He immediately wraps his arms around me, one carding through my hair and the other settling in the middle of my back. “I want to get it over with.”

He chuckles, but it has little humor in it. “I bet. I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.” I close my eyes since he can’t see me, breathing in the traces of his warm cologne from last night. “I guess—fuck, I guess I should start with my mom.”

“Okay. Let’s start there, then. We can take a break if you need to, okay? We’ve got time, baby.”

I take a deep breath, hoping it’ll make me feel better. It doesn’t.

“My mom killed herself.” He knew this, my dad implied it, but he still goes tense, his hands tightening on me for a moment before he remembers himself and loosens his grip. I keep talking before he can say something awful like he’s sorry. “I was little—I don’t remember it. Probably blocked it out. I remember Mommy slept a lot. I remember she didn’t like going outside. I remember she’d cry sometimes, and I’d ask her what’s wrong, and she’d say nothing. She would say she was happy and it would make her sadder, somehow. Her being happy, I mean. I get that, now. She must have been so fucking frustrated that she was logically happy but her body wouldn’t feel it.”

“Do you feel like that?” he asks after a few seconds of silence.

“Yeah. Sometimes.”

I brace myself for the meaningless sorry, but it doesn’t come. “How did you find out she killed herself?”

“I pieced it together, I think? I don’t know. Maybe in the part of my memories that I’ve blocked out, I found out. I’m not sure. It’s a bear I’ve never wanted to poke.” I sigh. “All I know is that she tried for a really long time to keep going, but she just… couldn’t.”

He breathes deeply, his hand on my back starting to stroke up and down. I’m not sure if it’s meant to soothe me or him. It works on me, just a little. I hope it works on him more. I hate the idea that I’m upsetting him with all this.

“I overheard my dad once, talking to Grace. I didn’t understand what he was saying at the time but he talked about how hard it was to watch her go through that without being able to help or get her to seek help. He—he said he used to hold his breath every time he came home, just waiting for the day where she wouldn’t be there, or she’d be there, but she’d be… you know.”

“I can imagine.”

And he can now. Because I’m an asshole who made him fall in love with a depressed person.

“He was worried I’d be like her. Didn’t know what he would do if he found out I was sick too.” I squeeze my eyes shut. “I promised myself he’d never have to worry about me.”

“That’s not fair to you though, Ethan. You needed help.”

“I was fine.”

“ Fine ,” he says flatly, in the same way you’d say bullshit.

“I was, though. Back then. Not great, but definitely fine. I—I think I had it even as a young teenager. I thought maybe at thirteen when I had my sport’s physical, but I explained it away as the usual teenage angst, you know? I was a junior when I realized I definitely had it, but it was still manageable . It was just bad days sometimes, for no reason. But it was rare, like a day or two a month, and the bad days weren’t even all that bad. I’d get tired and have a hard time wanting to do things, but I pushed through it easily.”

He presses a kiss to my temple. “When did it get worse?”

I huff a breathy sort of laugh that’s not really a laugh at all. “It just kept getting worse as each year went by. More bad days each month, with the level of bad getting worse. I had my first real… I don’t know, episode , I guess you could call it, just before my second year of college. I was home for the summer, but my parents were gone on vacation for a few days. The first day was fine. I went out on the Charles in a boat with one of my high school buddies and his brother. We fished. Drank some beer. Listened to music. Whatever. And I was there, but I wasn’t… there . I kept spacing out and getting this sensation like I couldn’t connect to what was happening to me, almost as if there was a delay of a few seconds, like when the mouths don’t line up with the sound on a movie, you know?”

“I do.”

“By the next day, I was just out of it. I sat on the couch with the TV off and just—I just didn’t exist, almost. It was morning and then I blinked and it was late afternoon and my bladder was going to fucking explode and I was starving, but I didn’t want to get up to pee or eat, I didn’t want to do anything at all.” I shift a little, pressing him backward so I can curl up against his side, resting my cheek on his chest. He returns his fingers to my hair, his hand on my back. “I did though. Do things, I mean. I made myself piss and eat some crackers before crawling into bed.”

“Were you feeling better before your parents came home?”

“Mentally, yeah. But I was dehydrated. Weak. And I was tired, like I had slept so much I just felt all out of whack and drained, almost like I was sick.”

“I bet.”

I smooth the wrinkles on his shirt, my fingers shaking. “I needed to be hospitalized during training camp.”

He goes completely still. Of course he does. This is the big secret and I’m about to share it.

He deserves to know.

I trust him.

I love him.

“What happened?” he asks.

And I tell him.

For the first time since it happened, I tell the story of training camp.

Or, I try.

I get as far as, “I didn’t piss for a day,” before my throat closes and I have to grip his shirt to remind myself I’m not actually floating away like my head is trying to make me think.

He places his hand over mine, giving it a gentle squeeze that doesn’t exactly comfort me, but at least helps ground me a little.

“Take your time,” he whispers.

I do, trying to sort my thoughts out. But my mind is muddy and heavy and I’m getting so fucking tired again. I decide to just let it all come tumbling out, knowing I can straighten details out later if he needs. “It was supposed to be better. The depression, I mean. Getting to the NAHP was supposed to be enough to snap me out of it. Who the fuck can be depressed when their dream has come true? Chemical or not, it was supposed to be enough . I was so high at camp. I was on another plane of existence, Hay. I was—god, it was incredible. All of these guys I had watched on my TV, these guys I idolized. Even just being at a practice arena instead of the real thing, the ice felt different, the skating different. It was—it was everything . But it wasn’t enough. I was wrong.”

I sniff as tears start to soak into his shirt, too lost in my own thoughts to feel bad about it.

“I could feel it happening at camp. Once the depression got worse as I got older, it stopped being random bad days. Or maybe not stopped, sometimes it hits out of nowhere still, but it usually comes in cycles. First, you wake up and you feel a little off, but it’s nothing you can’t ignore, nothing you can’t fake a smile and push through, you know? But then your interactions take more and more energy as the day goes on and you keep remembering you need to do things like eat and drink and piss and whenever you find it’s time for you to do that task, you face it like you’re going to climb a fucking mountain instead of just walk a few feet across the room. You eat yogurt because then you don’t have to chew and you just tip it into your mouth because then you don’t have to look for a spoon. You chug water from the sink instead of waiting long enough to fill your water bottle and then having to carry the damn bottle around. You stare at the door of the bathroom across the room and you picture yourself walking to it a dozen times before you finally manage to move.”

I remove my hand from his shirt, bringing it to his instead. I feel better once our fingers are slotted together. Especially when he starts stroking his thumb with mine.

“Then you wake up the next day, and you’re in a fog. You’ve got one foot in reality, one foot trapped inside the darkest places of your mind, and every time you have to pretend both feet are where they should be, you get a little more exhausted, a little more tempted to just disappear inside yourself completely.

“You miss pieces of time. You can’t keep up with the world around you. A puck flies by, and you just stare as it goes. A hero of yours smiles at you, and you can’t remember how to get your lips to do that, so you just walk away. You know you want to skate, you know that you fucking love to skate, but you can’t quite get yourself to really believe it because your entire being is fighting to convince you otherwise. Maybe it exhausts you, this battle. Or maybe it’s an itch beneath your skin that makes you want to scream and fight and tear the world apart like having to exist is tearing you apart on the inside. Maybe you throw punches at people you shouldn’t just to feel the pain of your knuckles against someone’s skin, a reminder that you actually exist, that you’re still a part of the world around you, even if it’s only through pain.”

I take a moment, exhaling shakily.

“Or maybe you shut down. Maybe you refuse to get out of bed that next morning. Even as your phone rings and rings and rings until it dies. Even as someone bangs on your hotel room’s door and calls your name and tells you whatever the fuck you’re doing, you better drop it unless you want to lose everything. Even as a voice whispers in your head that you’re making the biggest mistake of your life. And you don’t eat, long enough to be shaking from how hungry you are, then even longer until you don’t feel hungry at all. And you don’t pee, you don’t pee for so fucking long you’re sweating and your bladder is spasming and there’s piercing pain in your side, and you’re somehow numb and itchy at the same time, and you’re wicked exhausted, you’re so exhausted you don’t even know how you’re still able to breathe in and out.”

I tilt my chin, hiding myself in the crook of his neck.

“And then one of the times you wake up, there’s knocking again, and the hotel manager is saying it’s a welfare check, and you snap out of it. You shout that you’re fine, that you want to be left alone, and they listen. And you’re in enough pain that you drag yourself to the bathroom. And you’re pissing blood. And your mouth is so dry it feels like your tongue is going to crack in half. And you plug your phone into the charger and you have 122 unread messages, 79 missed calls, and a full voicemail box. And that piercing pain in your side is so bad, you’re dizzy with it. And you take your phone, your wallet, your lucky Red Sox cap that wasn’t lucky at all, and the clothes on your back, and you just leave. And you walk two blocks to a free clinic and give a fake name and wind up at a hospital as John Doe, treated for a kidney infection, before spending a night at a homeless shelter because that’s how bad you fucking look, they think you’re homeless, and you don’t even correct them. And you text your family to let them know you’re okay, you’re safe, you’re just laying low and will explain everything later, before shutting your phone off because you can’t face the notifications waiting for you. And you sleep in that shelter because you’re still too depressed to problem solve your way out of the situation you’re in and you know you shouldn’t give up but you can’t quite remember why you shouldn’t give up, so you decide to stay where you are until you can remember.”

I go quiet, remembering how I’d felt for those few days, trying to claw my way out of the darkness that had swallowed me up. Remembering how scary it had been to wish it would all just stop before remembering why I couldn’t. I spent every waking minute listing the reasons I had to stay alive, worried they’d slip away again. Terrified, really.

“And then you finally wake up one day,” I whisper, my voice raspy from all the talking. “And you feel like yourself again. And you realize you’ve ruined everything.”

Hayden tightens his hold on me, pressing featherlight kisses to my hair and temple. “You didn’t ruin everything. You set yourself back. There’s a difference, sweetheart.”

“Maybe.” I sniffle. “But it just keeps getting worse, Hay. It just keeps getting worse and I’m already on my last chance and I’m starting to think it’s only a matter of time.”

His hands flex against me. “Until what?”

“Until I do ruin everything.”

I feel him relax, releasing a sharp breath, and realize what he thought I meant. It hurts to know I made him worry about that. It hurts worse to know it probably won’t be the last time I do.

“You need help, Ethan. This sounds like clinical depression, from the little I know of it. That won’t just go away. In fact, it’s likely to get worse.”

“I know.” I’ve known for a while. “But it doesn’t matter.”

“Ethan—”

“No.” I pull away from him, my insides turning itchy and cold. I have just enough energy to give him a look full of betrayal. “Do you know how fast rumors travel in this industry? I go to some doctor for antidepressants tomorrow morning, and I’m trending by tomorrow afternoon.”

“So… what? You just keep it all in until it ruins everything like you’re afraid it will? What then?”

I shrug, but I can’t look at him any longer so I drop my gaze. “Then—then it ruins everything.”

“And what will you tell your dad then?” He asks, not cruelly, but it still hurts. “What did you tell him about camp? Didn’t he ask?”

“I told him I was stupid and got wasted. That I lost track of time and missed two days and the coach punished me by sending me down. I told him the news outlets got it wrong—that I didn’t go missing for more than those two days, but the coach was so pissed he just sent me away and wrote me off for the Devils this year.”

“And you’d rather him think you made a dumb decision like that than him know you’re sick?”

“Hayden.” I reach for my hat, my fingers flexing in the air when I realize it’s gone. God, I’m so fucking tired. “He used to hold his breath every time he came into the house, knowing there was a chance my mom would be in there… dead . He used to not sleep, just lying there next to her, watching her breathe. He’d fight with himself, tell himself he was being paranoid, tell himself she was fine. And then my dad, my brave, strong, worried dad walked into our house one day after bringing me to the park and found—” I stop, taking a breath to steady myself as a sob bubbles in my chest. I feel fresh tears fall down my cheeks. Just finish it. Finish explaining and it can be over. “I will not do that to him. I will not make him hold his breath again. So don’t ask.”

A wounded noise pulls my attention to him. My heart cracks right down the middle when I see how agonized his expression is, his eyes rimmed red. There’s a tear-track on his cheek. Fuck . “So you’ll just do it to me instead?”

The words are like a fist to the chest, squeezing the air straight from my lungs. “What?”

He looks hesitant for a second before he steels himself and admits, “I didn’t sleep last night, Ethan. I couldn’t because every time I started drifting off, I’d jolt awake with panic that you had left the bed to hurt yourself.”

I try not to crumble right then.

I’ve made him into my dad?

Am I my mom?

I press a hand over my face, shuddering as I fight against the sob I’ve been desperately fighting.

“I was shaking when I came home earlier,” he continues, every word an anchor around my chest, pulling me down, down, down. “I had to poke my head in and see you were breathing before hiding in the kitchen while I settled myself down.”

A single sob escapes me before I roll off the bed and push to my feet. My legs feel weak, my whole body trembling, but I couldn’t stay there. I couldn’t—I can’t— I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

“Ethan, I love you. Please. If not for you, for me.”

“I never asked you to love me,” I cry, whipping around to glare at him. The glare doesn’t work all that well though because I fucking love him and he’s crying too and everything is awful . “I—I warned you to stay away. To leave me alone. This is exactly why I tried to keep my distance. I knew you’d do this. I knew you’d push things.”

“Well, here I am anyway.” He takes a shaky step forward, his chest heaving as more tears fall down his cheeks. His eyes are wide with desperation. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t—don’t make me scared to come home, baby. Times are different now. It doesn’t have to be like this. You can get help. Please. Let me get you help.”

“You don’t have to be afraid. I’d never do that. What she did. I’d never—I won’t do that.”

“I don’t believe you,” he says, his voice choked at the end with a barely-contained sob. “I’m sorry, baby, but I don’t believe you.”

That’s the last straw for me.

I collapse to the floor with a sob of my own, feeling scooped out and raw and tired, so tired— god, I’m so fucking tired .

He lowers himself beside me, wrapping an arm around my back and pulling me against him. I cling to his shirt as more sobs pour out of me.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, sounding agonized. “I’m sorry. Please. Please get help.”

I’m too scared to get help. I’m scared of the secret getting out. Scared of breaking my dad’s heart. A decade of keeping this shit bottled up, all for nothing?

But what scares me worse is what will happen if I don’t do it. What would another decade be like? Would I survive it? Or would I turn Hayden into my dad?

“Okay,” I whisper.

He freezes, even his breathing coming to a halt. “Okay?”

“I’ll… think about it.”

It’s all I can give him, but it seems to be enough from the way he relaxes against me. I’m glad, because it’s all I can give. My head is way too messy to make big decisions right now. God, I’m so fucking tired.

I don’t realize I’ve whispered the thought out loud until Hayden murmurs, “I know, baby.” He lowers me back on the bed, pulling the covers up around us. “Let’s get some rest, okay?”

“Yeah,” I whisper, my body already sinking into exhaustion. “Okay.”