CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Heartbreak condemned me to my bed like a sickness, the soft mattress my only comfort. I hid under the covers, its hollow embrace failing to soothe the ache in my chest, the memories of Nathaniel and the way I ended things replaying mercilessly behind closed eyelids.
It's for the best, the Devil reminded me.
“Guses.”
Auden, wrapped in a blanket, stood in my bedroom doorway, face pale and hair sticking up in all different directions. His glasses had fogged up, blurring his watery blue eyes.
"Are you still feeling sick?" I asked.
He nodded, feet shuffling toward the bed to sit beside me. I raised a hand to his head. Ice cold. No fever.
“Maybe we should go see a doctor,” I said.
"Why do you always make me go to the doctor when you don't even go for yourself?" he complained, shaking his head.
"What are you talking about?"
"You don't take care of yourself."
"I'm fine, Auden," I said. "I'm not sick. Just tired."
You're always lying to him.
"Can we do something today, then?" he asked. "I never get to spend time with you anymore."
He’s begging for your affection. Just like you used to beg for your mother’s. You're more and more like her every day.
“Of course,” I breathed out, massaging my forehead to silence the Devil’s cruel truth. “What would you like to do?"
“Can we…go home?”
“We are home,” I frowned, feeling his forehead again in case a fever had formed in the last minute or so.
“Not here,” he said, gently smacking my hand away. “Home. North Lane.”
The House on North Lane.
“Why…why would you want to go there?”
“I want to see,” he said.
“See what?”
He didn’t answer, his eyelids falling shut as a bead of sweat trickled down his forehead.
Frown deepening, I carried him to his bedroom and tucked him in, stroking the hair out of his eyes as my mind wandered to the House on North Lane.
It couldn't be a coincidence that the House was at the centre of all my dreams, that Joe suggested my mother was there, that Auden wanted to return.
The House on North Lane held answers—answers I intended to uncover.
You can’t go back there, the Devil warned. Do not return to that House.
***
Dawnridge library was practically empty, vacant seats stretching in all different directions. There were students scattered, heads bent in unison as they flipped through their summer textbooks, whispers echoing along the walls.
I lowered myself down onto the cushioned booth by the entry, the same one Nathaniel had claimed the night we unintentionally trapped ourselves in the library.
Although I wasn't enrolled in any summer classes, I intended to use the library's resources to research schizophrenia.
In particular, cases of hearing or seeing the Devil.
I needed to understand what was real and what was in my head before I committed to venturing back to the House on North Lane.
An email notification brought my research to a halt. The final grade for Psychological Manipulation had been released, and my finger hovered over the mouse, heart thundering wildly inside my chest. Everything else in my life had crashed and burned. I just needed one thing to go right.
Clicking on 'view my results', my eyes locked on the loading wheel until my grade appeared on screen, the 'High Distinction' sending a wave of relief through my body. I did it. I secured a second-year scholarship.
A cacophony of laughter flooded the entryway, my gaze drifting from my grade toward Professor Haywood. She held a takeaway coffee cup in one hand while the other carried her laptop and books, her glasses sliding down her nose as she laughed at something the student beside her said.
My body stiffened as Nathaniel moved his hands expressively while he spoke, his lips spread into a smile and his head thrown back with laughter.
Look at him. Already much happier without you.
His smile was a dagger to the heart, his laugh the hand that tore it from my flesh, letting me bleed out alone on the floor.
You wanted him to be happy, didn’t you?
No. I wanted him to be as miserable as I was without him. And that was the problem.
I averted my gaze and returned to my grade, clicking on a link to the class ranking without acknowledging the taste of venom on my tongue. Why did everyone else get to be happy? Why was I always left alone to dance with misery?
Because they let themselves be happy. You had your chance.
I didn’t need him. I didn’t need anyone. Loneliness and I were old friends.
Liar.
Equal first place. Tied with Nathaniel, of course.
The class ranking listed his name first, followed by mine right by his side.
If we were still together, we might have celebrated with another date night.
Instead, my gaze drifted toward where he sat with Professor Haywood, discussing the summer class he'd told me he planned on taking. He didn’t turn around.
Not once. Not even when I heard Haywood announce we shared equal first in the course ranking.
Unable to stomach his presence any longer, I gathered my things and fled the library, desperate to escape before the Devil’s words unravelled me once more.
“Augustus.”
I paused in the doorway, glancing up at Nathaniel who peered down at me, expression unreadable. “Congratulations,” I said, voice cold, “you secured the first-place ranking. Just as you wanted.”
“As did you.”
I shrugged. “Not an achievement for me. I wanted to surpass you. Not tie with you.”
“Still?”
“Always.”
Nathaniel sighed. “Can we talk? Please?”
“We’re talking now.”
“You know that's not what I meant."
I turned away, but Nathaniel's fingers found my wrist, holding me back.
"I’m sorry, okay? The interrogation was wrong and–"
“It doesn’t change the fact that you think I’m crazy," I cut him off.
“I don’t think you’re crazy,” he said, inching closer. “But I do think you need some medical attention that–"
I pulled my wrist free. "I'm leaving."
“Please don’t go,” he begged, voice cracking. “Just stop pushing me away. You always shut me out instead of letting me help you.”
“I didn’t ask for your help. I don't want your help."
“One day,” he whispered, eyes saturated with unshed tears, “you’re going to push too hard. And no one is going to be there when you realise you do want help.”
“How hard will I have to push you until you leave me the fuck alone?” I asked.
A flicker of hurt cascaded down his face. “You don’t want me to leave you. You don’t. I know you don‘t.”
The laugh that erupted from me was pure ice. “What makes you so damn sure?”
“I know you,” he whispered, hand extended towards mine, warm gaze pleading, “and you are scared. Your whole world is crumbling. You are running away from something good because you’re terrified to lose it. But Augustus…I am here. I am RIGHT HERE! Don’t run from me. Please…not me.”
My gaze dropped to his hand. A small part of me wanted to reach for him, to collapse in his arms and surrender to the warmth of his body.
It would have been easy. It would have been safe.
Nathaniel would have calmed the raging storm in my head, bringing me to safety like a lighthouse guiding a ship home from sea.
But I left his hand there, alone and untouched, shutting out the sound of his choked sob as I threw away my last chance of happiness.