Chapter 3
PERIS
The sun glares in through the open curtains, and I pull my heavy arm over my head with a groan.
“Oh, you’re alive. That’s good.”
If I could roll my eyes without them falling out of my head, I would, but instead, I just grunt at Gabe from wherever he’s standing.
“A man of few words this morning, I see.”
Another grunt as my temples throb from the pressure.
Footsteps thud across the carpet, and then, the blanket is being ripped off my nude body. I yelp and reach for it, but my reactions are too slow, and Gabriel has the blanket thrown to the floor before I can even open my eyes and see the offending object where it lies.
“This is fucking pathetic, Peris,” he snaps, and I can’t help but laugh even as my stomach rolls with the motion.
Before I realize what’s happening, Gabe is shoving a garbage can under my chin, and I’m expelling the contents of my stomach.
My muscles contract and contort, fighting against the motion as they work to cause me the worst pain imaginable.
I clutch at my chest, fighting against the burn as my fingers dig into my throat, unable to breathe as I choke on bile and alcohol.
A hand slams into my back, rocking me forward, but the motion is enough to cause me to gasp, and the oxygen filling my lungs makes me see spots as they dance in front of my eyelids.
“—you breathe?”
“What?” I choke out finally, only catching the tail end of Gabe’s words. My throat feels like I’ve swallowed shards of glass.
“Can you breathe, motherfucker?”
“Damn. Yes,” I heave. My upper half is hunched over the edge of the bed, palm pressed against Gabe’s thigh, the other still against my throat. I’m pretty sure there’s chunks of skin beneath my blunt nails, but I’m trying not to think about that right now.
“Are you done throwing up?” he asks, softer this time, and I fucking hate him for it.
“Fuck you,” I snap, shoving away the best I can, which albeit is pretty fucking pathetic when I wobble and nearly topple on top of him in my attempt to escape his grasp.
Gabe just scoffs and helps me sit up. I lean back against the wall and let out a breath when the frigidness seeps into me, instantly cooling my fevered skin.
“Yeah, Peris. Fuck me,” he sighs again, and I want to tell him to get the fuck out, but for some reason, my mouth doesn’t want to work.
What I say instead is, “What are you doing in here?”
“I’ve been coming in every hour to check on you.”
I blink once. Twice. Try to ignore the twinge of guilt in my chest. I refuse to feel remorse for dealing with it all the only way I know how.
It’s the only damn thing that makes me forget him… forget them both.
I lift my head, but I still can’t meet his eyes, so instead, I focus on his mess of curls framing his face. “Well, I’m not dead, so thanks for that.”
Gabe is deadpan as he says, “At the rate you’ve been going, it’s not going to take much more to kill you off, and then, what will all of this have been for? Huh, Peris?”
“Fuck you!” I snap again, heat filling my chest and tightening every muscle within it.
I don’t even care that I’m as naked as the day I was born as I push to my feet, fighting dizziness as I shove Gabe in the chest, causing him to stumble back a few steps at the unexpected burst of physical anger from me.
“You ever think maybe that’s the fucking point?
!” I snap the words and then immediately regret it when I watch the way Gabe’s face falls into one furrowed with worry and concern—exactly what I don’t fucking need right now.
“Gabe—” I try, but he cuts me off.
“Peris, what the fuck? Are you… suicidal?”
“No,” I scoff and drag my hand through my hair, pushing it out of my face. I turn my back on him and scour the floor for my underwear. I can’t find them, so I yank open the dresser and pull on a pair of shorts so at least I’m not having this conversation naked.
“Then what the hell did you mean? I know you said last year… but I didn’t think it was that serious…
” He seems to be talking more to himself than me, so I let him, dropping down on my bed again, back to the wall because I need that coolness as I grab the pack of smokes from my nightstand and light one, inhaling the nicotine deeply.
I catch Gabe’s narrowed gaze, but I couldn’t care less.
Gabriel paces back and forth across my floor, fingers twisted in front of him, curls bouncing with every heavy step on the carpet. I watch him in silence, cigarette hanging between my lips, smoke curling up and stinging my eyes. The burn makes my stomach hurt, but it’s a necessary kind of pain.
When my smoke is nearly half gone, he finally speaks again, voice softer than I’ve ever heard it. It immediately puts every hair of mine on end. He stands right in front of me and takes the cigarette out of my mouth to put it between his own lips—something I have never seen him do.
“Do you want to die, Peris?” he asks, dark brown eyes peering deeply into mine, searching for something I hope I don’t give him.
But what else is there? More lies?
What even is the truth?
I stare back, unsure of what I’m going to say until the words spill from my lips.
“No,” I tell him truthfully, feeling the weight of it settle on my chest like the shards of glass still resting in my throat. “But I don’t think I want to live, either.”
“Oh, Peris…” he says, so softly, and as he reaches for me, I panic. His arms extend, face soft and open and it’s Gabe. My best friend. The only one who’s never left—aside from Ma—but I can’t.
I jerk away from him with a hiss, jaw locked tight. “Don’t.”
“Peris…” And it’s the way he says my name that pisses me off. Like I’ve done something wrong. Something to be ashamed of.
“Get the fuck out.”
His eyes widen, nearly bulging out of his skull in shock at my venom. “What?”
“I said,” I drawl, feeling a new wave of heat come over me. It flushes through my limbs, where it settles in the very tips of my fingers, tingling and pulsing. “Get. The fuck. Out,” I hiss. “Before I kill you.” I push into his space, putting us nose to nose.
Gabe’s nostrils flare as he pulls in a deep breath. “You don’t mean that.” He’s hurt. I’ve hurt him.
And I don’t care.
“You wanna fucking bet?” Just as I reach up to clock him, he jerks back, putting a good foot between us before I can make contact with his jaw. He stares at me in shock, but there’s something resigned in his eyes. Something sad and desperate and a bit hollow.
Welcome to the club, buddy.
“You can’t push me away, Peris. I’m not going anywhere,” he says as he walks away from me, his words a contradiction to his actions.
But even as I’m filled with a tingling heat that’s itching to be released, a part of me—the rational, intuitive part of me that’s buried down deep—believes him.
I just can’t let it in. Because if I do that, I’ll have to let it all back in, and that’s sure as shit not going to happen.
I’ll lose my mind if I let him in again.
No.
He needs to stay out, and this is the only way I can make it happen.
“You fucking reek.”
“Good thing I didn’t ask you,” I snap back as I stumble to class, still slightly hungover. I’m sweating tequila from my pores, and I know I stink, but I didn’t have time to shower. I barely woke in time to get here.
My phone buzzing in my pocket pulls me away from Gabriel’s stare, the prick, and I pull it out of my pocket, but I freeze when I see the name illuminating the screen. It could be one of two people…
Gabriel leans over my shoulder—the nosey fuck—and asks snidely, “You gonna answer that?”
“No,” I mutter and shove it back in my pocket, hating every single vibration against my leg as I continue on to English something or whatever the fuck it is. But my heart rate has slowed somewhat knowing it’s not him.
“When was the last time you talked to her?”
I freeze, jaw muscles locking tight. “When did that become your business?” I spit through clenched teeth.
“It’s always been my business, Peris,” he says easily as he walks in step next to me, even going as far as to hold the door open for me as we walk into the building. The vortex has a swirl of crisp autumn leaves billowing up around us as we walk through, and my feet crunch through them.
“Actually—” I start before I’m cut off.
“And I can tell you exactly how long it’s been. Months, dude. Months.”
I rear back, eyes widening accusingly at my best friend. “What the fuck?”
Gabe arches his brow in defiance, the stubborn fuck. “Yeah, I talk to your mom. So what?”
“So what?” I parrot, mind reeling. What the hell is going on? I stumble over my own two feet and nearly trip, but Gabe catches me by the elbow. I shove away from him with a grunt. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
“Fine. Prick.”
“Why the fuck are you talking to my mom?”
He rolls his eyes, like I’m the annoying one. The audacity.
“Why do you think, dude? If I didn’t, she’d think you’ve gone and fucking died or something, and I happen to like Elise enough to not want her to worry about you—or at all, if I can help it since you don’t seem to give a fuck,” he says pointedly, eyes darting down to my phone in my pocket.
I stiffen from head to toe, every muscle locking tight.
“You don’t know shit,” I seethe, jaw locked tight, molars grinding.
“Right.” His response is cold and clipped—and I should expect that from him. I deserve it anyway, but it surprises me, nonetheless.
“Gabe—” I start, but he stalks away from me without a word, his back muscles corded with tension. I watch him walk further down the hall and into the classroom without a word, my mind reeling with this new realm of information I can’t really process in my state.