Chapter 6
Emmett
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
My aunt stares at me after my outburst in a way that I want to both argue with and shrink away from. It’s a terrible position to be put in. One that twists up my still sensitive stomach.
“I’m sorry, precious. Natalie and Brenda both called in. I have to work the ER for the rest of the day, and they won’t let you leave without a ride.”
She’s fluffing the pillow behind me like that’ll help bring it back to life from its limp nature and make this shitty situation better.
“Natalie and Brenda both suck at their jobs. How can they do that?” I argue.
They’re … caretakers. Nurses. People who are supposed to care.
Why aren’t they here to do that?
“I can call your mom if you want.”
“What?!” I snap out with a rolling stomach and a suddenly dry tongue. “Nope. I’ll just stay here, take up a room I don’t need, and rack up more bills I can’t pay.”
God, I think I might throw up again.
The anxiety of staying here is almost as bad as leaving. Going back to the real world. Being in a house that I share with my parents because they can’t take care of themselves without me even if I could afford to live alone.
I probably shouldn’t live alone.
Though, I suppose the other night is enough of a reason to believe that I’d at least eventually call for help when I inevitably take too many pills that I also can’t afford to replace but desperately need to keep my head on straight.
They weren’t even mine, they were Mother’s.
God, this is so fucked.
“Aunt B,” I mutter when she fiddles with the blanket all over again, placing it just so over my skinny and always freezing legs. “I’m okay.” I’m not. “Just tell them someone’s out in the lot for me. I’ll walk.”
She shakes her head slowly.
“I couldn’t do that. Not after what you went through.”
“You mean what I did.”
Her head snaps my direction, and I can see it in her eyes. She knows.
“You shouldn’t be by yourself, sweet boy. Accident or not.”
She’s trying to believe my lie.
God, she’s too good to have me around.
I put that downturn on her lips. I am the reason she’s scared to let me leave. I’m the one that made her feel like I might end it the second her back is turned. Gave her trust issues. Made her believe lies and question truths.
And this isn’t the first time.
I am my mother and my father all in one.
“It could have been coke. Heroin. Meth.”
Bobbie doesn’t take the bait of my shitty joke. I suppose it is pretty ill-timed, now that I consider it, but I can’t take it back.
“I heard sugar is twenty times more additive that that shit.”
I groan at the sound of Tristen’s voice coming from behind my aunt and drop my head to my hands.
“Thought I got rid of you,” I mumble.
There’s a chuckle that’s light and airy and has the hair on the back of my neck standing up moments before my senses are consumed by the sugary-sweet scent he brought in with him.
“Nice try, bub. It’ll take a lot more than the two-hour silent treatment and a nap to chase me off. Coffee?”
My aunt falls right into the trap with a smile on her face, I’m sure, while I just dig the heels of my palms into my eye sockets. It does nothing but make colors burst behind my lids and force me to blink to refocus my eyes.
When it does … I’m staring right at Tristen and his bright white smile as he talks to my aunt.
One of his front teeth is a little crooked, slightly overlapping the other.
I fixate on it. That the defect does nothing to take away from how …
alluring his grin is. How it just adds to the woke up like this look.
Messy hair he probably spent time in the mirror perfecting.
The white shirt beneath a leather jacket—because of course he’s got one of those that he’s worn every time he’s come in—is rumpled like it laid out on a chair all night instead of a hanger.
Meanwhile, I’m in the same striped shirt my aunt brought me when she found out I was here. On day three of a sponge bath in the sink because the idea of getting completely naked in an unlocked room makes me feel dirtier than the grime on my skin.
I shiver.
Tristen’s smile wavers.
He pats Bobbie’s arm, then produces another to-go cup with a little tag flying off the side and—
Fuck, he’s offering it to me?
“I thought tea might be better.”
I blink at the sudden sting in my eyes. “What?”
“It’s green tea.” Tristen lifts it in my direction, bringing it closer to me. “Supposed to be healing or whatever.”
I’m still staring at it. Struck frozen while he holds it between us.
I’m like that long enough that Aunt B clears her throat and I jump, swallowing hard.
Tristen’s eye twitches.
“T-thank you,” I mumble with a dry tongue and cradle both hands around the top and bottom, avoiding contact with his grip. The top burns my pinkie, the little drinking hole letting loose a tiny tendril of steam when I pull it closer, but I don’t pay it any mind.
I’ve never had green tea before.
I’ve never had anything from a café before, either.
“They added blueberry.” He tips his own cup to his lips and sips. “Supposed to make it better.”
I nod and look down at the warm cup, its white lid cautioning against the elevated temperature inside, and work a swallow down.
Him and Bobbie go back to talking around me as if I’m not here, but I’m okay with it because I don’t think I can handle talking anymore.
Braving a sip when I’m certain neither of them are watching me, my eyes go wide when my tongue is covered in too-hot, amazing tasting liquid.
It’s almost floral and fruity at the same time.
Like springtime in full bloom in a drink that soothes down my throat and settles in my stomach like a feather.
I clutch my midsection, wrapping around myself to keep the feeling as long as possible, careful of the cup as I do.
Do they have any idea that a feeling like this exists?
Risking a glance through my lashes, I watch Tristen’s crooked smile form words I don’t bother listening to. Study the way that one side of that grin makes his cheek scrunch up more than the other, making his eye look squinted.
An eye that darts over to me, catching mine, then wings back to my aunt like nothing ever happened.
The flush on my face is quick and hot.
“It’s good,” I murmur to the blanket though they’re mid-conversation and slink off the other side, setting the cup on the table.
“Yeah?” Tristen asks and tips back his own, tag flittering around his busted knuckles. “I thought so.”
Did he … get us the same thing?
And why do I like that idea?
I shake my head back and forth. “Yes. Aunt, can I go to the cafeteria?”
She looks taken aback when I meet her gaze then drop mine to the bed between us.
“Wait, you aren’t going home?” Tristen butts in and steps closer, but the bed is in the way of him getting far. “You okay?”
“Yes,” I answer at the same time my aunt does.
“He just doesn’t have a ride,” she adds, and I shoot her a look.
“What? No way.” He empties his hands and starts flinging the blankets back like he’s looking for something. “I’ll take you. C’mon. Grab your stuff.”
I go stiff as a board, the last bit of warmth from the tea fading away, leaving behind a racing heart and an achy chest.
“No, thank you,” I all but pant out and pull back.
Tristen’s hands fly up in surrender. “Promise I’m just here to help, bub. Hospitals suck, yeah? So let me get you home.”
Home … home.
He can’t go near my home. No one should ever visit that place.
It’ll taint him with this blackness that’s covered me like permanent ink. Staining my hands and therefore everything I touch.
“No. No.” I fight the shiver that wants to take over my limbs and fail.
A rush of dread rolls over me, leaving nothing but a racing heart in its wake.
“It’s cool. Can I take you somewhere else? Please?”
The desperation in his request has my eyes snapping up.
When did he move closer?
“My place? I have a house and a roommate, but he’s totally chill. Probably won’t even be home.”
He takes one step closer, his brows pinched over those eyes that I swear see right through me when I say nothing.
“You have a choice,” he almost whispers and it feels like he’s talking to a different part of me. A desolate piece that hasn’t seen the light of day in decades. “You don’t have to stay here.”
Don’t I?
“Emmett, honey,” my aunt’s soft voice adds to the torment of my psyche, pulling my gaze her direction. “It’s okay. Go if you want. I’ll just be working.”
“I …”
My throat is thick, and my lips are dry.
“O-okay.”