Chapter 38
Emmett
He needs to wash his hands.
That’s the thought that circles around inside my head over and over again as I watch Tristen’s disappearing back.
I should tell him. To wash me off before he touches anyone else, before he runs headfirst into fire, or whatever it is that he does when he’s here. To rid himself of me before I make his life worse.
It’s what I do.
I poison people. Make them do shit that they wouldn’t have done without me around.
I shouldn’t even be alive to do it.
Apropos that I’m back on the bathroom tile, just in a fucking firehouse this time, with another person infected by me.
I made him kiss me. I made him want me.
I scream into the cavern of my thighs, but no sound passes my vocal cords.
Funny how they always fail me when I need them most. When screaming, yelling, making any sounds at all could save me, my body can’t be bothered to make a single peep.
I’m as pathetic as always.
Weak.
So fucking weak.
The tears trailing down my chin collect at the neck of the hoodie that doesn’t belong to me, the damp material releasing the scent of my undoing.
Sage and leather.
Oil and sin.
The cries rack me harder and I tip over, my shoulder meeting the cold floor with a thud.
I barely feel it.
I want to feel it because maybe if I did, I wouldn’t have all this shit inside of me that steals my breath and begs to leak out of my skin.
“Make it stop.”
My throat scratches with the whispered words and I jam back the cuff of my sleeve to my elbow.
I want it to be over.
My soundless sobs make it hard to breathe, hard to see the little white lies rippling across my skin when I think of all the times I thought the very same thing.
Reminders of all the times I’ve already tried to get it to stop and failed.
I thought the pills would work this time.
I scratch the textured skin, and I feel nothing.
Thought about you all night.
His comments jolt me, and I dig my nail in deeper with each pass, going until I feel dampness.
It’s okay.
Hard enough that little rolls of skin are collecting beneath my nail.
It’s okay, bub. I’m hard, too.
Deeper still until the tip of my finger is coated.
Get it out, I just want it out.
If I bleed, will there be room left for it to be okay?
“E-Em? Em.”
The creak of the bathroom door opening makes me jerk and has my stomach rolling over inside me.
A gasp tells me I’m not fast enough to sit up.
The following curse suggests I didn’t get my sleeve pulled down quickly enough, either.
I squeeze my eyes shut until I feel Hatley drop down next to me, his back to the wall like mine—lockers. I’m near the lockers—and he says nothing.
His breath is shallow. Light. Barely audible.
My wrist stings, the edges of a brand-new break in the skin catching on the fuzzy inside of my sleeve.
I roll it against my shin.
“Aren’t you going to say s-s-something?”
“No,” Hatley mutters thickly.
I don’t want him to see my face, so I don’t look at him like I want to. He shouldn’t even be here. I shouldn’t be here.
“I’m disgusting,” I whisper.
“Also no.”
I watch from the corner of my eye as he pulls his knees up and sits like me, the heat of him warming my side, even though he’s not touching me.
I don’t want to want it; the comfort that he brings with him battling it out against the pressure in my chest that reminds me of Tristen.
It makes my stomach roll.
“Shouldn’t you be out there?”
“I’m off.”
I huff and press my arm harder into my leg. “Then what are you doing here, Hatley?”
He draws back a long, slow breath and it feels like it takes him forever to release it. To open his mouth and answer me.
“Sitting with you.”
I wish I could take it back. I don’t want to know now.
My head snaps in his direction, the skin of my face tightening under the dried tears and my eyes threaten to unleash another wave when I see the seriousness on his abnormally stoic profile.
He’s staring off into the distance, his brows pulled low, his light hair falling over his forehead.
There’s nothing about him that looks different, and yet it feels like every bit of him is.
The man sitting next to me is not the same one that woke Tristen up earlier this week by stealing his blanket.
Or when he snuck in on my side of the bed because Tristen had taken up too much room on his side the other day.
He’s not the same one that flirts with Blu and carried Lemon through the house.
“Wh-what do you mean?” I almost whisper, a thickness building in my throat.
“You don’t have to sit alone anymore, Em.” His shimmering eyes flip to mine and something inside my chest pinches so painfully that I curl up tighter around it.
But I’ve always been alone.
“Why?” I blurt out and it sounds almost like a sob.
He flashes me a soft smile, one that feels more weighed than happy, and glances away.
“Because your friends hear you.” His throat moves with a swallow, like that statement means more to him, and my brows pinch.
“But I didn’t say anything.”
His sight flicks to the wrist I still have pressed against my shin, the sting barely noticeable.
“You didn’t have to.”
A whole new wave of tears flood my eyes and my chest goes tight.
“I-I didn’t mean to,” I cry, and yank the neck of my hoodie up over my head until my vision goes black. “I didn’t mean to make him mad.”
“Who’s mad?” Hatley asks calmly, his voice a complete contrast to the turmoil simmering beneath my skin.
And again … he reminds me of Tristen.
I pull my arms through the sleeves and wrap them around my middle. The t-shirt I’m wearing underneath it bunches up and drags along the scrape on my wrist.
It makes it burn.
It should hurt.
“Tristen,” I answer wetly and press my thumb into the fresh wound. “He touched me, and I made him mad. I don’t want him to be mad at me, Hatley.”
I hear his breath catch. He tries to hide it behind his next slow, even one, but I can tell.
He’s disgusted by me, too.
“Pretty sure even if I said he wasn’t mad, you wouldn’t believe me, anyway.
So, I’ll say it.” There’s a pause, like maybe he’s collecting his thoughts, because he’s right.
I don’t believe him. I shouldn’t believe him.
“I’m mad at you.” I freeze inside the darkness of my hoodie with wet lashes and a shooting pain in my abdomen as he continues.
“For fucking with my friend and making him bleed, and then not letting me fuckin’ look at it. ”
My joints lock and my heart races.
He hates me now, too.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur to the darkness that covers me like a weight, and suck back a breath. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Do you realize I’m talking about you, fool?”
Everything inside me clenches up so tight that I dig my thumb into my wrist just to feel something other than the weight of his statement.
“You’re my friend,” he says vehemently, like it might mean something. “And I don’t like that you were treating my friend that way.”
He doesn’t mean it. He can’t mean it.
“I’m not your friend.”
“Too bad. I think you are.”
“Why?” I blurt again and run the back of my hand across my wet cheek.
“You watched me pass out, throw up, and beg my best friend for another hit.” I shrug, though I’m not sure how much my shoulders actually move.
He continues after a beat filled with nothing but a sniffle from me.
“Then you didn’t look at me any different after.”
It sounds so loaded that I peek out of the hoodie through my mess of hair and the hood.
There’s a wet streak down his red-spotted cheek that catches my eye, and he sniffs. I’m not sure if he can tell that I’m watching him as he shoulders the trail away and clears his throat.
“So why don’t you come out of there, yeah? Lemme patch you up and show you around. The house is still empty for now.”
The shine to his eyes screams something that his words aren’t saying, and it makes my throat feel thick.
And though I want to ask why again for so many different reasons, I don’t.
My jaw feels too stiff to move around the words.
So, I tilt my head in what feels like a nod if it weighed a hundred pounds and let the fabric fall away from my face. My hair clings to my damp skin and lashes, getting into my mouth.
Hatley glances over at me, his shoulders rising with his inhale and then he—
Bursts out laughing?
“Jesus, Em, you look like you just stuck your dick in a light socket.”
I should be mad at the sound, perturbed by his mirth, but I’m not.
It’s actually kind of a nice sound …
Do I sound like that?
He pushes to his feet and dusts off his ass even though there’s nothing there, then holds his hand out to me with his lips stretched into a smile.
I shake my head and push to my feet on my own. It makes my head spin and my ears pulse.
He doesn’t seem to mind the dismissal, and I’m really glad he doesn’t.
“C’mon,” he murmurs. “Let’s leave the demons on the floor.”
I’m not sure what that means, but I nod and follow him anyway.