Chapter 65
Tristen
“He came outside last night.”
My head whips so fast in my best friend’s direction that my neck cracks. “He did?”
I hate how small that one question sounds, how loaded, and clear my throat.
“Shocked the fuck outta me, too, man,” he mumbles, then sticks his tongue out in concentration as he pieces the junk carburetor back together. “I mean, when you asked for my assistance, I didn’t know I’d be babysitting, but—ow!”
The heel of my palm stings from the slap to the back of his head, but my best friend just chuckles, bright eyes landing on me.
His laughter dies off quickly.
“I know you’re worried about him, Ten. I am, too,” Hatley admits with more emotion than I expected.
I should have, though. I should have known.
It’s all been so fucked up—I’ve been so fucked up—that this is the first time I’ve seen Hatley in person since it all happened.
I blow out a long breath and run a grease-stained hand through my hair.
“What else am I supposed to do? I can’t leave him like this.”
Fuck, just walking out here, to the front yard that’s mostly made of dirt at this point, of the house Emmett’s in makes me feel guilty. Like I’m abandoning him. Leaving him alone with the thoughts and the darkness and all the bad shit that comes from being—
I shake my head, tearing the thought away from my mind.
Except, it hasn’t left since that night.
The sight alone has haunted me, the image of some man standing over Emmett, his fucking dick in his hand, burned into the very molecules of my brain.
Words … shit no one should ever have aimed at them flooding my nightmares.
The man I’ve since learned is Emmett’s fucking stepdad.
How long? I wanted to ask Bobbie when she explained who the guy was and why he was in the house that night. How fucking long did he use Emmett?
The look on her face when she realized what had happened … it broke something inside her.
And me.
“Earth to Ten.”
I jolt, sucking in a breath like I’d been holding it for a long ass time. “You say something?”
“Yeah, fool. I said a lot of shit and you’re just zoned out. What the fuck is up with you?”
Shame coats my throat, the weight of it all just too fucking heavy.
“Uh, sorry,” I mutter and lick my chapped lips. “I’m just worried. About Emmett.”
It’s not a lie sliding off my tongue, but it feels pretty damn close to one as I skirt around the truth once again with Hatley.
“Well, this—” he waves a wrench in my direction, “—isn’t gonna help him.”
I don’t know what else to do, I want to tell him, but I don’t. I’ve already said it a million times and none of his answers get me any closer to something feasible without giving him the rest of what happened.
Because I couldn’t even tell Hatley the whole truth about that night.
All he knows is that Emmett’s stepdad came back home when he wasn’t welcomed.
It doesn’t feel like it’s mine to tell, and the last thing I need is someone else looking at Emmett like he’s a fucking porcelain doll ready to break.
I do that enough these days.
Then there’s Bobbie, nearly inconsolable every time she stops by.
Her world is falling apart before her eyes, one she didn’t realize had slipped through her fingers long ago, the truths she assumed long lied about. The friend she lost, and the man she knew wasn’t great but didn’t know was that bad.
They never seem that bad to outsiders.
I can’t help being angry with her regardless.
How did she not know?
Meanwhile, Emmett’s life was destroyed by the time he got a chance to fucking start one.
If he decides to keep it.
My stomach twists violently.
“If I get him to the track, will you come?”
I swallow down the emotions choking me. My answer is noncommittal and placating.
“I guess, man. I gotta go check on Charline.”
The worry lacing my best friend’s face should stop me in my tracks, though it doesn’t. Instead, I leave him on the lawn in a mess of tools and bike parts to stare at the woman who shares eyes with my Emmett.
“You again?” She’s weak but as venomous as ever. “Don’t they have anyone else at that fucking hospital?”
Fury laces my veins. She has no idea why I’m here, and yet my hands move on autopilot. I check her pulse and her pressure and screw a little syringe of trial meds into her IV.
“You deaf now?”
It’s so condescending and unwarranted that I toss her a narrowed gaze I regret.
Instead of a sickly Charline lying on my gurney, all I see is Emmett staring back at me. The eyes they share dead inside her skull, showing me exactly what my future with Em looks like.
The bile that burns the back of my throat I swallow against can’t stop the tumble of words from falling out.
“How could you?” She has the nerve to look shocked, but I can’t stop them from slipping off my lips. “You knew what the fuck that man was doing to your son, and you did nothing.”
The force of pushing the meds must sting because she grabs her arm and hisses.
“How dare you speak to me—”
“How dare you,” I snarl back. “You let your husband abuse your own flesh and blood like that. How fucking dare you.”
She stares at me, slack jawed, her pupils going unfocused.
“He’ll never amount to anything. Especially with you,” she says flatly, telling me she knows more than she leads on, and turns away, her arms fall to her sides. Like she’s given up. Accepts the sting of the meds as I push the plunger, all of which she’s not bothered to ask about.
“Fucking coward,” I mutter and inject the last mix of drugs keeping her alive.
Eventually, they’re going to run out. The trial is going to end and there won’t be anything left to try. The toxins in her body are building up, and not even Bobbie’s brilliance is going to have an answer.
She’ll be left to fight the shit on her own and nature’s going to win.
I hope it’s soon.