Chapter 23 #2
“Success,” he chuckles. “Anyway, either of you know where Mini Ward might be? Abby’s here and she’s losing it.”
Hyde straightens, cocking his eyebrow. “Why?” he asks. “What happened?”
“She won’t say,” Dash replies. “Just keeps asking if anyone’s seen Millie. She left her phone behind.”
“Have you checked with Noah?” Hyde asks.
“I’m here, too,” Noah’s voice comes from Hyde’s cell. “I haven’t seen her. She’s not in the library or the cafeteria.”
I know where she might be, but I’m not saying it aloud for Noah’s benefit. For a second, I wonder what he’d look like if he knew I lost my goddamn mind inside Millie today.
Taking Hyde’s phone, I mute the microphone.
“She’s probably at the gym,” I tell him and before he can ask why I’m hiding that from the others, I unmute the call.
“I’m coming back,” he says. “I’ll help you look.”
He pockets his phone, rejecting the call and relief floods my chest.
Whoever’s so desperate for his attention can wait. I both love and fucking hate that he chose me over whoever’s blowing up his cell. It goes on a while longer before it finally stops.
I’m balancing on the verge of sleep when vibrations shake me out of it an hour or so later.
“I need to get that,” Hyde says, his brows pulling together as he stares at the screen, up on his feet already.
Before I think of a way to stop him, he answers.
“Mom? It’s—”
He stops dead, three steps from the door when his mother’s scream peels out loud enough to fill the room.
“Hyde!” she wails, so fucking heartbroken it sends shivers down my spine. “It’s Millie, she—” The words turn into broken sobs.
I sit up. I don’t know who Millie is, but my heart slows to a crawl. Hyde’s still frozen, his nails whitening as he crushes the phone.
“Mom? Mom, are you there? What’s—Dad? What’s going on? What’s happening with Millie?”
Whatever’s said next doesn’t reach my ears. Words hum low, but whatever’s said has my best friend stumbling forward and grasping the wall.
“Hyde,” I start, tearing my cannulas out. “What’s happening?”
He spins on me, eyes wet with tears. “I’m on my way,” he tells his father, every word brittle.
“What happened?” I ask, coming closer.
I don’t get to put my hand on his shoulder. I don’t get to comfort him because Hyde goes fucking ballistic. He rams his fist into my face so hard my freshly reset nose gets knocked out of place. My ears ring, my head snapping to the side, pain seizing every nerve ending in my body.
“Fuck, just... fuck!” he croaks out. “I should’ve fucking answered!”
“What the hell’s happening?” I demand, blood gushing down my face. “Talk to me. What did your dad say? Who’s Millie?”
“My sister,” he whispers, anger morphing into fear and tears.
“You have a sister?” My eyes widen, brows hitting my hairline. “Why didn’t you say anything? Is she okay?”
“I should’ve answered,” He repeats, fisting his hair, tugging hard enough to rip some out, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I should’ve worried about her for once, but I only care about you, and now she’s fucking dying!”
He grabs his jacket and keys and storms out, banging the door so hard a nurse appears within seconds. I’m standing in the middle of the room, nose bleeding, hand where I tore the cannula bleeding as well, and I’m glued to the spot, watching the door Hyde disappeared behind.
He has a sister?
His mother’s scream haunts me, devastated, fucking heartbroken, and ice replaces the blood in my veins. Guilt and fear flood my feelings.
I don’t dare recall the last word Hyde uttered, but it’s fucking impossible while the excruciating pain in Hyde’s Mom’s voice reverberates around my battered skull. Dying.
She’s dying.
My thoughts rush a million miles an hour while the nurse leads me back to bed. A doctor comes over and sets my nose again.
I need to leave.
I need to go after him and be there for him the way he’s always here for me. He might fucking hate me right now but that doesn’t matter.
He’s my best friend and whatever happened... I want him to know he can count on me. I tug the cannula the nurse just reapplied, but the doctor grabs my wrist.
“Leave it alone,” he says.
“I can’t stay,” I grit out, not recognizing my own voice.
“You’re going nowhere until morning at the very least. We need to monitor you overnight.”
“No, I need to go,” I repeat, shoving him back.
Next thing I know, there’s a sharp prickle in my neck, and my senses switch off in sequence until I pass out.
***
I wake when it’s light outside, the sun high in the sky. My mind’s groggy and it takes me a moment to remember I’m in the hospital.
The evening slowly comes back to me. The brawl at the bar. Hyde picking me up, bringing me here, sitting by my bed so fucking disappointed it twists my gut like a wrung rag.
The reason for it all hits next.
Millie. The contradictory feelings she evokes. How much I want her close again. How much I crave to hear Eli falling from her lips. And how much my stunt last night proves she should stay away from me.
All I can do is drag her down with me to rock bottom.
She’s plagued by her past. Memories overwhelm her to the point she loses touch with reality. She doesn’t talk to me, then throws me a curveball by kissing me stupid. She lets me fuck her, then tells me she hates me.
I hate me too, baby.
I should be used to the tolerate/hate relationship I’ve always had with myself, because there’s no love here. There hasn’t been since Mom died.
But no matter how many years pass, how much muscle mass I add, how many guys bleed under my knuckles, that scared, inadequate, undeserving little boy still finds me.
And every time, without fail, I reach for the same thing.
I wish I had better control. I wish that after almost seven years without my father’s fists, I’d be over the bullshit he put me through. That I’d be normal, but the truth is, I can’t handle my emotions any better now than when I was six, ten, or fourteen.
Glancing around the room, I find my phone on the bedside table, a text from Hyde waiting.