Chapter 29
Millie
I wipe my face with the back of my hand, inhaling a deep breath. It doesn’t stop the tears from coming as I sit on my bed, back to the wall, knees bent to my chest, body racked with silent sobs.
I’m so hot it feels like I’m running a fever. The hoodie I’ve been wearing all day is itchy, damp at the collar from tears and the sweat misting my skin.
The clock on the nightstand blinks just past ten. I’ve been crying for almost an hour. Across the room, Abby’s bed is perfectly made, throw pillows fluffed, and the silence of her absence is somehow worse than any noise she could make.
Maybe I’d get a grip and calm down if she were here. Maybe if she talked my ear off, I’d stop seeing Creed with that beautiful brunette in his lap, her fingers weaving into his hair, lips tracing the curve of his neck.
I don’t know what hurts more. The fact he’s done with me, or that I know why.
“You’re really messed up, baby, you know that?”
Yes, I do.
And the sick, humiliating truth is that being called messed up by Elias Creed felt better than being called perfect by anyone else. At least when he said it, he was looking at me. The real me. Not the fragile, broken thing everyone else sees.
Then he sat that girl down in his lap, pawed her ass, and stared right at me while she kissed his neck.
Message received.
I’m an idiot. A na?ve idiot who’s spent every waking moment replaying that morning in the equipment closet and that kiss the other night. I thought it meant something.
Choking on tears, I roll onto my side.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to be anymore. Creed wants my words, but if he can’t handle my body language, how can he handle the rest?
Silence was a shield before. Now it feels like it’s a weapon of mass destruction that turns people away.
I’m so confused.
I just want to be enough. Not too much, not too little, just right, but I don’t know what that means. Everyone wants something different. Everyone expects something different and I don’t know who I am anymore.
I drag my pillow closer, wrap both arms around it and hide my face, eyes closed tight like maybe that’ll stop the images resurfacing.
Why did I let Dash drag me to the common room? I didn’t want to go, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer, and... I wanted to see Creed.
Even though he’s been avoiding me and I expected glares, stares, and even him leaving, I wanted that calmness his presence evokes. He makes my existence so much easier.
He made it easier.
Now it’s impossible because a cold hand reached into my chest and squeezed my heart when I saw him touch that girl.
I didn’t even know I felt anything other than lust for Creed, but that sinking feeling, that bitter realization of being discarded, and these tears that won’t fucking quit are telling a different story.
I lie there, listening to the wind pressing against the window and the distant sound of music bleeding through the wall.
God, I just want to sleep.
I’ve been crying for an hour. How much longer?
My eyes land on the bedside drawer. There’s a bottle of pills inside. A bottle I’ve had for months and haven’t opened once, dragging myself away from that ledge every time.
I could take one.
I’m not an addict. One won’t do me any harm. It’ll calm me down and help me sleep. I don’t want to die tonight any more than I wanted to die the night I overdosed. I just needed my head to stop replaying Evan’s words.
I grabbed Mom’s sleeping pills from the medicine cabinet and swallowed one, but it didn’t work, so I took another.
Maybe they were too weak?
After another two, sleep still wasn’t coming, just blurry vision.
Maybe my hysteria was burning the pills off before they could work? Like alcohol and adrenaline.
I swallowed another three, my limbs growing weak, head lolling from side to side, but still no sleep.
Maybe they’d expired and lost their potency?
I finished the bottle.
But one isn’t a whole bottle. I can take one.
Sitting up, I wipe my face, staring at the drawer. My heart’s beating so loud it’s all I hear. Hyde made me promise I’d reach out if this happened and so far, I’ve kept that promise...
But I don’t want him to worry.
My fingers brush the handle, and my breath hitches, Hyde’s promises bouncing through my skull.
When someone makes you uncomfortable, run, okay?
Don’t push yourself, sis.
You don’t have to be strong.
You’re fragile, Millie.
I won’t let you down again, I promise.
Trust me to take care of you.
Let me help.
I snatch my phone, type out a quick message, then delete it. He’s having drinks with his friends, enjoying a quiet evening, and I don’t want him to see my blotchy face.
He thinks I’m doing better... said so the other day. He smiled, pulled me in, kissed my head, and if I text him, I know he’ll see this as a setback.
Dropping the phone, I open the drawer and dig deep until my fingers close around the pill bottle. My mind flashes back to the hospital, Mom and Dad with pink-rimmed eyes, Hyde by my bed, head hung low, my hand in his.
He looked devastated and I promised myself I’d never again be the reason for my brother’s vacant stare.
Me: Are you still in the common room?
That should work.
It sounds casual, like maybe I want to join them. Like maybe I’m truly better and seeking out company. It doesn’t scream I’m falling apart. He won’t be worried, so I press send and wait for the message to turn from delivered to read.
A minute goes by, then two, then three... it’s loud in the common room, maybe he didn’t hear the ping.
I toss the phone aside, my thumb running along the bottle cap. Just one will do it, and tomorrow, this evening will be nothing more than a hazy, distant memory.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I open it, the pills rattling inside, the powdery scent hitting my nose.
It makes my pulse spike that much higher, but I pinch my lips, tasting the saltiness of my tears.
Exhaling a centering breath, I wipe my snotty nose and shake one tablet onto my open, shaking palm.
A tear lands beside it and a knock on the door snaps my head up, eyes on the swinging hardwood.
Noah enters without waiting, takes one look at my teary face, scans the crumpled pillow, the open drawer, and then his eyes drop to my hands. His jaw tightens, long legs swallowing the distance between us as the door shuts.
He snatches the prescription bottle, and I instinctively close my fist around the single pill I’m holding.
“Give it here,” he says, holding his hand out.
“Noah—”
“Don’t argue, Millie.” He stares into my eyes, waiting.
More tears slide down my cheeks, but now he’s here, now someone is here, and I’m not so utterly alone; I don’t feel like I’ll drown in my misery.
I drop the pill into his hand, watching him put it back in the bottle. He caps it and I half expect him to shove it in his pocket, but he puts it back in the drawer and slides it shut.
“Scoot over,” he says.
And I do. I don’t have the energy to argue. It’s clear I’m far from fine, so there’s no point in lying. I slide toward the wall, and he sits with his back to the headboard, holding one arm out in a silent come here.
Wiping my face again, I fold into his side.
He drags me closer until my face is in the crook of his neck, his arms wrapped tightly around me.
I last about forty-five seconds before the pressure behind my sternum becomes too much.
The comfort he offers feels like permission to feel more.
The first tear slips out, then the next, and before I know it, I’m pressing my face into his gray pullover and holding on to the fabric with both fists, shaking all over.
“It’s okay,” he whispers. “I’ve got you.”
He doesn’t tighten his grip, doesn’t shush me or tell me to calm down, just breathes, and I cry until I can’t anymore and try breathing alongside him instead.
We stay like that for a while, the warmth of his body keeping me grounded, but it isn’t enough to quiet my screaming mind.
“Better?” he asks, kissing my head.
A little tremor passes through me.
I’m not thinking clearly, running on leftover misery and the need to feel something other than discarded. I brush my lips along the line of his jaw and his hold on me tightens. Emboldened, I move, planting soft kisses in the crook of his neck...
Just like she did to him.
Noah shifts, his hand cupping my cheek, thumb tilting my chin up. “That’s not what you need, Millie. I’m not the one you’re crying over... am I, beautiful?”
My throat thickens again. “He doesn’t want me,” I whisper. “And I sure as hell don’t want him.”
A sad smile curls his lips before he kisses my forehead. “That’s not true,” he whispers, pulling me back in, his hand cradling my head. “But you can lie if it makes you feel better.”
I let him hold me until the knot behind my ribs loosens and my breathing evens out. I focus on his steady heartbeat, my eyes growing heavy. Sleep doesn’t come, but I’ve stopped shaking and crying, which is more than I’d hoped for.
The clock on my bedside table shows three minutes to eleven when I sit up, pushing my hair back over one shoulder.
“You should go,” I say.
His eyes harden as he searches my face, then glances at the drawer. “Will you be okay?”
“I don’t know what being okay feels like anymore. I’m not sure I ever did.”