Chapter 42 GABE
GABE
The trail curves under my feet. I don’t even remember choosing this route.
My legs just keep moving, lungs begging for air that doesn’t reach deep enough.
My stride is off. My shoulders are tight, and my hands won’t unclench.
I shake them out, shake out the ache in my forearms, but everything in me is still braced like I’m waiting to be hit.
Dew beads on the grass in little pearls that catch the light and glitter. Brambles line the edges of the path. Gravel turns under my sneakers, spitting stones up.
Breathe in, breathe out.
It doesn’t settle me. My anxiety is ratcheting up by the second. I push harder up the slight rise until there’s a stitch in my ribs, a hot tug at every breath. It’s fine. Pain is fine. Pain is good. Pain means I’m still here.
No one else will want you, you’re too soft. Too sensitive.
I grind my teeth so hard it hurts. I keep going.
I count steps. Eight count inhale, eight count exhale.
My shirt clings to my spine, and a trickle of sweat crawls down, disappearing into the waistband of my shorts.
My skin smells hot—salt and cotton and the faint ghost of lavender from the wash.
I try to focus on that. Lavender, I love the smell; it calms me.
It reminds me of home, of safety. But not today.
All I can smell is him. Like he’s all over me.
The path dips, and a shimmer of blue shows through the trees. I blink, and it’s gone behind branches, then there again, a flat plane of color with light skating over it. The air changes.
I swallow, and it clicks loudly in my ears. My cap feels too tight, so I pull it off, letting it fall to the earth. My pulse is pounding in my neck, making my vision pulse with it.
I try to think of Noah. His laugh, the way his grin goes boyish.
The way he pads around in the same outfit, just different colors most days.
How he nods along to eighties music like it’s a brand-new song he’s hearing every time.
Noah dancing with no skill and all the confidence in the world.
It should help. But the thought of him is a different kind of torture right now, sweet and painful at the same time.
I want him—I want to go back to him, but wanting never helped before.
Wanting didn’t stop anything. Wanting isn’t enough.
You make everything harder than it needs to be, Gabe.
Kyle’s voice in my mind sounds so real, I whip my head around, searching. No one’s there. Just trees, the narrow veil of light pouring down the path, and the blue widening as the trail opens. I rub at my temples like I can force his voice away.
My sneakers crunch over grit and then slide on mud, and the smell rises, earth and the faint sweetness of rotting leaves.
My calves are tight, I bend my knees a couple of times, trying to shake out the sensation.
My throat tastes like copper. I scrape my tongue along the back of my teeth, and it makes me want to gag.
I feel disgusting. I can’t shake the feeling of Kyle away; the memories of his rough touches feel so tangible, like they just happened.
I pick up my feet again because stopping feels dangerous. If I stop, I’ll have to listen to that voice in my head. If I listen, I’ll have to feel every horrible memory.
Finally, the path opens onto a small, packed crescent of shore.
And there it is. Pale blue under a washed sky, darker at its center.
A slight breeze lifts so gently it looks more like the lake is breathing than the wind touching it.
Light glares off the surface, hard and white where it hits, and my eyes water, but I don’t blink. I can’t.
I slow to a walk. Then stop. The sudden quiet is a pressure weighing down on me. Silence. My own breath the only sound, wet and loud.
Goosebumps lift along my forearms where the breeze cools sweat. I rub my thumb over the pad of my index finger. It’s wrinkled from sweating. My hands won’t hold still, they want to reach for my scar. I force them into fists and let them go, fighting the urge.
My mind is so loud. Too loud. I can’t handle it. It’s crushing me.
I can’t do this anymore.
I can’t keep living with all this pain.
The water is so silent. I tell myself to step back, to turn around and go home. Go back to the store, back to Noah. Talk to him, tell him everything.
My body won't move. I’m frozen. Time keeps moving, but I don’t.
There’s a sound in my ears that might be wind or might be the rush of blood. A lapping that barely exists, the smallest kiss of water against the shore.
It feels like I’m being watched. Not by a person. By an idea. Dark and vicious.
I shake my head, sweat flinging from my hair. My ribs hurt with every intake of air.
Suddenly, I’m at the edge.
The toes of my sneakers dip under, and the water ripples out, breaking the glass surface. My stomach twists. I should move back.
The water is cold, I look down, and the reflection warps. A man who doesn’t look like me stares back—hollow-eyes, jaw set. For a second, I think I see him, Kyle, but it’s only me, stretched and broken by the water.
I blink. My shoes are deeper. Dread slinks through me.
The chill climbs, numbing and burning my skin at once. My calves ache from it. My breath saws loudly in my throat, but the rest of the world has gone soundless. Even the breeze has died. It’s just me and the water.
Pathetic. Needy. Too much.
His voice again. So close it may as well be whispered into my ear. My shoulders jerk like I’ve been shoved, and another step carries me further.
I slam my hands to my temples. I need his voice gone. I need silence.
Knees under. Thighs. My shorts cling wetly to my legs, skin pebbling as the cold settles higher. My arms twitch at my sides, wanting to hold on, to anchor myself, to grab something solid. But there’s nothing to hold me here.
I tell myself to stop. I tell myself to turn back, to fight it. But I’m not in control.
I never have any control.
Another step. Waist under now, the fabric ballooning. My lungs won’t work right; every breath I take doesn’t feel like enough. It doesn’t feel like air at all.
I can’t breathe.
Do I even want to?
Why is everything so hard?
Why is just existing so hard?
You make everything harder than it needs to be, Gabe.
I claw at my chest like I can dig him out. All it does is feel the drum of my own heartbeat, frantic and weak at the same time.
The water presses tighter. The pull is constant, like it always knew I’d end up here.
My teeth chatter even though the sun is warm. My legs keep moving. I try to make them stop, but they won’t.
I think I’m trying.
The lake takes my ribs. My arms float, skin prickling with pins and needles, and I know what comes next, but I can’t stop it.
I can’t stop anything.
I never could.
The water hits my chest, and I gasp. The sound echoes in my ears, swallowed immediately. My shoulders lock. My body is screaming to turn back. The lake swallows my collarbone, cold hitting under my chin.
Then I’m under.
My feet lift from the bottom of the lake.
I’m weightless, but I’ve never felt so heavy.
My mouth opens and closes on instinct, but there’s nothing but frigid water. It slices down my throat, into my nose, fills my ears until the world is muffled to a single low roar.
Pathetic, Gabe.
His voice slams into me, clear even here.
Look at you. Can’t even keep yourself together.
I thrash, my arms flinging out. They meet nothing. The water gives and gives, but there’s no hold, no anchor for me to grab on to.
Just weight.
A pull.
Pulling me down.
Down.
Down.
Down.
All I feel is Kyle’s mouth against my ear, voice aggressive. Stop making this difficult. If you loved me, you’d let me. My own body frozen under him, shame and fear twisting in my gut, the ceiling above blurring through my tears.
I convulse, choking and flailing. My arms reach upward, but there’s nothing. The lake swallows my every movement, making me small, making me nothing.
My eyes open. Blue. That’s all I see. The surface blurs above, light fractured into shards. It could be inches. It could be miles.
My chest screams, a hot pressure behind my ribs. My arms kick out, legs jerking, but everything feels slow, useless, like I’m moving through cement. My body jerks in panic, trying to fight what’s happening. I swallow water. It burns all the way down.
I twist and reach, but the surface doesn’t get closer. Or maybe I’m not looking right.
Maybe I’m not moving at all?
Maybe I don’t want to move.
My vision sparks. Little bursts of white, then black, then white again. It feels like something’s breaking open inside me.
You’re so fucking pathetic.
It would be easier to let go. Just stop fighting. Let the water finish what it started. My mind would be quiet at last.
I’d be safe there.
Nobody could hurt me again.
I drift. My arms float out to the sides. My legs hang heavy and useless. I feel the weight of gravity pulling me further.
The blue deepens.
It’s dark and endless.
Then, a glimmer.
Blue eyes.
Not ice cold and cruel.
They’re deep, sparkling with warmth.
Noah’s.
Clear. Steady. The same blue as the water, but different. Not crushing me. Not dragging me under. Holding me. Keeping me safe.
In a split moment, I see myself through his eyes. Laughing with my friends. Hosting events. Dancing in the living room. Spinning Rose around while she giggles. All the happiness I’ve had amidst the darkness. All the moments I want more of.
I want more.
Panic and regret surge through me rapidly.
What am I doing? I don’t want this.
My chest convulses violently as my legs kick, and I start thrashing fiercely. My arms tear through the water desperately. My body takes over where my head couldn’t. My hands reach upward.
The surface shimmers above me—closer, closer, closer—and I throw everything I have into it.
Light cracks. Air explodes into me. I break through, choking, coughing, gasping so hard it hurts. My throat scalds with every drag, but it’s air. Real in my lungs.
I struggle to swim toward the shore, my strokes clumsy and uneven. Terror and desperation pushing me. My clothes weigh me down, heavy as lead, but I keep going. Every muscle screaming. Every nerve on fire.
My hands finally find the shore. I crawl and heave myself forward until the water lets me go.
Small stones make cuts in my hands, but I press harder, needing something solid.
My arms shake, my shoulders burn from the fight.
My breath comes in wet, broken gasps. I cough, gag, and spit lake water onto the earth.
It tastes of iron and rot, sour on my tongue.
My stomach heaves. I collapse onto my side and retch until there’s nothing but bile. My throat raw.
I drag in another breath. It feels ugly. My chest rattles with the effort, every inhale a knife to my lungs. I press my cheek into the dirt. It’s cold and wet. The smell of earth clogs my nose. I choke on it and pull my head up, but the world tilts sideways. My vision going hazy.
The world is soundless but for me. My gasps. My wretched sobs. The wet drip of water falling from my sleeves, my hair, my chin. No birds. No breeze.
Just me.
Alive.
I repeat it, mouthing the word. My lips tremble but I force it out, a croak this time.
"Alive.”
I curl forward, forehead to the mud, rocking until the shuddering eases enough that I can breathe again.
I wipe at my face, and my hand comes away filthy, streaked with mud and spit and snot. I don’t care. I’m shaking too hard to care. My body is one giant tremor, rattling bones against skin.
I close my eyes as tears fall freely, but the blue is still there. Not the lake. His eyes. Noah. My constant. He's the light guiding me through darkness, calling me home. Calling me back to myself.
I cling to it—not to pull him down, but to hold myself up. I suck in air again. My chest still aches, but it moves. I can move. I sit back onto my heels. The mud squelches under me. My hands hang uselessly at my sides. My head tips back, and I stare at the pale sky until it blurs.
I’m alive.
Still here.
Not erased.
Not Kyle’s.
Noah’s.
Blue’s.
Mine.
My arms feel like sandbags, but I lift one and press my palm to my chest. The heartbeat under it is frantic and wild, but it’s there. I bow forward and press my lips to the back of my dirty hand, tasting earth and salt. A sob slips out, but it’s not all despair.
It’s relief.