Chapter 30 Thorne
CHAPTER THIRTY
THORNE
It’d been seven days.
Seven days since the bullet tore through Oren’s flesh.
Seven days since his blood stained everything.
Seven days since my heart shattered and my world stopped the second his breathing ceased as he lay in my arms. Seven days since I’d sat in the hospital room with him, unmoved from the chair I occupied, refusing to eat or sleep, and spending the entirety of my days praying to whatever would fucking listen to give him back to me.
I wasn’t a good man. I knew that. I was a fraud, a failure, a poor excuse of a human who only damaged everything he touched.
Oren had been no exception. Because of my carelessness, my wrath, and my willingness to push him away, his life had ceased.
And now? Now he was connected to medical equipment with no promise of waking up, the doctors stating that I had a week with him until we needed to pull the plug.
A week to try and get him to wake up, and I couldn’t even fucking do that…
I was a failure… A failure… A failure… The days had passed, and he’d remained unconscious, no matter how hard I’d cried, no matter how many times I’d screamed and begged him to come back to me.
And now… Now I would be the one to sign the papers to let him go… Forever…
“Thorne.” Matt’s voice echoed above the stillness, but it wasn’t the voice I wanted to hear.
Staring at the ground, I refused to move my eyes away from where they’d been fixated. “What…” My voice was raw, weak, unused: a mirror to my unwillingness to keep living a life without Oren in it.
“It’s time,” he said, his timbre wavering for the first time. “Liam… Liam and Simon are here to say their goodbyes. I figured you’d like them to go first so it’s just you and him after.”
My mind reeled, struggling to formulate words I couldn’t seem to find, and I failed. All I could gather was a broken sob, a plea attached to it. “M-Matt…”
“I’m fucking sorry,” he whispered before tears collected. “My fault… All of this is my fault.”
“I-I can’t…” I knew he was blaming himself, and internally, I was screaming at myself to comfort him, but I was falling apart. I didn’t have the fucking strength to be the backbone anymore. I couldn’t… “I-I-I can’t…”
A knock sounded at the door before Liam entered, a bawling Simon behind him. Liam’s face was red, but he was trying to hold on for Simon… to give him a pillar to cling to, a pillar I no longer had.
Running my hands down my face, I pushed myself up from where I sat for the first time in days. The room spun, whether from the lack of food or my impending panic attack, I wasn’t sure. “I-I’ll give you guys… s-some time… I need to go get… s-some air…”
“We won’t take long,” Liam answered, bringing Simon in for a hug. His hand rubbed his back gently, caressing a wound that would never heal.
I simply dipped my chin, unable to look at them any longer. Using the wall as guidance, I moved to the door, my fingers coiling around the metal handle before I tugged it open and rushed out into the hallway.
Trying to count my footfalls to keep myself from diving off the cliff I was standing on, I progressed toward the double doors that led outside.
Fumbling through numbers, I gave up, my hand slamming into the bar as I forced myself outside.
And it was only two more steps until my knees slammed into the cement, a shattered wail escaping me.
All of it…
All of it was unfair.
He was the brightness in the abyssal depths that had swallowed me; the light that finally appeared after I’d become so acquainted with darkness I never thought I’d see it again.
Every time he laughed, I was reminded of what it meant to be alive.
Every time he smiled, my soul reignited with a fire I thought had been snuffed out years ago.
And every time he kissed me… Every time our lips met…
he breathed life back into me when I’d begged for death…
And now?
Now he was gone…
And I had no pieces of him left, because I had been too senseless to hear him out… burning everything he drew for me. Every piece of our time together was destroyed by a mere flame, a fire that would vanish as soon as they took him off life support.
A decision I was forced to make.
Folding in on myself, I wrapped my arms around my body. My throat ached with each scream that tore itself from it, each more guttural than the last, each containing every fractured piece of my fucked up soul.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t think.
I didn’t want to live.
Not without him. Not anymore.
My fingers ran down my throat, curling inward until my nails met skin.
Digging in as deep as I could, I scratched myself, clawing away at the metaphorical noose that was seconds away from suffocating me.
With each cry, I carved harder, hoping that I’d somehow slice through my skin and bleed out so I could be reunited with him, so I didn’t have to be the one to call an end to his life.
“FUCK!” I sobbed, my back trembling as I failed to draw in any amount of oxygen close enough to what he provided me. “I’m sorry… God, I’m sorry… I’m s-so fucking s-s-sorry.”
Clenching my fist, I pushed myself upright before driving my knuckles into the concrete. Searing agony shot across my hand before sprawling up my arm, but it was nothing compared to the dull ache that sat in the center of my chest. Drawing back, I punched the ground again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Crimson bloomed from my skin, bones visible beneath parted flesh, but it didn’t stop me. Not when all I could see in front of me was Oren’s fading stare and the scarlet that coated his chest and stomach.
My knuckles slammed against the concrete for an indecipherable time, bones shattered and broken beneath my wrath and sorrow. I lost everything I loved no matter how much I pleaded for a moment of reprieve.
Oren had been my reprieve.
And he was fucking gone.
The back double doors slammed open, padded footsteps rushing against the concrete I’d painted red. “Thorne, he’s awake! Fuck! What did you do…”
They were words I couldn’t understand, a mockery of the truth I knew. He was gone. Oren was gone. And whatever sick delusion my mind was crafting only had me struggling to breathe.
Bringing my still-functioning hand to my neck, I clawed downward, begging for something, anything, to make it stop. With the rise of my chest, a shattered cry tumbled from my lips—the sound of a broken man, a man who wanted nothing more than for his suffering to end…
I wanted someone to kill me.
Strong hands gripped my shoulders, yanking my hand away from digging further. “Thorne… Thorne, he’s awake.” A cry. “Oren’s awake.”
“Stop lying to me!” I screamed, shoving Matt away from me as I scooted across the ground. Driving my already broken fist into the ground, I sobbed, continuing to beat the earth beneath me as if it were somehow responsible for my shortcomings. “He’s dead, Matt! Dead!”
“No, he’s not!” His reply came sharply, his eyes finding mine. “He’s awake and asking for you. The first thing he did was mutter your name!”
Asking for you.
The first thing he did was mutter your name.
Forcing myself up from the ground, my head spun, and I stumbled, my knees slamming against the ground again.
“For fuck’s sake,” Matt said, a quiet sob leaving his throat. Wrapping his arm beneath my shoulders, he lifted me, just as he’d done plenty of times before.
“P-Please… If this is a joke… Something to get back at me for all the damage I caused… I-I—”
“Shut up! You’re wasting your breath on me. You need to save it for Oren. God, especially knowing how long he’s been out for, I bet he’s going to talk non-stop for fucking seven days.”
Obliging, I limped weakly beside him. With my gaze locked on the door I’d lived behind for seven days, it became my focus, my vision tunneling as I struggled to keep myself upright.
I had to see him.
I had to see him.
The gap between us and the room closed, a few nurses attempted to stop us on the way because of my hand, but I refused care. I wouldn’t allow anyone to touch me until I knew that what Matt had said was true.
Leaning on the wall, I waited for Matt to open the door to Oren’s room before I offered my arm to him again. He took it without question, draping it over his shoulders as I stumbled back to meet him again, the two of us entering the space.
Simon and Liam were crying off to the side, but smiles rested on their faces as they glanced at the frame tilted up.
His eyes were closed, but that smirk, that undeniable stubbornness was plastered on his face—something I’d missed this last week more than I realized.
Blinking, he peered to the side, whatever fog from earlier still clinging to his senses. A mixture between a groan and a chuckle sounded in the room. “Heard you were going to… pull the plug. D-Don’t you know I like to keep them in?”
I wanted to laugh. I wanted to retort. But I couldn’t.
Collapsing from Matt’s arms like the pathetic man I was, I dropped to the ground in a heap.
Sobs shook my body as I struggled to hold myself up with my good hand, tears pouring down my cheeks.
“I-I’m so… I-I’m so sorry… I-I-I failed…
I fucking failed you, and I was going to have to e-end it… And I… And I…”
“I love you.” The words cut through my lingering wails. “Thorne, p-please come here… I need you.”
I remained on the floor, folding in on myself just like I had outside, a wave of my inadequacies crashing down on me at once.
Shaking my head, I looked up at him through teary vision, his features nearly indecipherable.
“I-I don’t… I don’t… deserve you… I-I don’t deserve your love…
I don’t, O-Oren… I’m s-so… I’m…” A sob broke through the words, my voice shattering even further. “I-I’m so sorry…”