Chapter 30 Thorne #2
“You do.” Soft, but radiant like the sunlight I thought I’d never feel graze my skin again. “I love you, Thorne.” A choked sob. “I love you, and I’m sorry for lying, for leaving you, for choosing to hide the plan. I’m sorry too.”
“I-It’s not…” My shoulders shook as I lifted my trembling hands, my gaze venturing to meet them.
My right was completely destroyed from my outburst, coated in my life force with layers of skin missing—and still, even the bones I shattered didn’t make up for what I’d done to him.
“Y-You almost… Y-You were dead… And I-I… I…”
“It’s okay,” he breathed. “I’m not dead… I couldn’t… couldn’t leave you.” His voice trembled. “You’re okay… I’m okay.”
“I-It should’ve been me…” I cried, struggling to lift my chin to look at him. “It should’ve been me… W-Who took the bullet… You should’ve just l-let me die… It’s my fault… My fault… M-My fault…”
“Not your fault. I’m okay, Thorne. I’m okay.”
“I-It’s my fault you were shot… M-M-My fault Simon lost h-his leg… My fault you succumbed to y-your father… A-All of it… E-Everything… Is my fucking fault… I’m just a goddamn d-disease…”
“It’s not your fault, Thorne. It was my father’s. All of it… All of it was his fault.” A grunt sounded, followed by the shuffle of sheets. “F-Fuck.”
“Oren!” Liam shouted, the scuffle of his feet sounding in the room. “Like hell you’re going to get up.”
“T-Then s-sit me up… I won’t… I won’t let him do this alone.” Another anguished cry left his lips.
But I was too far gone. No return in sight. No light at the end of the tunnel. And I didn’t want that to be the case.
All I’d done my entire life was fail every person I loved.
Anything I touched burned to ashes, just like my family home had.
I hadn’t been there to save them, to pull them from the fire.
I’d faltered as the eldest, not catching the warning signs from my father before it was too late.
The men who served beneath me were no different; their lives tossed to the wayside because of my inability to be the man I needed to be to lead them.
There were too many names, too many goddamn faces.
Where their lives ceased, the beat of their hearts nulling into oblivion, I’d continued breathing.
And for what? For fucking what? I was a cancer, incapable of nurturing anything or anyone I came into contact with.
I was an infection, one that tainted the minds and bodies of far too many people, my talons inescapable.
I didn’t deserve to be alive.
I didn’t deserve to live, even before Oren showed up.
And beyond that? Simon’s leg? The physical abuse? Lucas?
I was worthless—a complete and utter waste of space and time.
If anyone deserved that bullet, it was me. And somehow, someway, fate continued to laugh in my face out of the pure need to mock me for my inadequacies, for all the things I could never and would never amount to.
Blinking, I struggled to pull my attention from the tile I’d fixated on.
My eyes wandered, and I hadn’t even realized I’d been digging my fingers into the damage I’d inflicted on my hand until I took the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding—the affliction that spread up my arm was nothing compared to what lived within my essence.
“Thorne, p-please… I need you. I want you… All of your flaws and imperfections because… because I-I can’t survive without you. It’s why I took the bullet b-because if you… if you’d died, I would’ve turned my gun to my heart. I-I can’t… can’t—”
A broken chuckle left me as I swallowed, my throat raw from screaming.
“M-Maybe that’s just another place I went wrong…
Where you would’ve ended your life… I didn’t…
And that… That just p-proves how undeserving I am of you and y-your love…
I’m sorry, O-Oren…” Placing my good hand against the frigid linoleum, I struggled to push myself upright.
“But I-I can’t… I should’ve died… My essence should’ve been snuffed out with t-that bullet…
And I-I can’t stay… I can’t… be around you when I-I know that my presence, everything about me, will merely put you in harm's w-way…”
“You’re wrong.” Oren’s sob mingled with the despair I’d already succumbed to.
“Your presence doesn’t harm me. Y-You lift me up.
You make me whole, and I can’t… I can’t do this without you, Thorne.
I love you, and you love me. Y-You stayed around because there was hope I’d wake up…
You stayed at my side because you refused to leave me a-alone.
What else is that but devotion? You never left me, and I-I woke up for you.
Because there are so m-many things we have yet to accomplish.
A house, a dog, a cat—anything you desire, with me. ”
Electing to ignore everything else he said, knowing that if I addressed it I’d cave to him once more, I leveraged the one part of his statement that I could attach something to—someone to, someone who wasn’t me.
“Liam, Simon, and Matt will be here for you.” My heart shattered with my words, the very core of my being screaming at me as I turned my back to him.
“But I can’t… I can’t be anymore… I-I’m not good for you, and I refuse to continue to plague your life…
Especially when you were just granted a second chance… ”
“I DON’T WANT THEM!” Oren screamed, the agony in his voice unmistakable. “You are not a plague. You are… You are the air I breathe, Thorne Graves. You are my second chance, and fuck anyone who says you aren’t good enough. Y-You are perfect for me, so please… please stay.”
I couldn’t.
Staying meant putting him at risk. Staying meant endangering him. Staying would mean my insidious nature continued to tarnish his beauty.
And I fucking refused.
Not happening, not ever, his light needed to shine, his beauty was everything to me.
One footfall in front of the other, I swallowed every reply I wished to utter.
It’d be far easier if he hated me, despised me for leaving him here when I promised I’d never abandon him.
If I walked out, not offering him another word, I would achieve the one thing I’d begged from him in the bathroom at the club.
I needed him to loathe me, because with loathing came distance, and with distance came safety.
Memorizing his words and the adoration he extended to me, my fingers curled around the door handle.
I wanted nothing more than to turn around for one more second to memorize his face: the light dusting of freckles that rolled across his cheeks and nose, the subtle hint of green that danced in his irises whenever he was happy, the slope of his nose and his high-set cheekbones, the messy layers of his hair and the silkiness of his locks.
But I couldn’t.
If I gave in, I wouldn’t leave, and if I didn’t leave… If I didn’t leave… This could happen all over again.
Oren’s breathing became panicked, beeping growing louder behind me as a guttural cry left him. “I-If you walk out, I will chase you. C-Crawl out of this bed because I will never hate you. I will always come running because… because I love you, and it terrifies you.”
Twisting the knob, I settled into a wound that existed with the entire group, the reply coming from me with the harshness I wished to deliver, even though it was the furthest thing I wished to utter.
“I’m sure your friends won’t let you do such a thing.
They had no issue turning their backs on me.
They’ve always stayed for you though, Oren. Always. And they always will.”
I ripped the door open, the commotion of the hallways flooding into the room.
The fluorescent lights overhead nearly became too much, their unnatural hue intensifying the headache blooming behind my eyes.
My hand responded in tandem, bones and ligaments shattered beneath my remorse, an anguish none of them bothered to coax.
I’d always been alone. Replaceable. Unreachable.
And I planned to remain that way.
A ghost. A whisper on a forgotten wind. A man despised for his soullessness because it was far easier to be hated than loved by someone else.
Which is exactly who I became as I crossed the threshold, leaving behind the man who still held my heart and would until I stopped breathing.
Turning my back on my best friend, someone who I thought I’d follow from this life into the next.
And abandoning the team members I would’ve continued willingly sacrificing myself for.
I was crafted for a life of solitude. A life away from everyone else because no matter how hard I tried to be good, I’d always remain the villain in everyone else’s story.