13. Grayson
Chapter Thirteen
GRAYSON
I would have stayed in the snow had it not been for Cole. I couldn’t tell how much time had passed since I’d lost my grip on Avery’s wrist. Everything slowed down. My breaths were a thick fog in the winter’s air. My fingers were numb and clumsy. My legs grew weak.
A hard slap on my shoulder called me back to my senses. “Get up,” he barked.
I didn’t want to. I lay flat on the soft, white blanket. I twisted my neck and buried my head in the fold of my arm. The knitted sweater still preserved some warmth.
“Get up, Grayson,” Cole commanded and I growled back at him to leave me alone. I didn’t want to go back to my room. That fucking traitor was probably still smirking.
Cole grabbed my hand and it hurt to feel his warmth against the numbness in my fingers.
It seared me, and I tried to pull back, but my arms were so weak that I couldn’t break free of his grip.
He yanked me out of the snow until I was on my knees and then helped me to my feet.
Snow filled my sneakers and crumbled under my sweater. I was dull to the pain and the cold.
“You’re not going to die over it,” Cole snapped. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Leave me alone,” I protested. I wanted to go…somewhere. Somewhere nobody could find me. A cave, maybe, where it’s cold and dark and quiet.
“Come,” Cole said, his voice softening. “Let’s get you inside.”
He took me under my arm and led the way back to the dormitory. I was slower than I would have liked to admit. It took hard work to make my feet move and keep me upright. Every trod in the snow was a new challenge, and every time I set my foot on the ground, I was just as likely to fall flat.
“You’ve been out here for fifteen minutes, dude,” Cole said, scolding me with his tone. “I looked out the window and saw you lying down. Jesus, Grayson. You almost gave me a heart attack.”
Perhaps I mumbled ‘sorry.’ I wasn’t sure.
Regrets welled in me unannounced. A regret that I had scared my only remaining friend.
A regret that I had lied to the one person I never wanted to hurt.
A regret that I hadn’t ripped that fucker’s head off the first time he hinted at the things he would say.
The worst thing of all was that he had been right.
It didn’t free him of my hatred. He had done it for no other reason than to hurt me.
And worse, he had meant to hurt Avery. If it weren’t hypocritical of me, I would have said that nobody would hurt Avery on my watch, but I had hurt him the most. So Spencer was right; Avery needed to know the truth and I had been a liar.
My mouth twisted and my throat closed as Cole dragged me up the stairs.
He didn’t take me back to the room where Spencer probably gloated.
Instead, he pulled me into the kitchen and dining room, sat me next to the radiator, and crossed the space to put water to boil.
He was methodical in his actions and I took great interest. It was better to pay attention to the mechanical steps of making a cup of tea than to face the blackness of my filthy, lying soul.
Cole poured boiling water over the teabag and brought the mug to the windowsill above the radiator. That was when my body began to shiver. “Fuck,” he muttered. Then, with determination and an edge of a threat, he added, “Stay there.” He was gone for a time. An indefinite amount to my clouded mind.
My eyelids were heavy. No. My eyelashes were. I swiped a shivering hand over my face and found that they were stiff. Had tears frozen on my face? How fucking appropriate. It should have been all of me.
I had the strongest urge to stand up and march out. I longed to sprawl in the snow and hold onto the spinning Earth. But Cole was back. He carried bundled clothes in his hands and tossed them over the back of an empty chair. “Get up.”
Was he also mad at me? Everyone was angry. I’d fucked it all up.
I obeyed, suddenly terrified of angering him more. It hadn’t meant to be this way. This was supposed to be a nice evening. I wanted Spencer to like Avery. I knew for sure Avery would have accepted it. And Cole was open to it.
My last friend in the world tugged at the cold, wet rag that my sweater had turned into.
He pulled it up and commanded me to lift my arms. I did.
My sweater went over my head and my skin prickled with chills.
Cole muttered something, but he didn’t hesitate.
He pulled my sweatpants down to my ankles and knelt to free them of my feet.
“…sentimental idiot, freezing to death like a fucking lunatic…” He cut the flow of his words off and pushed my wet sweatpants away.
“You’re changing that yourself.” He pointed at my damp crotch.
“Here.” He rummaged through the clothes and handed me my underwear.
He turned his back and walked to the door, shutting it closed.
It took me some time to get a grip on the waistband, then even more time to bend over and take the soaked fabric off.
Moving my limbs helped. I put my underwear on, then fumbled to get a grip on a clean pair of sweatpants.
Cole looked over his shoulder, then turned toward me.
“Let me.” He was next to me in three big steps and went down to help drag the clothes on me.
He added the undershirt before he helped me with a warm sweater.
“Have your tea,” he said. “It’ll warm you up. ”
This all had taken the last of my strength and I collapsed into the chair he had placed by the radiator. I had a sip and recognized the chamomile. I had no idea whose it could have been.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he told me, then disappeared again.
I hated sitting here alone. I changed my mind about the cave. I was buried in the silence like it was an avalanche. I couldn’t move without risking locking myself in this cold tomb. I couldn’t climb out of it.
Avery appeared in the center of my mind and my heart gave an aching murmur. I’m sorry, I wanted to say. It was never supposed to hurt you. But why would he believe anything that came out of my mouth?
Sometime later, Cole returned. He walked in with determination on his long face.
He set a bottle of something on the table.
“Figured this might help more than chamomile.” I looked at the label.
Gin. Ugh. But I didn’t stop him when he set two glasses on the table and began pouring it.
“I owe a favor to one of the seniors now, so you better get the most out of it.”
I pursed my lips, breathed for a moment, and then downed a shot of gin. It disgusted me to my core and I decided it was the first of my many punishments.
“I also owe a favor to Nick,” Cole said. Nick was his roommate. He wasn’t particularly social, so I only knew him in passing. I couldn’t think what Nick had done for Cole, but my friend leaned in conspiratorially. “You’re moving to my room for the time being. Nick gets the worst of it.”
That was a relief I hadn’t expected. Knowing I didn’t have to resist the temptation to smother the fucker in his sleep made everything a little easier.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Cole poured me another shot of gin, but I drank the tea to soothe the burning that vile drink had left on its way down. Even so, I held my breath a moment later and downed my second shot.
“That’s right,” Cole encouraged me. “Let’s get you drunk and sleepy.”
My lower lip quivered. I didn’t deserve him. I didn’t deserve anything good in my life. What my distant parents had given me on the day I had come out was precisely what I should have been content with.
After a while, Cole successfully got me drunk. We were silent while at the task and I kept my thoughts guarded from intrusion. I didn’t want to face the soulless pit of my being. I couldn’t look at myself and admit that I had taken the best guy in the world and broken him.
The second part of the job failed. Not only was I not sleepy, I was starting to feel energized again.
The weary shell I existed in felt elated with the recovery of feelings in my limbs.
And my heart ached more with every beat that sent blood traveling through my body.
That was its sole use now, a mechanical pumping to keep me alive.
Nothing good remained for it to do. Nothing to hold dear or skip a beat for.
“I fucked it all up,” I said in a broken whisper. “Everything. Everything that was good about my life.”
Cole remained silent for a while.
Whether he had nothing to say or wanted to encourage me to go on, I wasn’t sure.
I spoke again. “I can’t believe I did this to him.
” Voicing it made it so much worse. It cracked a dam that held all my emotions in one place.
“I never meant to hurt him, Cole, I swear. It wasn’t supposed to go like this.
It wasn’t…” Breathing became impossible.
The tightness in my chest felt like someone had dropped a boulder on me.
I clutched it, heaving for air. My lip quivered, and a new, immense cry welled in me.
I wouldn’t let it out. I wouldn’t. “We were going to be happy,” I whispered in haste.
“We were supposed to stay together. The bet…the dare…it meant nothing. It was just a trick…”…
to boost my confidence. It was only a scheme for me to let all my crazy ideas become reality.
I didn’t know how much of that I said aloud.
I didn’t know if Cole wanted to hear any of it.
Hot tears ravaged my face again. Air drained from my lungs, and I bent over, crying silently, breathlessly, and shuddering while Cole dropped next to me and wrapped his arms protectively around me.
I had wanted to shower him with gifts. I had wanted to make him laugh at least once a day. I had wanted to care for him precisely how he deserved to be cared for. And I had wanted him selfishly, too. To hold me, to touch me, to kiss me.
To love me.