Chapter Forty-Nine #2
His eyes reach for mine, oscillating until sweat collects in my palms, and my stomach turns over itself.
He looks away, closes his eyes, then rubs his face. “Harlen bring you here?”
I nod and silence falls around us again. It’s as smooth as his diversion. I shift on my ass, feeling the chill in my kidneys.
Chase sits up straighter. “I saw you went through my shit,” he states, and my brows pinch before I realize what he’s talking about. Because he’d caught me red handed in one of his band tees this morning.
“Yeah, well, some asshole was rushing me to pack, I—”
Chase intercepts, “You looked cute.”
I bite the inside of my lip, and feel my cheeks heat.
“You know, I once heard that cute means you’re ugly but interesting.” I can’t help but grin, turning to meet Chase’s dark eyes. It was the first time in years that we had smiled at each other. I try not to let myself fall headfirst into the moment.
“Is that what you think of me, Chase Keller?” I whisper, peeking over my arm. “That I’m ugly but interesting?”
Chase dips out, chin to his chest. He was no longer looking at me, and he was no longer smiling.
“You don’t want to know what I think of you.”
I laugh, resting my elbows to my knees, grabbing my shoulders. “Maybe I do.”
Chase doesn’t reply, but he does touch his eyes to mine, and the look in them tells me not to push it.
I swallow tightly, jerk my chin toward the notebook sitting next to him.
“Were you writing again?” I ask.
He laughs, though the husky melody carries strain.
“If writing looks like me sitting here scribbling solo words onto the paper, then circling, crossing them out, finding a way to link all of my stinking shit together…” He exhales a weighted breath and drags his hands through the top of his hair, pulling it back into a low bun. “Then yeah, I guess so.”
I feel my body tense.
“What’s it about?” I ask warily, my heart thumping hard enough to press against my ribs.
“You wanna read it?” Chase’s voice is barely a whisper when he holds out the open notebook to a page titled Severed Veins.
I reach for it, fingers shaking the moment they skim across Chase’s.
He lets go, hanging his wrists over his knees, dropping his head back to the wall with a thud.
I sit there frozen.
My throat is dry.
I wasn’t sure why he was giving me this.
“Chase, you don’t have to—”
He keeps his head where it is, closing his eyes. “Read it.”
I swallow, drop my chin and trace my pointer finger over the title, feeling the ridges of where the red ballpoint pen had pierced through the thin paper.
“Out loud,” he says, his voice hoarse.
Something cold and so very familiar settles in my stomach when I whisper the first line, “You were never a number.”
Chase releases the breath he’s been holding, as though resigned to what’s to come, and what I was about to read.
And that in itself…terrifies me.
I squeeze my eyes closed, my throat thickening with a tempered cry. Taking another breath, I blink them open, and the words that stare back at me, wobble perilously with the tears at the edges of my eyes.
“A bright spirit of wonder.”
Chase’s bleeding truth pushes them over, and I feel myself falling.
I can barely speak, can barely think, can barely breathe, a surfeit of unhealed trauma taking to every limb, and I can taste the terror again when metal fills my mouth.
I’m gnawing on my bottom lip, then the inside of my cheek.
Severed Veins is for Jade.
My best friend.
Chase’s sister.
This was what he was working on.
This was the bleed out.
My body trembles when I push the tips of my fingers to the concrete, feeling the chill drag across the back of my thighs as I shuffle toward Chase.
I don’t stop until my arm presses to his.
And with tears rolling down my cheeks, I reach for Chase’s hand, the one closest to mine. It’s draped over his jean-clad knee, and he lets me take it.
I guide it back toward me, placing it on top of the open notepad on my lap.
Chase shivers at my touch, and the jolt travels through his palm, leaching onto me, dispersing through every bone in my body.
Closing my eyes, I let the strike settle before croaking, “Chase…”
“Mmm,” he hums.
“Can I…can you,” I correct myself, voice trembling. “Show me what it’s supposed to sound like.”
Chase slides his hand out from beneath mine, placing his on top and curling his fingers with mine. His knuckles turn white and I feel my bones shift slightly beneath his hold.
He leaves them there in my lap when he reaches across his body with the other, taking the notebook, squeezing my hand again, drawing back what I can only hope is some sort of strength.
He clears his throat, licks his lips, pinches at his nose with his free hand. He does everything he can before he realizes all he needs to do is…let go.
I draw our fisted hands to my mouth, touching his fingers gently to my lips and I keep them there, never shifting when he bleeds for me.
His tone is crisp and sharp, yet smooth and delicate, the blend is so unique and raw that every vulnerable note has a way of hitting differently.
Chase was talented, in a way that was rare.
A lot of people could sing.
A lot of people could find some kind of melody.
But Chase…he was different. He didn’t just sing, he bled.
That’s what made him vulnerable.
That’s what made him real.
Chase could be a rock star if he wanted to be.
I bite my pain into the back of his hand, my teeth sinking into his flesh, and Chase drives the added ache I offload to him into every last note. And when his voice echoes away, all I can think to do next is to squeeze him tighter, hold him the same way he held me all those years ago.
Tears pour down my cheeks in streams, grief and pain stiff in my throat. I place his hand onto my thigh, and he pinches into my flesh.
Shaking, I lean forward, slipping the notebook out of his trembling hand, not knowing why or what I think I’m doing.
“Do you have…” I begin to ask, but Chase is already reaching into his front pocket, reading my mind, dragging out the red ink pen.
I had written before, mostly journal entries, my thoughts, my feelings, my pain, though I’d never penned lyrics.
I draw in a deep breath, and center into the darkest parts of myself—the way Chase had—and I open the door to my trauma, stepping through the splintered hole, hoping that he’d catch me when I fall.
My fingers touch his when I wrap them around the barrel of ink.
“Can I…” I pause, my teeth chattering. “Can I…add to it?” I ask.
Chase’s voice is raspy, his bloodshot eyes holding onto mine. “Please, Laik.”
I can’t speak again, so I settle on a nod, my throat tightening, my flesh turning hot as I begin penning the second verse.
We run together, or we don’t run at all
A promise I made right before the fall
In the dirt, I tried to crawl
Shot away, never felt so small
I’m staring down at the open notebook when my rolling tears splatter like raindrops onto the paper, bleeding the ink into smears of crimson beneath.
I whisper when I start to cross out the I’s replacing them with they. “If you choose to keep it, maybe sing the I’s as they.”
Chase’s eyes are locked at my temple, and a gnawing panic builds at the base of my spine. He reaches for my hand, the same way I had reached for his.
My skin tingles when he brings it to his mouth, rests my knuckles at his lips.
“Show me what it should sound like,” he breathes.
My body freezes, goosebumps pressing hard against my flesh.
“I-I-I can’t do that,” I stutter.
Chase pushes his forehead to my knuckles, lets go of his breath. “God dammit, Laiken, sing for me.”
One solo tear rolls down my cheek.
Silence steals the space between us.
“I hate you for this.”
He turns his eyes on me, rests his stubbled cheek to the top of my hand.
“I know,” he whispers.
And when I don’t reply, shivering instead, he finishes, “Show me how to sing it, Laik.”
So, I bleed out for him, and then I push to my feet, finding the soles of my shoes in what is a phantom pool of our shared blood, and return the way I came.
Chase doesn’t try to stop me.
And as I climb my way out, tripping and landing on shaky palms, scrabbling back to my feet, I realize it hurts, maybe even a little more than it did three years ago.
Because a part of me, the human side, wanted, maybe even hoped, that this time when I ran, he would chase me.