51. Noah #3
“I know he’s gonna pass away any day now...
I’ve known for a while he was dying.” I bite my bottom lip.
I don’t cry. I fucking can’t cry. Not like this.
Not in front of a chick I barely know. “I don’t get it.
” My voice sounds rough, like I’ve been screaming, even though I haven’t said much in days.
“What happened at the concert? You have to remember something. One second Charlie’s with me, she tells me she loves me and the next she’s breaking my heart, and now she’s... ”
Payton exhales, slow and shakily. Her hair is falling out of its ponytail, and she looks like she hasn’t slept in days either.
“I don’t know what happened,” she says softly.
“I woke up in a bathtub and Ryder said I was drugged. If I didn’t lie to her, then we would've been there together, and nothing would've happened.”
I glance at her, searching for something solid in her blue eyes, but all I see is guilt. It’s radiating from her.
“It’s not your fault,” I say.
She looks away. “But it is… if I was just honest about dating her brother, none of this would have happened.” She runs a hand through her messy hair. “I just didn’t know how to tell her I was seeing him... but it doesn’t matter now. We broke up.”
“Well, her brother seems like an asshole, to be honest. He almost beat the shit outta me from that stupid fuckin game she needed to play.”
“But that’s just Ryder being protective.
If you had seen how guys treated her before then you would understand why he acts that way.
He tried so hard to get her to break up with Brody, but she just ran back to him.
It was weird she was so hung up on him. She would honestly get up at five in the morning to do her makeup and hair, and show off her tits and shave everything off her body just to get him to notice.
She would wear skimpy dresses, and any clothes that would show her ass. It was bad.”
“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” I ask, hitting the back of my head against the metal of my truck.
“All I'm saying is he really messed her up mentally.”
“Yeah... but then I see them together at the concert.”
“I don’t think she wanted to be there with him. She was off.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“My last memory was us arguing,” Payton shrugs, her feet crunching under the gravel.
“We were fighting about Brody and about Ryder. But Brody made two drinks, and he took something out of his back pocket. It was white, it looked like a pill, and it went into one of the drinks. I freaked the fuck out, I didn’t say a damn thing. ”
I run a hand down my face. “He slipped her a date rape drug.”
“He got me with it too, but Ryder found me in time and well...”
“What?”
“Ryder’s in jail right now.”
“Wait, what?” I ask.
“Yeah...” She bites her bottom lip. “He assaulted Brody that night. Brody was with Charlie in the bathroom. I dunno if she was... but I think Brody...”
The word is on the tip of Payton’s tongue.
It doesn’t fit in my head. It doesn’t sound real.
It should belong in someone else’s story, not someone I know.
Not Charlie. Not the girl with the Sharpie.
My throat closes up. I can’t breathe. My hands shake, my vision blurring and I can’t tell if it’s from rage or wanting to tear my own chest open, but it hurts too much to contain.
I press my palms to my eyes and yep... there they are.
The pathetic tears I don’t let surface. I still see the look in Charlie’s eyes when she had come into the greenroom.
I could feel it on her skin. Something was so utterly wrong, and I knew it.
Brody just forced himself onto her, right in front of me when I could’ve protected her.
Kept her backstage. It’s all my damn fault for letting her run off like that.
“I’m sorry, maybe it’s too soon to talk about this.” Payton twirls her fingers into knots in her lap.
“I love her, I spent all summer with her. I knew about that stupid hazing game, and I came there just to protect her from something like this.”
“She was with you this summer?”
“Yeah.” My throat tightens. “She really stole my heart, I’ve never been this fucked over a chick.”
Payton looks down at her phone. “My ride is only five minutes away, you don’t have to stay with me. Really.”
I jiggle my truck keys in my pockets, and I know I am stalling and avoiding it. “Yeah,” I say and pull out those keys opening my truck door. “Thanks for coming by and talking with me.”
“I’ll see you around.” Payton smiles and I hop into my truck igniting the engine and pulling out.
I step into the hospital room, and for a second, I think Gramps is still asleep. The soft beep of the heart monitor is steady, slow but alive. Then his eyes open, unfocused at first, before they find me.
“There you are,” he murmurs, his shaking finger lifting up as he points at me.
I stand there, running a hand down my face, “Hey, Gramps,” I whisper, dropping into the chair beside his bed.
“You’re awake?” I take his hand carefully, making sure this is real and not me dreaming.
His skin is rough and scratchy, and I shudder in a breath.
There’s no more time left. The clock is running out, and I really tried my best in taking care of him.
He gives me a faint smile. “Where have you been all day?” He smacks his chapped lips together.