Chapter 35
Chapter thirty-five
EMMA EASTON
Heather shows up at my studio with two smoothies and an expression that tightens something in my chest immediately.
Dammit. Of all mornings.
I’m running on fumes after Jude’s...whatever that was last night. I didn’t fall asleep until sometime after four. Even then, it was more like lying in the dark, replaying every second on a loop. Three cups of coffee later, the fog behind my eyes hasn’t faded.
We settle on the velvet couch by my coffee table, sunlight pouring through the tall studio windows. My brushes sit in their jars. My easel still holds yesterday’s half-finished canvas. It had brighter colors than how I feel today, that’s for sure.
And the anxiety starts gnawing before Heather even speaks.
I’ve been drowning in work lately, showing up for everyone else’s trauma, stacking misery on misery, and meanwhile, the man I love is imploding.
I want so badly for my personal life to be the one place that feels steady and joyful.
It used to be. My best friend helped with that.
But ever since being pulled into Jude’s orbit…
I can’t even form the thought fully. Still, a question whispers in the back of my mind, soft but annoyingly persistent:
Is it good for me to love him this much?
I want him to get better, of course I do. I want to support him. But what if trying to save him drags me under, too? My job is brutal. Heather’s is worse—she’s a trauma nurse; she sees horrors I can’t even conceptualize. We cope in our own ways, but loving two men who are actively unraveling?
How much can we hold before we break?
And then a darker thought slips in, one I wish I could shove away, but it squeezes my throat.
What if he dies?
What if I wake up one morning and find Jude collapsed in my bathroom?
My hallway? My bed? My stomach twists violently.
I swallow hard, but it doesn’t go away. I know the uncertainties of loving someone with substance abuse problems. I’ve sat behind people who poured their frustrations and grief all over their canvases.
I love him. So much it hurts.
And even if it kills me one day, I don’t think I could ever realistically let him go.
Heather keeps picking at the edge of her smoothie cup with one perfect pink nail. We’re both a little quiet, seemingly finding comfort in each other’s presence. “Micah is hiding something, too,” she finally blurts. Her voice is tight, like she’s been thinking hard about it. “I just know it.”
The words are heavy, and I pause with the straw between my fingers. “What do you mean?”
She exhales, forearms braced on her knees. “He’s...different. He’s been a little more stressed and...cagey, lately. And whenever I mention Jude, he dodges like he’s been trained to, or something. I keep asking myself if I’m overreacting, but I’m not. I can feel him slipping. ”
That twisting feeling in my stomach sharpens.
Because the second she says it, I picture Jude last night—the darkness behind his eyes, the urgency in his hands, the way he kissed me like he was panicking.
I’m thinking of Jude’s eyes when he lies.
The way he changes the subject every time I get near Nolan’s name, or Adriana’s, for that matter.
Dots I’ve been refusing to connect start sliding into place all on their own.
I don’t want them to. I don’t want to see the picture they form.
Heather scoots closer, bumping her knee gently against mine. “What happened last night with Jude...it’s not good, Emma.”
I stare down at my paint-stained gray leggings and find a dried black acrylic smear by my knee, my thumb brushing over it back and forth.
“I know he’s not okay,” I say quietly. “I just...don’t know what to do.
He doesn’t even seem to want to set up that meeting with Rook anymore.
Something’s changed.” There’s a long pause, the kind where the silence screams a truth neither of us wants to hear.
Heather’s hand finds mine. “I’m getting the guys Suboxone.”
My head snaps up. “You are?”
She nods. “It’s a medication for opioid addiction. It stabilizes you. Helps you climb out. I talked to someone, and I can get some. I don’t want to wait until one of them…” Her voice cracks. She looks away, blinking fast.
I move my hand to hers, mirroring her earlier gesture. “Okay,” I whisper. “Okay. That’s good. That’s—wow. How soon can you get it?”
“I talked to one of the other nurses at work, and she told me her son uses it. He’s been clean for years, but still has some just in case one of his friends need it. I can get some from her until I can get them in to see a doctor and get a proper prescription. I also have Narcan.”
I bite my lip. “Do you think getting them on the stuff is realistic?”
Heather shrugs. “Micah said it’s a little more complicated. Nolan and Adriana expect them to use when they go do performances. They drop off the drugs and keep them hooked. Not to mention, Adriana…”
I tense. “And Adriana likes to assault Jude when he’s high,” I finish for her, and the words taste wildly bitter on the way out. “Yeah, it’s the only way she can get close enough to sleep with him.”
She nods, but her gaze drifts toward my easel, unfocused.
I clear my throat, desperate to change the subject from that bitch Adriana. I’ve never actually wanted to kill someone before, but I’ve pictured myself beating her to death with a sledgehammer.
“You’re falling in love with Micah, aren’t you?” I ask quietly.
Her brown eyes widen, and she pulls her bottom lip between her teeth. “Yeah.” Her voice cracks on the word.
I sigh.
“We’re running out of time,” she murmurs after a few moments of silence. “For both of them. I can feel it.” Her voice trembles.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “I can, too.”
After work, Heather convinced me to go to the gym with her to work out some of our frustrations. I’m grateful for it. Usually, I loathe the gym, but today, I can tell that I need it.
The air smells like metal and rubber and sweat, and Heather’s still talking through her plan while she switches between machines. I nod along, trying to hold onto the glimmer she’s offering me. I text Jude while she’s in the locker room:
Come over tonight? I want to talk to you about something important. I think it could really help you. I love you.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again. Then nothing.
I tell myself he probably opened the message at a weird moment. That he’ll text me when he gets out of his meeting or whatever else he said he had tonight.
It’s fine.
When I get home, I fix myself a quick and easy dinner of chicken and Greek salad. I curl up on the couch, turning on a romcom that I watch way too often when I’m feeling down. I keep checking my phone even though nothing’s changed. No new texts. No new calls.
Nothing from him.
I try to focus on anything else, anything that doesn’t feel like waiting. But my mind drifts anyway, back to a version of Jude that doesn’t exist anymore.
~ A memory ~
We’re nineteen and twenty, sitting on the slanted roof outside his bedroom window. The sunset spills gold and soft orange across the ocean, light catching on the waves like a thousand tiny mirrors. The wind carries that familiar scent of salt and seaweed as it brushes through our hair.
His guitar rests on his knee. Fingertips skim the strings, coaxing out the melody of the song he wrote for me. He sings it quietly, eyes half-lidded like he’s soaking in the moment. He always looks different when he sings, softer in a way.
“By day I’ll build you walls, by night I’ll keep you warm.
Whatever comes, whatever falls, I’ll hold you away from the storms.”
I smile because I know he wrote it for my anxiety. For all the nights when my world feels like it won’t stop vibrating. Jude has always been the one who pulls me back together. He’ll hold me and hum this song against my skin, promising protection from everything.
From the world.
From my own head.
The window behind us slides open, and Vanessa pokes her head out, glossy black hair swinging forward. “Lovebirds,” she teases, handing out two tall glasses of ice cream swirling through dark soda. Dr. Pepper floats.
Jude lights up. “You’re a saint, Vessy.”
She groans at the nickname. “Hate that so much.” Then she’s gone again, leaving us and the coastal breeze and the sound of waves crashing against rocks.
Jude sets his guitar down and gently taps his float against mine. “To the best mistake we ever made.”
I laugh and take a sip. Cold, sweet, fizzy. The first time we made these, it was by complete accident. We were out of root beer, too high, and too lazy to drive anywhere, so Dr. Pepper became the new sacred recipe. It stuck.
He stretches his legs until his toes tap the gutter, then glances sideways at me. “Alright. Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“What kind of house you want when I make it big?” He tries for playful, but sincerity bleeds through this radiant smile.
I suck a bit of ice cream through the straw, pretending to think. “Honestly? Something like this.”
He snorts. “Something like my parents’ house?”
“Exactly like it,” I insist. “Cozy. Quiet. Windows everywhere. I’ll have a room facing the water so I can paint. You’ll have a little studio. And maybe…” My voice softens. “Maybe a kid or two. I don’t know yet.”
His grin hits me, and it’s pure sunlight. It’s wide, soft, and stupidly hopeful. He leans in to kiss me, deepening it when my fingers slip into his hair. He tastes like vanilla and Dr. Pepper and a future I dream about every night.
I often fall asleep rereading his goodnight texts and think, I’m so lucky. I found something beautiful. Something pure.
When he pulls back, he rests his forehead against mine. “I’ll make all of that happen someday, Em. I swear. I’ll work so hard to be the best for you.”
And I believe him. His talent amazes me—his lyrics, the rawness in his voice as it rasps out of its boyish edges.
I can already see who he’ll become. We stay on that roof until the sun slips under the horizon, until the sky fades to lavender, and until the air cools and he pulls me into his chest to keep me warm.
~*~
My phone buzzes sharply on the table, ripping me from the memory. My heart leaps—then sinks. A calendar alert. Not him.
I exhale shakily, rubbing my thumb along the edge of the screen. Jude’s contact photo lights up for a second before it fades to black again.
If I keep loving him like this...who do I turn into? Because his darkness is very, very dark—and lately, I can feel it tugging at me, too.
I drift from room to room, pretending I’m doing something worthwhile. Eight passes. Then nine. Then eleven. My eyes burn, but I don’t go to bed. I curl up on the couch with a blanket around my shoulders, my phone face-up on the coffee table, waiting for the lock screen to glow.
Waiting for him.
But Jude doesn’t come home to me.