Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
I can’t even remember why I came in here, but I wish I didn’t. I needed something… something that’s isn’t the bottle of Xanax become an orange blur in my hands.
The prescription label reads LUCY JAMESON. And behind it—more. A graveyard of plastic, labels faded, all empty.
How long? How much?
Too much. There’s not a doubt in my mind.
It explains everything. The glassiness in her eyes. The times mistaking me for Bryce. More than grief, it’s this…this vice. Little pills to quiet the ghosts, but all they’ve done is turn her into one.
I hate how part of me understands. How many times have I indulged myself? But this feels different. It feels bigger.
I don’t even remember leaving. One moment I’m closing the drawer, bottle clammy in my grip, the next I’m outside, moving without thought.
Numbness spins its web around me, muffling everything. Eventually something makes it through. Laughter. Faint, drifting from a back deck—Aspen and Dylan.
Carson’s place.
Their silhouettes glow behind the glass doors, but not his. When I push open the door to his room, sunlight catches on nothing but space. He’s not here.
Something inside, just for a breath, tightens. Cracks. But numbness drags it right back under.
A breeze curls through the open windows, tugging at the bedspread. My attention sticks there, on the heap of pillows, probably still carrying his scent. Then I’m moving, stumbling, and I don’t even realise it until the edge of the nightstand bites into my hip.
A book falls. A slip of something flutters out.
Half-mindless, I crouch to retrieve it. What lands in my hand isn’t paper. Not quite.
It’s a Polaroid.
Another chink.
The image shows a girl, knees drawn, profile caught mid-turn. Sunlight paints her face in gold and threads through brown hair that falls loose and wavy.
Me. It’s me.
Only a sliver of my patterned bikini peeks through, but there’s no mistaking it. I flip it over, pulse stammering. A single word meets me in a messy scrawl.
Polaris.
The syllables are odd against my tongue, but in the back of my mind there’s a flicker. I’ve seen it somewhere before. Recently, even.
But the throb in my head presses down, and steals the meaning before I can hold onto it.
Carson’s bed takes me in, cool silk against my skin before it warms. Saltwater, so distinctly him, clings to everything like I knew it would. I chase it, sinking deeper, until the ache in my chest dulls and I can almost convince myself the phantom arms around me are real.
It works; sleep finds me fast.
But nothing about it is fitful.
My body may rest, but my mind floats in that gauzy space between dreams and waking. That’s why I hear the scuff of socks on hardwood when it comes. Then, stillness, a breath held.
A lamp clicks on. Behind my eyelids, the darkness burns red. A red that flares hotter when knuckles graze my cheek. Here, then gone, leaving only the steady percussion of rain against glass. A door clicks somewhere, and time blurs.
I don’t know how long it is before the mattress dips, familiar weight pressing in beside me. Strong arms fold around me, too real to be in my head, and I let out a long exhale. Finally.
But the comfort doesn’t last long. Suddenly every muscle braced against me goes stone-hard.
Then, swift—urgent—something is torn from my grip.
“Brielle?” Controlled breaths turn frantic. “Brielle.”
I don’t stir. Exhaustion keeps me under.
Hands move over me, trembling in their path.
“Brielle, what the fuck? Wake up, baby.” The shake rattles through me. “Wake up.”
It isn’t the jolting that pulls me out of it but the pure, unadulterated panic breaking through like thunder.
Carson.
He looms over me, wild eyes lit amber by the lamp—and by the orange bottle clutched in his shaking hand. “How much of this did you take?”
The question comes too quick for my disoriented state. He shakes me again, harder this time. “Brielle. Fuck.” It comes like he’s clawing for control and losing it by the second. “Tell me how much you took.”
Clarity strikes like a slap. “I didn’t take any,” I croak.
He doesn’t hear me. “Five? Ten? The whole damn bottle?” He’s falling deeper into the spiral, his fingers unsteady at my neck like he can count the truth in my pulse.
Another curse. His hand jerks toward his phone.
“No.” My palm flies to his wrist. “Carson. They’re not mine.”
A beat ago he couldn’t reach me, now it’s the other way around.
Half-formed sentences leave him in a tumble, and his gaze has gone distant like he’s chasing shadows I can’t follow.
I do the only thing I can, catching his face and forcing him back to me.
“Carson.” His name breaks into a plea. “Listen to me. They’re my mother’s.
My mother’s, Carson. Not mine. I didn’t touch any, I promise. ”
At last, the spiral stalls. His muttering fades and his eyes focus on mine. Back and forth, back and forth, on an endless search.
I don’t speak. Don’t even blink.
I just let him look his fill, and when he crushes me to him I stay still for fear of setting him off again. A shaky breath stirs my crown, followed by rocking. No, it’s not rocking. It’s Carson. Trembling.
My brain stumbles over the revelation, a sick feeling rooting deep. It’s all I can do to lift my arms, but before I can, he’s gone. Off the bed and into the bathroom, like he can’t get away fast enough.
The patter of rain spilling from his phone soon blends with the drone of the shower. I sit here, frozen, blindsided, utterly exposed.
I’ve never seen Carson like that. Yesterday his pain was quiet, almost contained. But this? This was something else entirely.
He didn’t just seem hurt. He seemed… traumatised.
I push to my feet, heart in my throat as I cross the space. Two tentative taps against the bathroom door.
“Carson?”
Nothing. I try again. Silence.
Panic flares, shredding all hesitation, and before I can second guess I’m pushing the door open.
Mist curls out, but that’s not the only thing filling the room. It’s him. Back hunched, arms braced against the tile, head bowed low. A silhouette of defeat beneath the downpour.
My pulse spikes. I move forward, swallowed by steam until I’m sliding the glass door aside.
The spray crashes into me, soaking my hair, my clothes, my skin, but I don’t care.
Not when I slip into the space he’s left, the tile at my back, and see him like this.
Shoulders hunched, chest heaving, still shaking. Oh God.
“Carson.” I don’t know what to do. I’ve never been in this situation. It was always Bryce comforting me.
All I have is instinct. And instinct tells me to wrap my arms around him so tight, until we’re locked together.
“You’re okay.” I breathe against him. “You’re okay, Carson. I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere. You’re safe.”
The affirmations pour from me like a mantra, until, inch by inch, the violence of his shaking dulls. Not gone, not even close, but less all-consuming.
Then a ragged sound rips free. “Bri.”
My name fractures mid-air, and when I pull back, his storm-grey eyes look lost, like he can’t quite believe I’m real.
“You’re here.” His hands skim over me—arms, waist, shoulders—before clamping down so hard it almost hurts.
“Yes.” I know he doesn’t just mean here, in this bathroom. He means here. “I’m here, Carson.”
His eyes are still lost somewhere darker. “You’re not gone,” he rasps.
I cradle his face, forcing his gaze to mine. “I’m not,” I whisper fiercely. “I’m right here. Look at me. Please.”
His mouth opens, a strangled attempt at words. “I thought—” He chokes. “I thought—”
“It doesn’t matter what you thought, Carson. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
The truth of it hangs heavy, the shower pounding down, our breaths mingling, and then, it breaks. Something in him, something in me. I don’t know who moves first—him, me, both of us—but suddenly the distance is gone, sealed in a single, desperate kiss.
It’s intense, almost reckless, and for a split second a thought skims the edge of my mind. This is insane, we shouldn’t. But it burns away just as fast, drowned by the surge of him and the flood of everything between us finally spilling free.
His hands tremble as they frame me, steadying, urgent, like he’s afraid I’ll disappear. I clutch at him just as fiercely all the whole steam wraps us in a cocoon where there’s only this.
Like whatever happens here is allowed to happen.
The press of him, the tremor in his hands, the thundering in my chest—all of it fuses together until I can’t tell where I end and he begins.
He breaks just long enough to rasp my name. “Brielle.” Another lean-in. “God, Bri—” His forehead presses to mine, chest heaving. “I can’t lose you.”
“You won’t.” My voice is nothing more than a broken vow. “You won’t. I’m right here.”
He finds me again, like the tide pulling him back where he belongs, and I sink into it until every thought I had moments ago vanishes and what’s left is two souls clinging like it’s the only way to survive.
Through every breathless moment, the shower keeps pouring.
The heat of it mixes with the force of Carson, and the only thing I know is that we don’t stop.
Not when the water hits hard. Not when the edges blur.
Not until everything else fades, and all that’s left is the wild sync of our hearts carrying us through the dark.