Chapter 7
Quill
“I’m sorry, Quill. I’m sorry.”
A small cold hand shyly strokes my hair and my forehead as I lay wheezing on the ground, feet away from the pile of vomit that I’ve just hurled out of my system.
I slowly look up at Piper, her green-blue eyes watching me through her foggy lenses.
“I’m sorry,” she says again.
“Please stop.”
A real migraine is making the back of my eyeball ache, and my entire head throbs in rhythm to the words still beating against my brain.
You told them to do it. You told them to do it. You told them to do it.
I realize vaguely that I’m once again saying the exact opposite of what I should be. Please stop? What the hell is wrong with me?
I manage to open my eyes to see the hurt look in her eyes. Fuck. It would be so much easier if she were angry.
Then I get up and stumble back to the car, and she follows me inside.
“Are you okay to drive?” she breathes as I turn on the ignition.
I don’t bother to answer, focusing instead on the road, trying to take my mind off the pain that’s wrapping itself around my temples and crushing at my brain.
“I already told you they lied, didn’t I?” I say at last.
She nods sadly.
“So why are you bringing it up now?”
Wrong fucking thing to say.
She merely shrugs and looks away.
Of course she’s bringing it up. She spent three years believing the lie, and I didn’t exactly help matters by calling her a worthless whore at every opportunity.
Did you really think one sentence spoken right after you shot in her direction would be enough to convince her?
“Is that why you won’t let me kiss you?”
Fuck!
It feels like I’m finding the worst possible thing to say at every possible moment. Seriously, what the hell is fucking wrong with me?
It definitely can’t get any worse.
And then it does.
“I’m sorry,” she says in a quiet sob. “You can kiss me.”
Why would she say that?
“I don’t want to.”
Fuck. Me!
I’ve never felt more like a psychopath than I do now. Mom was right. I should have been locked up in an institution. I have no business being around normal people. I couldn’t begin to be normal if I tried.
My brain is broken. It doesn’t even feel like I can trust myself to breathe. Every single thing I do, every single thing I say, is hurting the only person I love.
And it’s happening in slow-motion. A downward slow, sludgy spiral that any normal person would easily be able to stop.
But I’m on the outside, looking in, feeling more utterly helpless than I ever have in my life.
Mom was right to abandon me. Piper should too. I don’t deserve to have either of them in my life.
I pull in abruptly at the first motel sign I find and park the car.
She swallows, looking at the clock in the car. I guess she realizes it can’t possibly be time to reach our destination for the night.
“Are we stopping already?” she asks nervously.
“Yeah. Grimaine.”
“What?”
“I… have… migraine.”
The words pour out like sludge from my mouth, the same type of sludge that feels like it’s invading my brain.
I stumble out of the car again, at this point unable to see from the static that’s filling my vision.
Fuck me. This is a real aura migraine, the kind I only remember getting twice before in my life, the morning I found Mom’s letter at the breakfast table, and the night I puked my guts out after drunk-dialing Piper.
I feel Piper’s cold, trembling hand in mine and hear her opening the trunk and grunting lightly as she grabs the suitcase.
Fuck, I’m so helpless. Fuck, that should be my job.
She manages to make the reservation in a little office while I stand to the side, wincing to try to filter through my staticky vision and failing.
I can’t decide if I’m going to pass out, or throw up again, or bawl like a fucking baby.
I crush Piper’s hand in mine, finding comfort in it, because it means the world around me is real, and she hasn’t left it.
She guides me toward a room, I hear the click of the key in the lock, and then she’s pushing me down on the bed.
“No… loof… fl… floor…”
I know there is just no fucking way she would ever sleep next to me after the bullshit that spewed out of my mouth in the car. And I do not want her sleeping on the floor.
But she insists on tucking me in, and when my head hits the pillow, I realize I’m incapable of moving.
There are pins and needles pricking me all up and down my arms, but her hand is holding mine, and I squeeze it again to remind myself that the pins and needles aren’t real. Only she is.
_
I must pass out at some point because when I open my eyes again, she isn’t there.
I sit up, my heart beating wildly.
I can tell it’s nighttime. The sun was filtering through the shutters earlier, making my eyes burn, but now it’s dark. I’m parched, and I see Piper’s left a bottle of water, some medicine, and the room key on the side table.
But she’s nowhere in sight.
I stand up, wincing as lancinating pain at the bridge of my nose nearly makes me collapse. But I keep it together, rushing toward the gun that Piper thankfully brought in—I can’t fucking believe I had left it in the car—slipping it into my backpocket and rushing outside.
My car is still parked right out front, and the car key is in my pocket.
It’s a typical motel right off the state road with a grimy-looking restaurant a few feet away. I rush around the building first, whipping open some of the empty, unlocked rooms, calling her name. She’s nowhere to be found.
I can’t think where else she would be, unless someone… took her. I force myself to push away that thought, hurtling instead toward my last chance, the restaurant.
I slam open the door, and… fucking hell. There she is.
I let out a breath of utter relief before tensing all over, because Piper’s sitting down at a booth with… two men.
She hasn’t seen me yet, apparently deep in conversation with them both.
What. the. Fuck?
I walk, or rather, stumble, over, still feeling completely fucked up. Then I sit down beside her as she jumps, clearly surprised.
“Quill! Feeling better?”
Her cheerful voice sounds fake. I stare at her, wondering what the hell is going on.
Then I turn my glaring, if sore, eyes at the two men, both of them muscular, smooth-shaven and wearing closely-cropped haircuts. At once, they stand up awkwardly.
“Well, it was nice seeing you,” says one of them.
And then they leave.
“What the fuck was that about?” I growl.
“Nothing.”
Piper’s shaky hand goes toward the glass of ice water she’s apparently ordered, and I grab it and press it in mine.
“Tell me.”
“You were sick,” she says, licking her lips, “so I went out to get a snack.”
I stare down at the small plate in front of her, covered in crumbs.
“Who were they?”
She shrugs. “No clue. I didn’t have any cash on me, so they offered to pay.”
“Who were they, Piper?”
She shrugs again, looking angry now. “I said, Quill, I don’t know.”
“Then why the fuck did they say it was nice to see you?”
“I don’t know!” she bursts out. “I told you, I don’t know them! I can’t control what they say to me!”
“If they had just met you, they would have said that. They would have said it was nice to meet you. Not see you.”
“Oh my fucking God, Quill! Who the fuck cares? Leave me alone!”
She wriggles her hand out of my grip, and I let her, probably because with the migraine, I’m still feeling very uncoordinated.
“What were you talking about with them?”
She shakes her head, hiding her face in her hands.
“You shouldn’t have let them pay. That was my job. We still had that leftover burger, anyway. If you wanted to eat, you could have had that.”
She sighs loudly. “You were sick, and I just wanted some air. Is that such a crime? Are you going to punish me for it? Want to go find a few guys to rape me just so you can knock me down a peg?”
My entire body tenses and I edge backward, staring at her like I’ve just been shocked.
She seems to regret the words as soon as they’re out of her mouth, biting down on her lip so hard it bleeds. For a moment, neither of us says a thing, and then I stand up stiffly.
“Let’s go back to the motel room,” I mutter.
She shuffles submissively behind me, and when I open the door to our room, she walks in, sniffing quietly.
“I’m sorry, Quill,” she whispers.
I don’t answer. I don’t have the energy to deal with any of this right now.
I hear her cry softly as she goes to get the bag of toiletries then locks the bathroom door behind her.
I grab my pillow and settle down on the ground, closing my eyes because even the small rectangle of light coming from the bathroom door hurts me.
A moment later she’s back, stopping uncertainly as she sees me on the ground.
“Don’t you want the bed?” she says in a strained voice.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you…” she clears her throat. “Are you angry at me?”
I sigh wearily. “No. I’m not angry at you, Piper.”
The bedsheets rustle as she gets in. “Uhm. Would you like the blanket? Or a sheet?”
I am cold, but I don’t think a blanket would be able to warm me up.
“It’s fine.”
My body is tense all over with pain, and I wonder if this is how Piper felt when she woke up after I shot in her direction.
I fucking hate myself.
But I can’t think of a single thing to say to make it okay, so instead, I slow my breathing and close my eyes, hoping she’ll believe I’ve fallen asleep.
She waits a little while, and I hear the rustles of the sheets as she sits and then stands up. I hardly dare to breathe, wondering if this is the moment she tries to leave me. Is that what was happening before? Is she trying to get away from me?
I locked the door. I don’t think she noticed that I locked the door when I entered after her. I’d been too far gone with the migraine to even think of doing it earlier, but I made sure to lock it this time.
The key is in my pocket, and there’s no fucking way she can leave me. Still, I’m going to have to be on my guard. I won’t rest easy until she’s asleep.