The adrenaline is waring off and with it, questions and doubts slam into me. What if he’d decided to use his strength against me? Would I have been able to defend myself? At this point, I know I disgust him with my scars and he blames me for ruining his life. Every time I think I’ve succeed in kicking those doubts out of my head, something happens to bring them back.
My phone beeps on the bed but my feet can’t move from where I am. It beeps a few more times before I crawl across the floor and up on the bed. I swipe the screen and see three messages from Cole flashing on the screen.
I replace the penknife back under the pillow and set the phone down. There’s no way I’m going to answer his texts. I can’t formulate any words right now, and knowing Cole, his heart overrules his mind when he feels like the people he loves are threatened.
I climb to my feet and dash to the bathroom. I feel dirty. I want to scrub the feel of his hand off my body.
After turning the shower to hot, I grab a wash cloth and stagger into the space filled with steam.
By the time I leave the bathroom, wearing my pajamas and a towel around my head, I feel raw and numb. I need to feel something. Anything. I need to stop feeling as if I’m dead. I know what happens when my body craves the rush. I have tried so hard not to relapse, but I’m starting to feel the walls that stand between sanity and insanity, cracking. I need Cole. He makes me feel another kind of rush.
Cole is sitting on my bed, his elbows propped on his knees, when I walk into my room. My steps falter at first. Relief sweeps through me when I see that he is okay. I cross the room and drop to my knees in front of him, wrapping my arms around him. He hugs me back, but the way he is holding me feels different. It’s tighter than usual, as if he doesn’t want to let me go. He pulls back and kisses my forehead, then nuzzles his face in the crook of my neck.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, when he pulls back to stare at me.
I shake my head. “Nothing. I’m tired.” I start rubbing my hair dry with the towel.
“Are you mad at me?”
I frown and shake my head. “I’m not mad at you.”
“Then what’s wrong? Why won’t you look at me?” he says.
Because I’m afraid you will see right through me. I divert my gaze before I can say those words out aloud and run my hands along my arms to calm my prickling skin.
I wish my mother wasn’t as sick or still hopelessly in love with my father. I wish I was old enough to move out of this house and take my sisters and mom with me.
“I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s wrong.” He climbs on the bed and scoots back to the wooden headboard. “Come here.”
I walk toward him fighting the urge to throw myself in his arms, but stop at the foot of the bed and suck in a breath as I take in his slouched form. Something is off with him. His eyes are rimmed with red as if he has been crying, and his shoulders are hunched forward. How did I not notice this when I walked into the room?
“Is everything okay?” I ask, hoping to get a glimpse of what is bothering him.
He scrubs his hands down his face. He signs and speaks the words, “I just came home from the hospital.”
“Are you all right?” I inspect him with my eyes, but he seems perfectly okay. But his eyebrows are folded in a worry frown and his eyes are tight around the corners.
I take a deep breath, pushing my problems aside.
He shakes his head again. “Josh. We received a call three hours ago from his football coach, telling us that they had to rush him to the hospital—St. James Memorial. He has been having recurring pancreatitis for almost three years. We thought he had gotten better, but we were wrong. This time it was worse than the other times.”
I crawl on the bed toward him and pull him into a hug, and then lean back and take his hands in mine. “Oh gosh. I’m so sorry. Is he going to be okay?”
He removes one hand from mine and rubs his neck. “I don’t know. I mean. . .yes. I hope so. The doctor wanted to keep him in the hospital a bit longer to monitor him until tomorrow. They put him on I.V. medications to lessen the irritation.”
Tears fill his eyes and he clenches his jaw. “I can’t lose him.”
I slide my palms to his cheeks and fix my gaze on his. “You won’t lose him. He is going to be all right. You hear me?”
He sniffs and blinks several times. “He had better be or I will kick his ass. The idiot hasn’t been following his diet.”
He inhales deeply, and as his chest deflates he sinks deeper into the bed. “It’s your turn. Talk to me. I won’t be able to sleep tonight if I don’t know what is wrong.”
I sigh. Knowing Cole, he won’t leave this alone. So I tell him what happened, omitting the part where my dad and his mom were arguing. I’m not touching that issue right now.
By the time I’m done, Cole’s body is rigid and his face wears a hard expression. Beautiful. Hard. Unforgiving.
He loosens his hands around my neck. “Did he do anything to you?”
“No!” I say, shaking my head. “No. He didn’t.”
He exhales, then pulls me to him. He kisses my forehead, and just holds me until I feel my body calm down.