Текст книги "When We Met"
Автор книги: Christina Lee
Соавторы: Molly McAdams,A. L. Jackson,Tiffany King
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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 22 страниц)
“Are you okay?”
“Why are you here?” I yelled, my breathing ragged as I stared at Kier’s worried face, his arm outstretched like he’d been about to catch me.
“I was waiting for you.” He leaned closer to help me up.
“So you wait for people by popping up out of nowhere and scaring the shit out of them?”
“Didn’t mean to scare you. I was just coming back upstairs.”
I sighed heavily and pressed a hand to my chest. “Christ, you about gave me a heart attack. Have you been in my bedroom?”
He glanced at my door and shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Do you have a habit of inviting yourself to wait for people in their rooms?”
His lips tilted up on one side in a charming, lopsided smirk. “Uh, not exactly. Your housemate told me she didn’t think you’d be upstairs much longer and to wait in your room. I’d been in there, but I realized I left my phone in my car, so I went to get it and was coming back.”
“Traitor,” I hissed.
“Excuse me?”
“She was supposed to tell you I wasn’t here.”
Kier didn’t look hurt or shocked by this. His smirk just turned into a full-on grin. Ass. “She told me that, too.”
I crossed my arms under my chest and glared at him. “What all did she tell you?”
“First, are you okay? That looked like it hurt.”
“I’m fine,” I said through gritted teeth.
His golden eyes danced. “All right. She came downstairs, said you’d told her to tell me you were gone even though you were hiding out upstairs in the pillow room—whatever the fuck a pillow room is—and she thought you’d been up there for a while and probably wouldn’t last in there much longer, so to wait for you in your room.”
“Lovely,” I groaned.
“What’s a pillow room?”
“It’s a room full of pillows.”
His expression went deadpan for a few seconds before he rolled his eyes and sighed. “Anyway. I wanted to check on you.”
I’d started turning away from him, but at his admission, my head snapped back to look at him. “Why?”
“Because of yesterday.”
My cheeks burned and I took a self-conscious step back. “What about it?”
“You were obviously freaking out, and I don’t think I made it easier for you. So I wanted to see how you were doing.”
“I’m fine.”
He studied my face for a few seconds. “Are you sure about that?”
I broke down most of yesterday and today. No, I’m not fine. “Positive.”
“Indy . . . ,” he mumbled, his tone conveying his disbelief.
I had humiliated myself in front of this guy yesterday, and after the days I’d been having, I didn’t need him bringing that humiliation back up. “Did you need something else? As much as I appreciate you checking up on me, I’m fine, and I’m kind of busy.”
Kier’s head jerked back and his eyebrows rose. “Look, I’m sorry if I embarrassed you yest—”
“For a guy who doesn’t talk a lot, you’ve sure seemed to do nothing but talk the last couple days. I’m sorry, but I need you to leave.”
Even as I said the words, I wanted to take them back. I didn’t want Kier to leave. I wanted him to keep talking to me. I wanted to know everything about him. I wanted this safe feeling to never go away, but I hated knowing he could see how close I was to breaking for the second time today. I hated knowing he probably thought I was some ridiculous girl. And right now . . . right now—no matter how much I wanted him here—I needed to be alone.
With a small nod, he took two steps backward before turning and walking down the stairs.
I didn’t even wait until I heard the front door shut. Ignoring the hunger pains in my stomach, I turned and bolted up the stairs and into the attic as the sadistic cravings got to be too much and a tortured sob burst from my chest.
I tripped over pillows and blankets, falling onto a mass of more of the same as hard sobs racked my body and tears streamed down my cheeks. My hands fisted, and I pressed them against the tops of my thighs as I chanted the words over and over again until sleep finally claimed me.
I won’t do it. I can’t. For Ian. For me. I won’t do it. I can’t. For Ian. For me.
chapter four
Kier
I spent the entire next day doing nothing but thinking about Indy and the way she’d looked when I saw her the day before. It wasn’t hard to miss the bloodshot eyes and blotchy cheeks, but she hadn’t even wanted to talk about our conversation from the morning before—and I know that had been my fault. But if she wouldn’t talk to me about that, I knew bringing up the fact that she looked like she’d been crying would only make everything worse.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I couldn’t stop wondering what had been wrong. I couldn’t stop the need I felt to go take care of her. Just like I’d always felt with her. From the beginning there’d been something about her, something calling me to her—to protect her. Only now I was having more and more trouble staying away from her. Like today. It’d been storming all day, the temperatures borderline freezing, and the lightning and thunder constant. Obviously she wasn’t alone in her house like I was, but her housemate had mentioned something about two of them being at work all day, and I figured today would be the same. So she was alone again and I’d been thinking of a hundred different excuses to show up like I had done yesterday. Keep her safe from the storm—douche line. Bring her food—which I didn’t have any of. Take her out—which I doubted she would agree to. Ask her if she was ready to actually remember me—but I knew I couldn’t.
I was reaching, and I knew it. I needed to stop. I just didn’t know if I could.
I sat up quickly on my bed when the power went out in the house. After waiting a few seconds without it flickering back on, I fell back and raked my hands down my face.
“Fucking perfect.”
Slapping my hand around on my bed until I found my phone, I slid my thumb across the screen to light my way so I could go check the breaker in this old house. I stopped when I realized there was no light coming in my window from outside, either.
Walking over to it, I looked out the blinds to find a dark street that only lit up from the random lightning. Glancing to the left, I saw Indy’s car parked in front of their house, and fought with myself for only a minute before I was pulling on a hoodie and jacket. With a douche line or not, I was going over there and keeping her safe from the motherfucking storm.
I ran through the rain and up the stairs to the girls’ porch just as the front door opened, revealing Indy with wide eyes, like she’d just been caught.
“Kier,” she breathed.
This was such a bad idea. “Uh . . .” I’m checking on you again. I’m protecting you like the badass I’m not. “I wanted to see you.”
Her lips curved up. “You wanted to see me?”
“Yeah,” I said on a defeated sigh.
“Even after the way I treated you yesterday, and embarrassed myself the day before, and I could go on to the other times we’ve spoken . . .” She started to laugh, but jolted when a bolt of lightning flashed, almost immediately followed by a deafening clap of thunder.
“Yeah, still wanted to see you. But if you’re going some—”
She stepped back, holding the door wider. “I was coming to you. You just beat me to it.”
I kept my eyes trained on her as I walked into the house, not missing the way she was looking everywhere but at me as I did. I was used to the drunken Indy forgetting me, and the sober and adorable-as-sin Indy—but I wasn’t used to what I’d encountered yesterday, and I wanted to know what had made her act that way. I wanted to fix it. I wanted to make sure it never happened again.
“So you—” I started at the same time she blurted, “I’m so sorry, Kier. I—wait, what were you about to say?”
I smiled even though I doubted she could see me clearly. “I was just trying to figure out why you were coming to see me.”
There was a long pause. The only sound was our breathing, the rain against the house, and the occasional thunder. When she spoke again, her words were soft and slow. “I needed to apologize for yesterday, and . . .”
“And?” I prompted.
“And I didn’t want to be alone tonight,” she breathed.
My heart beat harder in my chest and heat flooded my veins, but I tried to stop my initial reaction. Telling myself that if her housemates had been here, she wouldn’t have come looking for me, and that it was possible she would have gone to any of the guys in my house. But it was damn hard to keep telling myself that when she’d been coming to me sober for the second time.
When I didn’t respond, she huffed. “I can’t see you very well, so I can’t try to figure out what you’re thinking and it’s bothering me.”
I bit back a smile and reached out until the tips of my fingers brushed her stomach. Her muscles contracted at the contact, but she didn’t pull away. I let my fingers trail across her stomach until I found one of her arms, and then I slid my hand down her soft skin and intertwined my fingers with hers.
“Well, then, you won’t be alone.”
Her breathing deepened and she curled her fingers around mine, and my body relaxed at the simple movement. “What is it about you?” she asked.
Even though she’d asked me before, I knew this question wasn’t meant for me. Just her tone told me she’d asked herself that question at least a hundred times, and I wondered what answer she’d started coming up with.
“I told you—”
“When I’m ready.”
I swallowed roughly and nodded in the dark room. “Yeah.”
“And you’re not going to tell me when exactly it is that I will be ready?”
“No.”
“But I still feel safe with you.”
God, I hope so.
Indy cleared her throat and took a step back, her grip on my hand tightening as she did. “The pillow room has a lot of blankets. I, uh, don’t really feel comfortable having you in my room yet—even though you were already in there yesterday. But it’s comfortable up there, and even though it’s probably colder up there than the rest of the house, we’ll be able to stay warm.”
If only she had any clue how many times I’d been in her room. My lips twitched into a smile. “Lead the way.”
After stumbling our way up one flight of stairs, down the hall, and then up more stairs, she suddenly paused in front of me.
“I wasn’t joking when I said it’s full of pillows. We didn’t turn this room into a bedroom. The carpet is covered with dozens of pillows, and there are probably another dozen blankets at least in here. You have to walk very carefully or you’ll trip and go down.”
“Okay . . .” I could see enough so I could make out the silhouette of her body, and the lumpiness of the floor, but that was about it.
She started walking painfully slowly, and after she took a few calculated steps, I took two—and immediately fell, taking her down with me.
“What the hell kind of death trap is this room?” I grunted into the mass I’d fallen into, half of which felt like a pillow, and half of which seemed to be a blanket. At least the landing was soft.
Indy was laughing so hard she didn’t respond for a few seconds. “I told you to be careful where you walked!”
“I was!”
“Obviously not.” There was a rustling noise before the blanket was yanked out from underneath me. “If you find blankets, grab them.”
“You just took mine.”
She huffed. “You’ll find more. Come on, it’s freezing up here, and it’s only going to get worse the longer the power stays out.”
Not wanting to risk standing, I crawled around on the pillows, grabbing anything that felt like a blanket as I moved toward where Indy was already waiting by the window. I could see her silhouette and breaths coming out in little white puffs.
“I think I got five?”
“I got six,” she said as she began wrapping blankets around herself.
Dropping mine, I wrapped the ones she’d collected around her until she was completely covered. “You look like a burrito.”
Her soft laugh filled the space between us. “I can’t move my arms.”
“Doesn’t matter, you don’t need to. At least you’ll be warm.”
“Oh, there’s no doubt of that.” She smiled at me in the dark room before frowning. “But now I can’t make you look like a burrito.”
“I don’t want to be a burrito. I wouldn’t be able to move my arms.”
“What the hell, Kier?”
I laughed and grabbed the blankets I’d dropped. “You’ll get over it.”
After I covered myself, we huddled closer together and talked for an hour about classes, housemates, and why she had always been afraid to say anything to me since she never saw me talking to anyone. Like I’d known it would, that topic led to her asking again why she felt safe with me, and when I couldn’t give her an answer, she stayed quiet for a few minutes.
“I haven’t felt safe in a long time,” she finally admitted softly, and then shook her head. “I don’t mean I’ve felt like I was in danger or anything. I just—I’ve felt—it’s hard to explain. . . .”
I just waited.
“I’ve felt like I was on the verge of destroying myself for so long, and I just couldn’t stop. It made me feel like I was drowning, and even when I thought I had people helping me keep it together, they weren’t. And they never made me feel as at peace as you do just by being near me. This feeling is so different—such a nice change. Like I’ve said, I don’t know how to begin to explain it, but it’s just this feeling I have around you.”
And this was it. That tone. It was the same one she’d had yesterday when I tried to talk to her and she asked me to leave. And I knew at that moment that she was ready to know about all those Saturday nights I’d been taking care of her. I didn’t know how I knew; I just knew wherever this conversation was leading this time, it would lead there. She’d told me she’d felt safe before, but never like that. Everything was different this time.
She laughed awkwardly. “I don’t even know why I’m bringing this up. I know you won’t tell me why.”
“It’s because all I want to do is take care of you,” I said before I could stop myself, and risked a glance at her wide eyes.
“Wh-what? Take care of me?” She laughed. “Kier. You don’t even know me. I’m—I’m a mess. I’m apparently a slut—”
“Don’t. Don’t say that about yourself.”
“You don’t know—”
“Yeah, Indy, I do.” I held her gaze for a minute and watched as she bit down on her bottom lip, like she was trying to stop herself from saying something. “Destroying yourself . . . ,” I mumbled, echoing her words, and let that hang in the air for a few seconds. Taking a deep breath, I looked away as I said, “Indy, you always seem so surprised that you’re hearing me talk—or you say something about how I’m quiet. And yeah, I’ll admit I don’t talk to a lot of people—and last year, we didn’t talk at all. But we’ve talked a lot over the last three months, more than you realize. That’s not the only difference in this year, though. I saw you at the parties at our house last year, and you were never like how you are now. You’re wild; you’re out of control. You’re with multiple guys, and you never remember a thing.”
“How do you know that?” she asked, her voice shocked, but just barely above a whisper. “You’re never there.”
I kept speaking like she hadn’t said anything. “You say you feel like you’re on the verge of destroying yourself, and Saturday nights are the first thing that come to mind, Indy. Because, although no one can stop you from drinking, or doing whatever you want to do . . . I know you don’t like who you are when you drink.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Same reason I know which room is yours. Same reason you stumble into my room at some point during every party. It never fails, you end up in there, and we go through the whole thing all over. You trying to remember my name, me carrying you over here to your room, you figuring out I gave you the bread and wondering why.”
“Safe room,” she mumbled to herself, her mouth forming a perfect O when it hit her. “You leave the water and pills, too, don’t you?”
It hadn’t been a question, so I didn’t answer. I just sat there as her mind worked around the information she’d just been given, and everything she was trying to piece together.
“Are you the one who locks my bedroom door?” she asked after a couple of minutes.
I nodded. “People know you live next door. They see me carrying you out of my house and returning not even ten minutes later alone. I don’t trust someone not to take advantage of that.”
“But why—why would you do that for me? I don’t remember any of—” She cut off suddenly, her face blank for a split second. “And why don’t I ever remember it? I don’t get that drunk, Kier!”
“You’re right, you don’t get that drunk. You’re definitely drunk, but not to the point where you wouldn’t remember anything from the night before. The first couple times I thought you were doing it just to be . . . I don’t know, I thought you just wanted someone to take care of you. So I did. But then I realized you really had no clue. After the last three months of it, all I’ve been able to come up with is I think you block out these nights in your mind. Like there’s already something bad about them, so the rest of it you just decide to forget as well.”
Her face went blank, and she didn’t respond for a long time, but I knew I was right. “Dean . . . I drink to forget Dean.” She sighed raggedly. “He was—”
“I know who he was to you,” I said, clenching my jaw and cutting her off.
“You do?” she asked, shock coating her words.
Of course I did. Every time I saw him on campus, I wanted to punch the bastard. “There was a party a few weeks into the school year, and it was the second night you stumbled into my room. After I got you in bed, you started sobbing, saying you were disgusted with yourself. You’d slept with some guy and said, ‘It didn’t work—my heart still hurts,’ and told me all about Dean. When the next two weeks went by with similar results, I started buying you the bread. Partly because it would absorb some of the alcohol you were drinking, and also because the first three weeks before you fell asleep you kept complaining because you didn’t understand why the world was suddenly banning garlic bread, and all you wanted was to find some. Some weeks you eat it and stay away from guys. Some weeks you stumble into my room without it, and those are the nights you cry again.”
“That’s really . . . embarrassing. Oh my God,” she groaned. “And after all that, how could you sit there and tell me I’m not acting like a slut?”
I glared at her and resisted the urge to shake her. “Did you not hear me? I know you don’t like who you are when you’re like that. You tell me you disgust yourself. I see you when you’re sober, Indy, and I know you’re not that girl. You’re trying to forget someone, and you’re wasted whenever you do something.”
“Like that makes it okay?”
“No,” I answered honestly. “But you—the way you are, the way you honestly block all of this from your mind, I think that proves you’re not a slut. You said you feel like you’re drowning, and to be honest, that’s kind of a perfect word.”
“Did you fix my car, yes or no?”
“Yes,” I said hesitantly, and she laughed without humor.
“Then why did you tell me it wasn’t you? Why did Misha say it was her?”
I looked away for a second before saying, “Misha and Darryn are the only ones who have figured out what I’ve been doing every week. I don’t talk to them about it, but they’ve figured it out. And I needed help getting into your car to fix it the other morning. Misha knows you weren’t ready to know I was helping you. She was just protecting you.”
Even in the dark room I could see when her jaw started trembling and tears filled her eyes. “So all of this, this whole feeling safe with you, has just been an illusion? A product of not remembering certain nights, but for some reason, remembering to come to your room?”
“If that’s how you want to see it.”
“How else would I see it?” she nearly yelled.
“Sober, you feel safe near me, drawn to me. Drunk, you feel the same way. You came to me the first time, second time, third, and so on. Nights you don’t remember at all. But you still came to me. You knew I was safe, and that’s all I needed to know to keep taking care of you.”
“God!” she cried. “Why would you keep doing that week after week?”
“Because someone had to let you know.”
Her eyebrows pinched together in confusion as a line of tears fell down one of her cheeks. “Know what?”
“That you mean a lot more than you think you do. You don’t seem to think very highly of yourself—and I don’t know why—but you’re wrong. Whatever it is, you’re wrong . . . and Dean was an idiot to let you go.”
A soft cry burst from her chest, and when I started moving toward her, her voice stopped me. “Don’t! Please don’t.”
I sat back and watched helplessly as she tried to pull herself together underneath all those blankets.
“I want that to be true . . . but it’s just not,” she whispered. She didn’t say it like she was searching for more compliments. Every word had so much truth and pain behind it, the admission had me rubbing at my chest as I shook my head in confusion.
“Indy . . .”
“Thank you for taking care of me, and trying to protect me from myself, but I told you, I’m a mess. My life? It’s . . . God, Kier, it’s beyond complicated, and so many people have already given up on me—it’s not long before you will, too.”
“And what makes you think that?”
“Because there’s no reason for you not to. The people who were supposed to be there for me through anything gave up on me. Why wouldn’t you?”
My breathing deepened as frustration pumped through me, and I had to wait until I had it under control before I responded to her. “Well, you’re not giving me much of a chance to prove myself, are you? You’ve already determined that you’ll disappoint me. That’s a new one.” My lips quirked up on one side in a sarcastic smirk. “So this time it really is ‘it’s not you, it’s me’? And we’re not even dating.”
“Kier . . . ,” she protested. “You don’t understand.”
“You’re right, Indy. I don’t.” I began shrugging off all the blankets, and her eyes widened. “No matter what you think about yourself, I see differently. See, I don’t talk to people unless I want to give them my time. And, God, Indy, I want to give you my time. But I see people, and I sure as hell see you. I may not know what’s hurting you, I may not know why you’re destroying yourself, but I still fucking see you. I see that you need someone to save you from yourself.” When I had all the blankets off me, I carefully stood, never taking my eyes off her pained expression. “And I’ll still be that guy. I’m still that safe place, and I’ll still be there ready to take care of you if you find you can’t handle whatever’s going on and you start trying to destroy yourself again. But I won’t listen to you basically tell me you’re not worth being saved. Because that? I don’t believe that for a goddamn second.”
“You don’t understand what you’re saying,” she said as I turned to leave, and I looked back at her.
“No, I do. If I’m capable, I will save you every time, Indy. Believe that, if nothing else. I don’t need or expect anything in return. I’m doing this because it’s what you deserve and what I want to do for you.”
“I want you! You consume me in a way I’ve never experienced even though up until ten minutes ago it didn’t make sense! I want the feeling you give me to never end, but there’s no way—”
I dropped to my knees in front of her and cupped her cheeks in my hands and brought my mouth down onto hers. “Don’t finish that,” I growled against her lips before kissing her again.
Her mouth moved easily against mine, and when I traced my tongue against her lips, they parted on a soft inhale, allowing me access to tease her tongue with my own.
“I need to be able to touch you,” she pled before deepening the kiss, and I released her cheeks to begin quickly, and awkwardly, pulling down the blankets I’d wrapped around her.
Once her arms were free, I laid her back on the pillows and hovered over her body for a few seconds before relaxing on top of her. An annoyed groan sounded in the back of her throat when she tried to move her legs, but the six blankets wrapped—and now tangled—around her lower body prevented the movement.
Moving back enough so I could look down into her eyes, I shook my head and whispered, “Nothing is ever guaranteed, but you can’t write us off before you even give me a chance to prove that I can be good for you.”
That pained look was back in her eyes. “I have a feeling that you would be. I’ve had that feeling. But that doesn’t mean that I’ll be good for you.”
I brushed my lips against hers, everything in my body yelling to taste her again. “Let me be the judge of that.”
Fresh tears welled up in her eyes, and my body tightened as I prepared to make my case again. Instead of the resistance I was coming to expect, she choked out, “My brother died. Two years ago last Saturday. But it was Thanksgiving, so it’s also kind of tomorrow.”
“Indy,” I crooned, my hands going to cup her cheeks again.
“He was my twin, and I loved him”—she cut off on a sob—“so much. We were nothing alike, but still inseparable until college. He was my best friend, and we loved to drive my mom crazy . . . probably just because she gave us such horrible names.”
I smiled and brushed at a tear. “I love the name Indy.”
Her watery gaze drifted over to me. “My brother’s name was Ian. Indy and Ian . . . Indy-Ian. All our friends just called us Indian instead of trying to say our separate names.” She laughed softly and shook her head. “He got a scholarship to play football in Texas. It was the first time we’d ever been away from each other, but I didn’t get accepted there, and there was no way he wasn’t going. It was like a dream for him. He’d always been so focused in school and football . . . my parents had always been proud of him.”
Her eyes got a faraway look as heavy tears slipped down her cheeks.
“Our freshman year Ian said he couldn’t come home for Thanksgiving, and our parents never really liked me, so I decided to stay here with Dean.” She must have seen my skeptical expression, because she added, “Ian always had to tell my parents to back off because they were never happy with me or anything I did. My grades were never as good as his. My boyfriends never measured up to Ian’s perfect girlfriends. My dad always said I dressed like a whore, but he congratulated Ian when he lost his virginity. It was always difficult with them. They practically paid me to move away from them.”
“Are you serious?”
She choked out a depressed-sounding laugh, and even in the dark I could see her eyebrows rise in confirmation. “So apparently Ian just told my parents he couldn’t come home because he wanted to come hang out with me here so we could have time without our parents fighting over how I wasn’t making them proud the way Ian was. He called me the night before Thanksgiving to tell me he was boarding a plane with a friend who lived in the area, and would be catching a ride, and not to tell Mom and Dad. There was some crazy snowstorm, and he got stuck in Chicago.”
The tears came harder, and for long minutes Indy didn’t continue the story. After taking a few large breaths in and out, she looked up at me and gave me a depressed smile.
“I was woken up the next morning by a phone call around six. I was alone in my dorm room, my roommate had left for the break, and I remember it smelled like her perfume. I don’t know why I remember that. It’s just something that has always stood out, because I hated that fucking perfume, and it’s all I could smell as I listened to my mom sobbing on the other end of the line. Ian and his friend had decided to try to drive since there were no flights, and it was only about four hours. We’re from Chicago, so Ian called his friends all night until one of them agreed to come get them at the airport and drive them. They didn’t make it forty-five minutes before they, and another car, hit a huge patch of black ice and spun out of control. They both went off the road and into a ditch. The driver was paralyzed from the waist down, Ian’s friend broke his collarbone, and Ian’s side of the car was pinned underneath the other car. They said he lived for about ten minutes after the crash. They didn’t say the exact words, but it wasn’t hard to figure out how much he’d been suffering for those ten minutes. And he’d been coming to see me.”
“But, Indy . . . that doesn’t make it your fault.”
“I know that,” she cried. “But I’m not sure my parents do.”
“You don’t—”
“My dad said, ‘It should have been you’ when I was finally able to make it home.”
I flinched back. “What the fuck?” I breathed. “Indy, I—I don’t. God, I’m so sorry about Ian. But your parents, they’re wrong.”
She nodded absentmindedly, her jaw shaking as she did. “Through everything, all I could think about was that Ian suffered. That he was in pain for those ten minutes, and I wasn’t there for him when he’d been there for me my whole life. I—I just lost myself after that. I clung to my relationship with Dean because my parents hated me even more, but nothing took the pain away. Over and over I relived that phone call, the smell of that horrible perfume, and the fact that he suffered—and I started cutting.”
My chest felt hollow and my stomach dropped. “Indy, no. . . .”
“Somehow it made sense to me. Like if I felt pain for him, I was taking away what he had gone through. I never did it to kill myself. It was always on my legs, and I knew where not to cut, but I couldn’t stop. It became addictive. Every time I thought about him, I’d have to do it. Dean tried to get me to stop, and I tried—God, I tried so fucking hard, but I felt like I’d failed Ian,” she cried. “I know none of this makes sense, but at the time it did. My parents never even found out—I was able to stop before sophomore year ended—but when I had to go home over summer . . . it was horrible. It was like even though they didn’t know, they knew that I was refusing to cope, and they just got tired of having to deal with their disappointment. I found my bags on the driveway when I came home from the gym one morning, the locks to the house changed. So I came back to school early and found Dean and Vanessa having sex.” She took a deep breath and I could tell she was trying to steady herself.
“I hadn’t been there for Ian, I was never a good enough daughter for my parents, so much so that I can’t go home anymore, and I found out my boyfriend—the only person who knew what was happening and was trying to help me through it—had wanted to dump me and hadn’t done it yet because he was just afraid to upset me.” I started to say something, but she cut me off. “That is why I’m trying to tell you it can’t work. That is why I’m telling you you’ll leave. Everyone does. And you think you want to save me, but it’s not your job to save me, Kier. I need to save myself, and I’m trying. The drinking—it’s bad, I know. But it’s done. It has to be, just like I stopped cutting for Ian. I can’t keep drinking to forget a guy who never cared about me. But while I’m trying to save me, you shouldn’t have to get caught up in the mess that is my life. Do you understand now?” she asked, her voice breaking on the last word.
