Page 45 of Bitter When He Begs

I close my eyes, and for a second—just a second—I let myself believe him.

He squeezes my shoulder, then lets go and straightens. “Let’s go back. He’ll only get worse if we stay gone too long.”

I nod slowly, collecting myself before we walk back out.

By the time we return to the table, our father’s back in his seat, scrolling through his phone like he didn’t just unload an entire dissertation on why I’m a waste of space.

He doesn’t look up when we sit down again. Just mutters, “Took you long enough.”

Jaxon grabs his glass of water and says casually, “He needed a minute to breathe.”

Our father doesn’t react, but I catch Jaxon’s eye across the table, and for once, I don’t feel like I’m completely alone in this fight.

Not today, at least.

The silence of my bedroom back at the house feels like a weight pressing on my chest.

I sit on the edge of my bed, staring down at the yellow bottle in my hands. It feels heavier than it should. It’s not even open. Still sealed. Still full.

But it might as well be a loaded fucking gun.

I roll it between my fingers, listening to the soft clink of pills against the sides, my heartbeat a steady, dullthud-thud-thudin my ears.

I know what’s inside. I know exactly what it’ll do to me. I know how easy it would be to unscrew the cap, tip a few into my palm, throw them back, and let them do their job. I know how the tension would fade, how the itch under my skin would quiet down, how the tightness in my chest would ease just enough to let me breathe.

I know all of it.

And fuck, I still want it.

The craving sits in my bones—an old friend, a sickness, a habit I can’t shake. It whispers to me in the back of my mind, tells me it’s fine, that it’s just one, that I’ve done this before and still walked away from it, that I can handle it.

One will take the edge off.

One will make everything quieter.

One will make sure I don’t have to think about the way Sage looks at me now, the way he brushes me off, the way he fucking flipped the script on me, taking away every single weapon I’ve used against him.

One will make me forget my dad’s voice telling me that I’m a fuckup who will amount to nothing. One will push his insults out of my mind about football being the only thing I’m good at.

But that’s a fucking lie. I already know how this ends. I can pretend all I want, tell myself I’m just keeping it around just incase, that it’s not a big deal, that I have it under control. But it’s all bullshit, and I know it, and still—

Still, I can’t stop looking at it.

I think about Jaxon’s words, about how he looked at me like I mattered. Like I was worth more than this. Then I think about the way my father’s voice still crawls into my skull and makes me ache for numbness.

I exhale hard, dragging a hand through my hair, gripping the strands tight at the roots, like pain will somehow bring clarity.

It doesn’t.

Nothing does.

I lean forward, bracing my elbows on my knees, forehead pressing against my fists, trying to think past the need, past the itch, past the old instincts clawing their way to the surface.

I can’t do this forever. I can’t keep doing this.

My fingers tighten around the bottle, then, after a long moment, I let go. I set it down on my nightstand and force myself not to look at it and to breathe past the wanting.

My phone sits next to the bottle, screen lighting up with a message I don’t check or bring myself to care about. I pick it up and don’t second-guess myself as my thumb hovers over the contacts list—I just dial.