Page 92 of False Start

I don’t grow up.

“Nia?” Harvey’s voice is soft outside the door.

“No.” I drag the word out with a pathetic whine.

The last thing I want is for her to see me like this.

“Can I come in?” Harvey’s voice has never been so gentle, so tender, and it only worsens the pressure bubbling inside me.

Guilt.

“Please don’t.” It feels like a sob, but I think I’m too dehydrated to actually cry.

“Nia.” It feels as if she’s right there beside me, but I know she’s not.

“I just—” It’s pathetic and weak and I don’t have the energy to finish.

She opens the door anyway and drops to her knees, bringing me into her lap and cradling me in her arms like I’m not this disgusting, sweaty thing.

“I’m gonna take over now, okay?” she says, smoothingmy hair out of my face in a way that almost forces me to look up at her.

Cat Harveyisthe entire universe. I’ve known it all along, from the first time I saw her. I think I saw her in my dreams when I laid in that hospital, my brain broken and unsure if it wanted me to come back to this.

What a wasted chance.

Lonnie should have had this, not me.

I’m sobbing in her arms again like the pathetic fucking shit I am. She’s moving slowly, unwrapping me and peeling me off her as she comes back to a stand. “What’s going to make you comfortable?”

My face is leaking from every possible crevice, my entire body hurts, and I’m nearly positive that if I had eaten in the last twenty-four hours, I’d be in a pool of my own liquid shit.

“Nothing,” I manage to groan out, but I’m not sure it’s even audible.

Breathing takes effort.

I should have died.

I’d been saying the words like a thankful prayer for weeks now, gratitude to whatever deity could hear me for letting me survive that crash.

I should have died.

I should have died when my car wrapped around that tree and my brain almost came spilling out of the side of my head.

I should have died.

Maybe this is what happens when we cheat fate. Maybe the universe is just righting the course and putting me back on my path.

I should have died.

Except the words are no longer a call for thanks, but an angry rupture, the feeling of missing what was destined for me. Ishouldhave died. Maybe my death guaranteed Lonnie’s life. I robbed them of it when it was meant to be theirs.

I’m so lost in my thoughts, I don’t notice she turned the shower on and is sitting on the edge of the tub, staring at me. There’s so much kindness in her eyes, and it only makes it worse.

The sobbing is beyond ugly, every piece of me picked raw by my own nails. “Why are you doing this?”

Falling for Cat becomes the largest obstacle in my path.

Because I see what I’m doing to myself reflected in her.