Page 5 of Monster

Essa

Six months ago

I waketo that incessant fucking beeping noise,again,and I swear to fucking God I am going punch someone if they don’t shut it off. I keep my eyes squeezed shut as I attempt to drown out all the noises around me. It’s all too fucking loud. All I want is silence, but of course I don’t get that fucking lucky.

“I know you’re awake, baby girl,” Dominik whispers softly next to me. The urge to open my eyes to look at him is strong, but I resist, choosing to ignore him instead.

“Please, don’t push me away. I just wanna help.”

“Help!?” I scream. “You wanna fucking help? What do you think you can do that will actually fucking help? My sister is dead,Dominik. Fuckingdead.And you want to help? There’s nothing you can do. I have nothing left, and you wanna know what happens when you have nothing? Youbecomenothing.” His brows pull together as he registers my words, but I keep going.

“I don’t even know you. All I know is you saved me from a fucking car wreck, but couldn’t save my sister, and you know what that makes you in my book? Fucking useless. You justhadto save the broken, fucked up sister. You couldn’t save the good one. Therefore, I don’t want anything to do with you. You’re useless,” I spit, lacing my words and my tone with as much of my own self-hatred as possible. It physically hurts me to say those words to him because I know he doesn’t deserve it, but I know I have to. There is something I have to do, and I can’t have him hovering over me every second of every day.

Deep down inside, I know all he was doing was trying to help not only me, but also my sister, but too much has happened for me to look any further than what’s right in front of me. And what’s right in front of me is the biggest wall of self-loathing I’m continuously hitting with an insurmountable force. I’m utterly broken and ruined.

My words to him have their desired effect and he gets up from the chair, shuffling away from me and moving toward the door. Like a magnet, my eyes fall to him, and he locks his gaze on mine. Sorrow mars his face. His eyes are squinted, and his dark brows are drawn together as if he is in physical pain, and I swear from here, I can see tears in his gorgeous green eyes.

For not truly knowing each other, there is so much going on between us right now, but I can’t afford to think about it, not with what I’m about to do, so I turn my head away from him, showing as much indifference as I can manage even though my heart twinges with guilt.

A whispered, “I’m sorry,” falls from his lips before he leaves the room and my fucking life.

I take a deep breath, feeling like a weight has been lifted off my chest, making what I have to do much easier. I don’t give a shit if it makes me selfish.

Today’s the day I finally get to be with Holley again.