Page 58 of The Truths We Burn

Human emotions are void to him.

While Silas comprehends emotions, how they work, how they affect others, he just doesn’t enjoy them.

Thatcher could never grasp the concept of sentiments because he can’t feel them for himself.

How could he?

However, Thatcher Pierson can do what no one else would for me.

I look at him, my fiery eyes meeting his icy ones.

“I need you to make it hurt.”

Sage

Stomach acid pours from my throat, splashing into the toilet beneath me. I grip onto whatever’s beside me, trying to brace myself for the pain.

There’s nothing left inside of me to vomit. Every time my chest heaves, my organs tighten and shift, expelling only a few puddles of greenish-yellow bile. I’d made myself comfortable on the floor of my bathroom, having left school and come directly here, wanting to avoid contact with all human life.

No amount of makeup or snarky bite could hide what was happening inside.

I’d used up all my energy keeping a straight face with Rook, keeping it all shoved down deep, and now it’s forcing its way back up.

My body is punishing me for what I had done to him.

Another wave of nausea hits as warm tears streak down my face. All I can see are his eyes.

How they cracked and splintered open with so much pain and spite. I physically witnessed him torch every single positive feeling associated with me in his body.

All the good that I’d worked so hard to bring to the surface vanished with every single lie from my lips. With one conversation, I took what we had and buried it ten feet under.

It’s dead now. I’m dead now.

Dead to him.

Left to rot with my own regret and the bugs, with no tombstone to mark my grave, because I know he’ll never return. There’s no need for him to know where I’m left to rest.

In that moment, I proved to him what he always believed to be true.

This life is not meant to hold anything but contempt and suffering for him.

“Is it done?”

I lift my heavy eyes to the door, barely glancing before trying to pretend he doesn’t exist. I’m hoping if I ignore Easton long enough, he’ll simply disappear from the face of the earth.

“Yes.” I cough. “You can get the hell out of my house now.”

His footsteps come closer before I feel his presence next to my hunched-over frame. Bravely, his fingers push a few strands of hair out of my face and over my shoulder. Not like it really matters now since there is already puke in them.

“Are you lying to me, Sage?” he purrs gently, voice soothing but his hand is the opposite. It greedily palms at the back of my head, clasping a fistful of hair, snapping my head back so I’m looking at him. “For your sake, you better not be lying to me.”

“Get your hands off me!” I shout, pushing my hands deep into his chest. He falls back from his squatting position straight to his ass, a weird grin on his face the whole time. “I told you I did it. It’s done, you smug bastard.”

“Tsk, tsk,” he clicks, shaking his head. “I had always found our relationship quite vanilla before. I think this is going to really spice things up for us in the future, babe.”

“You make me sick,” I spit at him, a look of disgust on my face.

A fresh wave of emotions bubbles inside of me, and I desperately want to curl into a ball on this floor and cry.