Page 95 of This Blood That Breaks Us

I stared out into the vastness of the dark. Like a magnet, it pulled me to its edge. If I jumped, it wouldn’t kill me. That I knew. Not that it mattered anymore, anyway.

I stepped closer to the edge.

“Stop.”

“What?”

“Look at the sky,” William demanded.

I shook my head, and he stood in front of me and sandwiched my face between his hands and forced me to look up. The sky wasn’t pitch black. The moon lingered behind the clouds.

“Feel the rain. Smell it.”

He pulled my hands from my sides and set them out, palms up. Tiny droplets pelted my skin and dissolved.

Minutes passed, and I still felt like shit. Like I needed to run.

“Will—”

“Don’t talk, just feel.”

The time moved like molasses until I finally felt the cold on my skin again. I focused on the sound and the smell, and I let it be my escape.

“Better?”

“Better.”

I didn’t want to go back in.

“How did you know?” I didn’t know why I asked that. I didn’t even know if I knew what I meant.

“You have that look. That same look you had at the Halloween party. The look of someone who’s about to do something stupid.”

He’d found me staring out the window at the end of the hall in OBA with thoughts swirling and pulling me under. It felt like this but with less bite.

“Don’t even think about it.”

Like he’d read my mind and knew I was about to jump out the window and start running. I wasn’t, but I’d thought about it.

I concentrated on him as he stared up into the sky. “I’m always about to do something stupid.”

He was calm as he pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. What kind of world did I live in now that Will was comforting me? It was a symptom of how low we’d descended into this nightmare.

“How the hell did you get those?” I asked.

“Some of them don’t hate me so much. They’ll at least trade with me.”

He handed me one and offered me a light. We stared out into the darkness together, and I let the smoke smother me in the calm numbness.

“So, what happened? What had you shaking?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You gonna run off and tell Luke about it, then?”

I hesitated. I didn’t want to tell my brother. Not this. This felt like an outright betrayal.

“No, he doesn’t need to know.”