Page 16 of We Drank the Dawn

Finally, he released his hair and looked up. He turned his head toward the doorway where his mother stood, but the sparkle that made his brown eyes glow with flecks of gold was nowhere to be found. “Mom, can you give us a second?”

“Of course.” She scurried from the living room.

When a door shut down the hallway, he began. “I don’t want to go home with you.”

“What?” I scoffed.

He braced his elbows on his knees and stared down at his hands. “I…I think we need a break.”

My feet instinctively stepped back as his words hit my brain.

A break?

“What do you mean?”

He sighed again as if talking required too much energy. “I need some space.”

“From me?”

“Yeah.” His face held no apology. Just cold, hard facts of life.

A stinging sensation moved to my cheeks like someone slapped me. “Why?”

He had the audacity to actually chuckle. “If you’re still asking that question, it just proves, once again, that you haven’t listened to a damn word I’ve said.”

“Stop it, Peter. You know that’s not true. All I do is listen to you whine and bellyache⁠—”

“And then berate me constantly for it.”

I scoffed. “I do not berate you!”

He shook his head. “So what is it that you do every night when you come home? Because all I hear is that I should be further along than I am. That I should be living life the way you think is best. But I don’t know how to be better.”

“I’m trying to inspire you to do something with your time.”

“It’s obviously not inspiring to me, Sarah.”

“So that’s why you run here every day? Seriously? To escape the lunatic who just wants the best for you?”

He squeezed his hands together, his jaw feathering.

I bit out words, placing a hand over my heart. “If that’s case, let me apologize for asking you to get your ass off the couch. Please forgive me for being so terrible to you.”

I knew I needed to stop, but my heart spewed pain. How could he say he needed space from me when all I had done was serve him? Since the day of the accident, my needs had completely vanished off his radar, and my entire life became caretaking. I knew he’d been through hard things, but this was hard for me too. Of course, Peter couldn’t acknowledge that though. The pain of being overlooked time after time after time was strangling me.

I couldn’t bear it anymore.

I missed the old Peter so much I could hardly breathe.

And even though I didn’t want to admit it to myself, I couldn’t stand the new Peter. This Peter poured salt in my wounds while licking his own, and I was starting to hate him for it. A part of me wondered what it would be like to leave and let him figure out his life on his own.

But my heart was so entwined with Peter’s that I was scared of what would happen if I tried to untangle them. I would stay and take care of him, no matter how many times he hurt me, because that seemed safer than walking away.

Yet this dynamic—me caretaking while he withered—made me frantic to escape.

The momentum of our fight lagged. I prodded him. “So, what? You’re not going to accept my apology?”

He rolled his eyes, shook his head. “You’re not in the headspace to apologize and you know it.”