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“Don’t take his fucking side, Ozy!”
“I’m not taking sides.” Her voice breaks as she defends herself with that sentence she always throws our way. She should, she should be takingmyside. She runs a hand through her hair in worry and I tremble in fury.
How? I just can’t understand how she can always forgive him, how she always goes back to protecting him when he should be paying for his sins.
“You want to take care of him? Go on, be his nurse then! Where were you when I was being transported to Silver Falls ER because the bastard tried to end me?!”
“Jake, you’re not being fair–”
“I don’tfucking care! Life isn’t fair, Ozy!!”
What is happening to me? I push her out of the way, feeling my whole body tremble. My vision narrows, blurred by tears stuck in my eyes. I stumble in the foyer and drag myself up the stairs. My chest is constricted, and I struggle to take a breath. My back hurts as I open my door and fall onto my bedroom floor.
I shake, I whimper in pain. My breaths are shallow and I have to crawl toward my bed. My legs feel dead, my thoughts cramping my mind.
I was dying to leave L.A. and come back here. But Stoneview has been suffocating. Everywhere I turn, one of Bianco’s minions is on me. Despite Nate being away most of the time, I feel his presence weighing on me. Every day someone new asks me who is this brother we never talked about or why I don’t go to Stoneview Prep anymore.
Making myself a place among N.S. High’s petty gangs have been a lot of bruises and bloodied knuckles. My friends miss me, I miss them, my sister isn’t safe, Bianco is on our backs constantly.
And among all that? Jamie. The forbidden fruit I had to push away. And for what? Just so Nate can welcome her back into his arms? None of this is fair, and it’s driving me fucking insane. How cruel to have given us three years of freedom before putting us back in this prison of a life.
Bianco doesn’tneedus, he just loves asserting the power he has over us. He just loves keeping Rose close. A lethal shiver runs through me at being reminded of why he keeps her close.
This is too much, it’sall too much.
My body feels too small for my soul.
I’m dying. I’m fucking dying, and no one is here to help me.
“Ozy,” I choke, trying to scream her name but just like in a nightmare my voice dies in my throat.
Where is she? And where is Jamie when I need her the most? She let me go. She didn’t fight for us.
Maybe it’s my fault. For months I thought she was the one teaching me to embrace my emotions and let them flourish rather than feel anger and hatred all the time. What if it was the opposite? What if I’m the one who brought her down, turned her into a heartless bastard like me?
It’s a contagious disease to lose your empathy. Bianco did it to me, now I’ve done it to Jamie. It’s easier than one thinks, it’s about being told repeatedly that your feelings don’t matter, that the only thing that will help you survive is selfishness.
It’s about understanding that no matter what you feel, shit will happen either way. No matter how much Jamie loves me, no matter how much she wants to save me, if I keep showing her she will get nothing from me in return, she’ll learn that it doesn’t matter what she feels. Might as well not feel anything at all. I didn’t want Bianco to kill those kids, but no matter how much I cried and begged him not to, he did it, right in front of my eyes. Every time.
Flashes blind me, bangs in my ears force me to cover them.
“Stop!” I scream at Bianco.
Wait, Bianco isn’t here.
Then why are the ghosts of all the kids that were competing against me laughing and pointing fingers at me?
Look, Jake. Look at them, you won, you beat all of them.
Blood. So. Much. Blood. It’s everywhere, it’s on my skin, in my hair. It smells like copper, it thickens the air with death.
It’s the last one. Finish him.
Bianco’s voice is right in my ear, and I flip around but suddenly he’s on the other side of me again.Finish him, Jake! Show me you deserve to live. Then you can go back to your siblings.
BANG!
I scream when two hands grab me under my armpits and turn me around. I struggle but a voice brings me back slowly. It’s not Bianco, it’s so much softer, so familiar.
