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“I’m not leaving.” Nix planted himself there, folding his arms across his chest.
“Nix, come on,” Celeste hissed. “She doesn’t need this right now.”
“Celeste,” I croaked. “It’s okay. He can stay.”
“Harleigh, you don’t—”
“I said it’s okay.”
I just wanted them to stop. To stop arguing and stop looking at me like I was a freak show.
She gave me a tight-lipped smile. “Do you need anything?”
Such a loaded question.
I needed things to go back to how they used to be. When my mom was alive, and Nix was my whole world. When life was hard, but it was also safe and familiar and predictable. When people didn’t hate me because of where I came from.
But she couldn’t give me any of those things, so I shook my head gently and whispered, “No, thank you.”
“Okay. I’m going to let Miles and Chloe know you’re okay.”
“Chloe’s here?”
“Yeah. She was worried.”
Exhaustion rolled through me. I wanted to close my eyes and erase this moment from my mind.
“I’ll be back soon,” Celeste added, leaving the room.
“If you need anything,” Nate said.
“Thanks.”
He followed her out, leaving me alone with Nix.
He didn’t move closer, just stood there in the middle of the room, staring at me.
“Nix…” I whispered.
“I need a second, B.” Pain was woven into every word. He released a heavy sigh, the air shifting around him. Thick and oppressive and suffocating. “I’m trying to understand what the fuck is going on… but I’m coming up empty.”
“You weren’t supposed to see me like that.”
“And at the fair? Was that whatever this is?” There was an angry edge to his words.
“Kind of.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means it’s not something I can control, Nix. You think I like being like this? Not knowing from one minute to the next when something is going to set me off?”
“I-I don’t get it. What happened to you? What—”
His words hit me like a wrecking ball, shattering something inside me. And all I could do in its wake was let out a bitter, broken laugh. “You. You happened.”
He went deathly still, his gunmetal eyes fixed on my face, searching for what, I didn’t know. “M-me?”
“You heard me.” Venom coated my words, but I was tired, so freaking tired of everything.
