AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Instead, I opened up an old message thread.
Me: I need you.
It was fucking stupid to text her. She wouldn’t respond, the number long disconnected. But Harleigh had always been the one person I could talk to about my father. And now she was gone.
Had been gone for nine long months.
But I still felt it, the void she’d left. The giant gaping hole in my chest.
Me: I know you’ll never see this, B. But I really need to talk to someone… need to… fuck, I don’t even know what I’m saying. You got out. You got out and I’m so fucking relieved. This place is bad, B. It wears you down and poisons your soul until there’s nothing left. How can I hate you for never looking back? I shouldn’t… But I do. Part of me hates that you made it out and I’m fucking stuck here, in this life.
Inhaling a shuddering breath, I exited out of the chat thread and threw my cell phone on the dash. But I’d opened that window, letting her ghost creep inside. I felt her here with me. Could imagine her big green eyes watching me, full of sympathy and understanding.
I was so fucking messed up.
Light blazed from the trailer door and Vince appeared, one hand on the button of his jeans. Bile washed through me as I watched him yank the door shut and make his way down the steps. He didn’t see me, sitting there in the darkness. If I had a gun, maybe I could have done it. Maybe I could have put a bullet through his skull. Fuck knows the world would have been a better place with one less person like Vince Colombo in it. But how could I abandon Jessa like that? After all she’d done for me.
The second Vince disappeared into his car, I headed inside, my heart crashing violently against my rib cage. “Jessa?” I called.
At least the place wasn’t trashed.
A trickle of unease went through me when she didn’t reply. “Jessa?” My voice echoed through the silence.
Slowly, I approached their bedroom, my throat dry, blood roaring between my ears. I pushed the door open. Jess—”
She lay curled up in a ball in the middle of the bed, the sheet pulled up around her body.
Glancing down at the floor, I inhaled a calming breath. “Jessa?”
“N-Nix.” Her voice cracked.
“Are you okay?”
“Can you get me some Tylenol please and a hot water bottle.” She clutched the sheet tighter, refusing to look at me.
“Maybe I should take you to the ER.”
“N-no. I’ll be fine, sweetie. I just need to rest.”
“Yeah, okay.” The words soured on my tongue as I backtracked to the kitchenette and found her some pain pills and filled the hot water bottle.
“Here you go.” I went to the side of the bed, crouching down so she had no choice but to look at me.
Her face was free of bruises, but I didn’t for a second doubt her body would be littered in them.
Another wave of bile churned in my stomach. “I can get you out. I could—”
“I think I want to rest now,” she said, accepting the water bottle and pain pills. I helped her sit up a little to wash them down.
“Jessa, this isn’t—”
“You’re a good boy, Nix.” Her weak smile didn’t reach her haunted eyes. “Promise me one day you’ll get out of here.”
“I…”
“Nix.” She clutched my hand. “Promise me.”
“Y-yeah.” I blew out a steady breath, the word cracking something in my chest.
