AllFreeNovel
Share Us
forty-three
Rory
WhenIarrive,I’mnot surprised to see Eli here. He and Finn are playing cards from his bed on the far side of the room.
Hailey had to help her mom again and I wasn’t sure about Abram, but I knew he’d been in before as well. Everyonebutme has visited.
It makes me feel like dog shit on the bottom of a brand-new shoe that I haven’t come sooner but I have no one else to blame but myself. I abandoned them.
No one has spotted me yet, so I chance a peek over at the other bed. My throat’s thick and heavy, and I regret my decision immediately. The fired nerves I had on the drive over disintegrate with a single glance.
While Finn and Eli are having as much fun as one can in a hospital, Cole looks comatose. His focus is lost to the tiles of the ceiling.
He’s so still you could’ve mistaken him for being asleep. The blinks every few minutes, are the only reminder he’s awake and alive.
Even that looks forced, like the little effort it takes is not worth it.
My ribs constrict, sucking into the deepest parts of my chest, seeing him like this. The glazed-over eyes and void expression remind me too much of my mother to be coincidental.
Limp and lifeless. Here but not present. Breathing but not living. Surviving but without purpose.
I suck in a sharp gasp and it’s Eli who catches it. Part of me is thankful that he’s the only one who had time to see.
It takes effort to force the lines around my frown to smooth back out, but I manage. In the past this would’ve taken no effort at all. My once-void emotions now spiral in every direction without stopping.
A side effect of letting people in is you actually start to have reactions. Suddenly, I’m not a fan.
Finn’s head whips around at Eli’s mention of my name. I don’t know if he was even aware he’d done it. The way he’d spoken it, the sound coming off as uncomfortable as I am to be back here.
My pulse thickens the bigger Finn’s smile grows. Everything inside me screams to turn around and run.
This isn’t about me, I have to remind myself.
Choking down those nerves, I meet my brother’s smile with one of my own. Only mine isn’t genuine. His face glows while mine, I’m certain, is the color of ash.
I force my legs to move even though they are as heavy as wet sand.
The empty sound that Cole’s chest makes as he wheezes out a cough has me stalling. The noise is gut wrenching and I swear my heart cracks right down the center all over again.
He’s lost to his mind, and it’s another physical reminder of my mother. How she too never escaped her burden. Trapped, she stayed in the paradise of her mind forever.
My chest heaves. It’s all too much. It’s—
“Don’t do that, don’t cry. Not on my account, Princess. Please?”
That pounding inside my chest has my airways fully collapsing now. Literally drawing to the point that my organs shouldn’t be functioning any longer.
“If you want something to cry over, then take a peek at Finn’s new bald spot,” Iceman antagonizes.
I know what he’s doing, he’s trying to distract me and as much as I hate to admit it, it works.
Finn’s gaze cuts over to him with a disapproving glare.
“I think you’d look good with a buzz cut,” Eli notes, reaching over and making the sound of electric clippers.
Finn reaches for his scalp, distraught. “Notmyfault they had to do an X-ray.”
In a split second, the world that’s crumbling around my feet reignites. Those fractured nerves double over when my silvers meet his blues. They are as clear as the walls of glass in the conservatory.
