If You Stay (Beautifully Broken, #1)(63)

With shaking fingers, I pick up the phone and do the only thing I can think of to do.

I call his father.





[page]Chapter Twenty-Two


Pax




I am falling, falling, falling.

It is black and dark and I can’t see, I can’t think, I can’t feel. But that’s how I like it. If I can’t feel, then nothing hurts. So I keep it that way.

If I wake, I drink myself back to sleep with a Xanax chaser. It isn’t long before I’m in the black again, drifting pointlessly along, sleeping without nightmares.

Only blackness.

I sigh. This is where I belong, where the dark is timeless.

Painless.

The light is painful. The light is where I see her face and know how I failed her.

I’ll stay far away from the light.

Forever.

It isn’t worth it.

I start to close my eyes but realize that they are already closed, so I smile.

This is where I belong.





Chapter Twenty-Three


I open my eyes blearily, trying to focus. I look around at the room. I’m in the living room and I seem to be wearing the same clothes that I’ve been wearing for a while. What woke me? It’s dark outside, so it wasn’t the sun.

I reach for my whiskey, but find that the bottle is empty.

Fuck.

That means I’m out. I’ll have to make a trip to town.

And then I hear what woke me. Pounding on the door.

My heart twinges. I know it’s probably Mila. She’s been here a hundred times this week, trying to get me to open the door, but I never get off the couch to do it. She doesn’t need to see me this way. She doesn’t deserve to be here like this.

The pounding gets louder, very loud.

Fuck. She’s pissed now. I’m impressed with the strength she’s using on that door.

And then, there’s a loud crack and something breaks.

What the f*ck?

I stand up and the room spins. I haven’t been on my feet in a couple of days. I steady myself and re-open my eyes. When I do, I find my father standing in front of me. He is clean and shaven and dressed in jeans.

“What are you doing here?” I ask him. “Did you just break down my f*cking door?”

My father’s jaw clenches. “That’s what happens when you don’t answer it for a week. Your girlfriend called me because she was worried. Get in the shower. We’re going to talk.”

I glare at him. “Fuck you. The time to talk was years ago. In fact, you’ve had any number of chances over the years to talk. But you didn’t. And now I don’t want to talk. Get over it.”

I try to shove past him, to walk through to the kitchen, but he grabs my arm.

His grip is strong and determined.

“Take a shower,” he says slowly and deliberately. “You smell like piss. Get clean clothes on and come back out here. We’re going to talk. Now. Today.”

I stare at him and he stares back. He’s not backing down. And I do smell like piss. Finally, I look away.

“Whatever. I do need a shower.”

I leave the room without looking back. I step into my shower and let the water run over me while my f*cking head pounds. I can’t remember if I drank any water this week at all. I actually don’t remember much at all about this week. Every time I woke up, I simply took more pills and drank more whiskey.

I wash, shave and get dressed.

Then I make my way to the kitchen, where I chug two bottles of water. Even after that, my mouth is still dry so I must be pretty dehydrated. I take another bottle of water with me to the living room, where my father is waiting for me.

He’s cleaned the place up while he waited, picking up the empty bottles of whiskey from the floor. He’s sitting in a chair now.

He stares at me as I enter.

He’s grim and sober and I find that I suddenly don’t want to have this conversation.

“Fuck this,” I tell my dad. “We haven’t talked about this in years. I don’t see the reason to talk about it now. The damage is done.”

My father looks at me.

“The damage has been done,” he agrees. “But there’s no reason to make it worse. Let’s talk.”

I sit down and take a swig of water.

“Fine. Why didn’t you force me to talk about what happened?”

If we’re going to talk, we might as well cut to the chase.

My father stares at me, then his gaze drops to the floor.

“Because it was easier that way. I took you to a therapist and you wouldn’t talk. I tried to get you to talk about it myself, you refused. And then I decided that maybe I really didn’t want to know what happened. If it had scarred you so badly, then I wasn’t sure that I could deal with it either. So I stopped trying. And then the therapist told me that he thought you had actually suppressed the memories, so it seemed to be for the best.”

I take another drink. My tongue feels thick from dehydration.

“Did they ever catch him?”

I cringe when my dad shakes his head. “No. They didn’t have a description to go on. None of the neighbors saw anything, they didn’t see anyone coming or going. The police didn’t have anything to work with.”

Fuck. Yet another reason to feel guilty. I could have given them a description.