THE TROUBLE WITH PAPER PLANES(62)

Then everything went dark.

I ran a hand down my face, trying to clear my head. The voices in my head were screaming at me relentlessly and if I didn’t get a handle on it soon, I was going to throw up, I could feel it. I opened the truck door and tumbled out.

“Heath?”

“I just need a minute,” I snapped, more harshly than I meant to.

I bent over double, then stood up straight again, taking deep breaths, gulping in as much air as my lungs would allow. I felt like I was drowning. Em’s face flashed in front of my eyes.

When the hell was this going to end? This guilt, this torture, this constant managing and controlling and keeping everything down, shutting everything away – it was exhausting. It ripped and pulled at my insides, threatening to choke me.

Jesus.

Was this how it was going to be, always? Five years on, and no answers, no moving on, no going back? This constant limbo – purgatory of the mind, eating away at me like a disease, hollowing me out.

“Heath?”

Maia’s hand on my back, cutting right through the pain like a knife through butter. She was the only thing making sense right now, and even that was a joke. I didn’t even know her last name. I just knew that I needed her, right here, right now.

I turned to her, grabbing her by the shoulders and kissing her hard on the mouth. She would make everything alright again. She could help. She would save me.

Stop!

The voice screamed in my head, but for a moment I thought it was her.

Horrified, I released her and stumbled backwards. “Shit, Maia… I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean… “

“It’s okay,” she breathed, her eyes wide in the moonlight.

What the hell was happening to me? I was as bad as Alex. Maybe we had more in common than I realised.

“It’s not okay! It’s f*ckin’ not okay!”

Rage and remorse rushed out, drowning me in the process. I channelled my helplessness at the driver’s door, kicking it with all the strength I had left. The air was sucked out of my lungs until all I could hear was a loud hum, obliterating everything else.

Then I was on my hands and knees, fighting back tears, feeling more helpless and worthless than ever. He was right. Alex was right. He’d been right all along, and denying it now seemed pointless. It wasn’t going to bring her back.

“It’s my fault,” I choked. “It’s my fault she’s gone.”

Maia was kneeling beside me, her arms around my shoulders, pulling me towards her. I wanted to fight her, I wanted to warn her to stay away from me, that whatever we thought we had would be ruined soon enough, because of me. Because I didn’t deserve her.

“It’s okay,” she was saying, slicing through the noise in my head. “It’s okay. Come on, sit down properly, talk to me.”

I wanted to push her away, to get back in the truck and put as much distance between us as possible, but I couldn’t. I didn’t have the strength to stand up, much less walk away. I fell sideways onto the ground, and I wanted to stay there, curled up in a ball on the damp grass in the moonlight, until all of the shit in my head disappeared. But she wouldn’t let me.

“Breathe,” she said gently. “Just breathe.”

My body was numb. I felt like I was floating. The only thing I could feel was my heart, racing. How could I feel my heart when I couldn’t feel the rest of my body?

Somehow, Maia’s voice found its way into the space between heartbeats. “Come on, sit up.”

I took a deep breath and forced myself to do as she said, sitting up, trying to make my body react normally.

Breathe.

In. Out.

Do it again.

I stared at Maia’s hand on my knee for several moments, fighting down the bile that rose in my throat. After what seemed like an eternity, I summoned up the strength to lift my head and look at her. She stared back at me, her beautiful face full of compassion. Why wasn’t she running from me?

Selfishly, I didn’t care why. I just grabbed her hand, anchoring myself to her in case she changed her mind.

“I’m sorry,” I said, unable to speak above a whisper.

“Why?”

For everything I’ve done, for everything I didn’t do.

“Tonight. All of this.”

She smiled. That understanding smile that absorbed some of the pain I was feeling without question, sucking it out of me until I felt almost human again.