“Lilah…” There was pain in Jude’s voice, in his dark eyes, but I didn’t care about his pain.
I couldn’t afford to care about his pain when my own had brought me to my knees. I wanted them to feelmypain.
“You’re going to hear this.” I stared Rafe down and was almost gratified to see that his face was red, his gray eyes wide, like he was standing on a beach waiting for a tsunami that was only inches away from wiping him out completely.
“You’re going to…” I tried to breathe around the sobs wracking my body, tried to make sure they could understand what I was saying. “You’re going to listen. Because I want you to know that the night I took a bottle of pills, I thought of you, every one of you. I remembered how flattered I’d felt when you paid attention to me at the party, when you took me out to Rafe’s car. I was drunk — and let’s face it, probably drugged, because of Brandon Miller — but I was fuckingflattered. And when I took those pills the night I decided to end my life, I thought of you. I wondered what it would be like to have someone really like me and I knew I would never, ever know. I was too broken by then, too damaged, a joke. Who was ever going to want me? Who was ever going to love me?”
I thought I saw tears in Nolan’s eyes and Jude’s expression was pained, but Rafe’s face had become unreadable.
“When I woke up, I was in the hospital, and you know what? I was sorry. I was sorry it hadn’t worked, sorry Matt had found me, that they’d gotten me to the hospital in time to save my life.” The tears were still flowing, but I’d stopped sobbing at least. “Then I was transferred to Oak Hill. I was there for a month, in therapy, on medication. My head was clear for the first time in… well, maybe ever. I knew I had to get away from my mom, start fresh. Except I had no money, no one to ask for help.” The past felt close now, those dark days when I’d been more alone than I’d ever been in my life, when even Matt couldn’t help me. “It took me two years of part-time jobs to save enough money to get that shitty apartment you saw, and another three to save up the money I’d planned to use to get my brother away from my mom. Half of that’s gone now, paying rent for a place I can’t even live in because of Vic and Mr. Suit, and I’m… here” — I gestured at the great room — “in this beautiful house, where it’s always warm, where there’s always enough food, sleeping with two of the guys who ruined my life and trying to figure out how fucked up I have to be to do that. So… no.” I glared at Rafe. “I’m not going to ‘get over it,’ but it must be nice to say that to someone like me without an ounce of self-awareness about the fact that the thing I’m supposed to ‘get over' happened because of you.”
I turned and hurried for the stairs. It was all just… too much. The past, the present, and my future more ambiguous than ever.
But I’d done it, I’d told them everything.
I hoped they choked on it.
49
NOLAN
I was still shakenwhen I climbed the stairs to the second floor. I’d spent the last two hours talking to Rafe and Jude, trying to wrap my head around everything Lilah had told us.
I’d felt sick when she’d left the room. Still did.
How could Lilah — funny, resilient, unforgettable Lilah — think her life wasn’t worth living? But I knew how, knew we’d been part of it, that our dumb bullshit had lit a match to her life.
I just hadn’t realized how quickly, how totally, it had burned.
I knocked on her door and waited, something I always did because I knew Lilah was edgy about privacy and control.
“Just… go away,” she said through the door.
“It’s me,” I said. “I just want to talk to you.”
It was true, but not the whole truth. I was also worried about her heart, a preoccupation that kept me up night.
I pondered my options if she told me to fuck off but was saved from having to use them when she opened the door. Her perfect face was tear-stained, her cheeks flushed. I wanted to kiss her and hold her tight and promise never to let anyone hurt her again, promise herwewould never hurt her again, but somehow, I didn’t think she’d believe me.
“What do you want?”
I lifted the stethoscope around my neck.
She rolled her eyes. “Really? That’s why you’re here? You want to listen to my heart?”
Yes, I thought.I want to listen to your heart. I want to listen to it for the rest of my life.
“That, and I want to talk to you.”
She sighed and opened the door wider. “Fine.”
I entered the room and saw that her backpack, open and half-filled, was on her bed.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Packing.” She put a rolled-up T-shirt into the backpack.
I sat on her bed and took her hand. “Can you just… stop? Just for a minute?”