Page 96 (1/2)

"Fuck!" mutters Jax as he crouches in front of hi if the entire hill has dissolved into a mudslide, I collapse back onto my butt My father, the man who hardly ever drinks, is drunk and there’s no way my uncle will allow anyone who touches alcohol in his house "We’re all screwed"

Chapter 68

West

I lie in bed and blur e into one In my hand, I click the rehost surrounds hter echoes in ainst my skin

The house is too still Too silent The i and alcohol, but I can’t live like that anymore Haley said I was better I a for and as she was on the verge of believing it--I abandoned her

The burst of agony through the numbness causes me to roll off the bed and head out the door Haley said ie is to forget I bypass the dark stairs and slohen I reach Rachel’s door

The bottoainst the floor as it opens and this tilow She had physical therapy this evening and her breathing is light Asleep in a chair across the room with a closed laptop on his lap is her twin, Ethan

I ease down to the floor with ainst her bed The silence in here is by farto fill the emptiness, the shell that I’ve become

There’s a shift and a hand slides down and touches ave her up, Rachel" My voice cracks and the desperation, the pain I’ve tried to bury, breaks through to the surface "I gave her up and, right now, I don’t knohy"

Wetness fills my eyes and I slae of the bed "Then you win her back"

"Dad will give her what she wants" I stop Fuck me Fuck him Fuck all of this "He’s not h that escapes her lips cuts deep "Mom told us"

There’s a flop next to ainst the bed "Can we get the et some sleep?"

"Why are you in here?"

"The same reason you are," he says "The saether Though our proble bubble bath into the Jacuzzi It doesn’t s, they’re in this rooainst everyone else For soether"

I lower rief that sweeps over et a vote, can you stop being Dad?"

"Ethan," Rachel chastises