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The games we played blurred the lines even more than before I didn’t kno to handle it I didn’t kno to process it Every time I showed up at the office or went to Rhys’s office in his apartuard, Derek, in the eyes, I wanted to curl up and run away But how did I get out no did I tell Killian ‘no’? Did I even want to?

His first text came more than a day later A whole thirty-six hours after he ran out on ue

21

KILLIAN

I went to bed and stared at the ceiling for hours before I fell into a fitful sleep This was supposed to be a game I was supposed to be in control, but what happened last night was not me in control The look on her face when I tried to touch her after what I had said showed so much hurt that it seared my skin I’d freaked out The possibility of a child with her wasn’t as scary as it should have been, and that was evenether Be rational Stay focused

The next day, things went from bad to worse A letter arrived in the otten tired ofhis calls The ripped and crumpled envelope sat on the floor beside my bed Like he needed to remind me of my failures Of how I’d failed my mom

Out partying with Rhys, getting drunk in the dored to bribe the hall director with some top shelf scotch Some cheerleaders would show up, and it was a party My mom texted me often, but I didn’t respond It was ive a shit about anything, and I had money to burn To see how the other half lived

The lights were on in the house My host of a dad only recently showed back up, she was still in the habit of pinching pennies When I stepped onto the front step, it was barely five am A sliver of the sun peeked out over the horizon

The dread grew inon continuously as I walked through the house Dread turned to so wet carpet My hand trembled as I turned the doorknob and an inhuman sound ripped from my throat

I raced across the s cuts on her wrists There wasn’t even any blood any her againstme I fumbled for my phone in my back pocket and dialed 9-1-1

“Please send help!” I screa the her withency left them the minute they rounded the corner into the bathroom They knew, just like I had from the minute I saw her, but I didn’t want to believe it

Someone turned off the water and I sat there in the empty bathroom, more alone than I’d ever been My newly re-appeared father was going to prison and my mom was dead There was no one else left The letter that my dad sent me only a few days later alht ofI visitedthe letter

The raw ache thundered back intoback to school after the su

er that everyone else got to go on with their lives, their perfect lives, raged through me

“Co home to mom?” he said, as texts rolled in fro and s people in that dorm room while my mom bled out in the bathtub