Page 41 of Boots & Scars

"Cooper..."

"But you can't save me. No one can. Want to know why? Because I don't want to be saved. And neither does the world.So do us both a favor and stay the hell away from me. Because I promise you, if you don't, I will ruin you. I will destroy everything good and pure about you until there's nothing left but ashes. Hear me?"

I took another long swig of gin; the liquid burning my throat as it went down. The room was spinning, but I didn't care. I just wanted to forget, to drown out the pain and the anger and the fucking guilt that was eating me alive.

"Now, kindly fuck off," I slurred into the phone, my words dripping with venom.

I didn't wait for her response. I just hung up, tossing the phone onto the couch beside me. I didn't want to hear her voice anymore, didn't want to listen to her telling me I was worth saving. Because I wasn't. I was a lost cause, a fucking disaster waiting to happen.

I lifted the bottle to my lips again, gulping down the gin like it was water. I thought it would make me feel better, thought it would numb the pain and the shame and the self-loathing that was threatening to swallow me whole.

But if anything, I felt worse.

The earnestness in her voice, the way she truly believed that I was worth redeeming... it made my heart squeeze in my chest. Because deep down, in some small, hidden part of myself, I wanted to believe it too. I wanted to believe that I could be saved, that I could be something more than the broken, scarred mess that I was.

But I couldn't. I wouldn't let myself hope, wouldn't let myself dream of a future that I knew I could never have. Because hope was a dangerous thing, and I'd learned a long time ago that it only led to disappointment and heartbreak.

I stared at the bottle in my hand, the clear liquid sloshing against the sides. I wanted to keep drinking, wanted to drown myself in the gin until I couldn't feel anything anymore. Butsomething stopped me, some small voice in the back of my head that sounded suspiciously like Everly.

Fuck her, I thought bitterly, my grip tightening on the bottle.Fuck this.

With a sudden burst of anger, I hurled the bottle across the room, watching as it shattered against the wall in a spray of glass and gin. The sound was satisfying, the destruction cathartic in a way that I couldn't quite explain.

But it didn't make me feel any better. If anything, it just made the emptiness inside me grow, the void that I'd been trying so hard to fill with alcohol and anger and self-destruction.

I stared at the shattered remains of the bottle, the gin pooling on the hardwood floor in a sickening puddle. The anger that had consumed me just moments before had faded, replaced by a bone-deep exhaustion that seemed to seep into every cell of my body.

I stumbled back to the couch, collapsing onto the cushions with a groan. My head was pounding, the room spinning around me in a dizzying blur. I closed my eyes, trying to block out the chaos, but it was no use. The voices in my head were too loud, too insistent to ignore.

And then, like a lightning bolt, a single thought pierced through the haze.

Everly.

I wanted to hear her voice again. Needed to hear it, like a drowning man needed air. It was a desperate, all-consuming desire that I couldn't shake, no matter how hard I tried.

And I hated myself for it.

Hated myself for wanting her, for needing her in a way that I had no right to. She was too good for me, too pure and innocent to be tainted by my darkness. I knew that, knew it with every fiber of my being.

But still, I couldn't stop myself from reaching for the phone, my fingers clumsy and uncoordinated as I scrolled through my contacts. I found her name, my thumb hovering over the call button for a long, agonizing moment.

Don't do it, a voice in my head warned.Don't drag her into your mess.

But I was too weak to resist, too desperate for the sound of her voice. I hit the button, bringing the phone to my ear with a shaking hand.

It rang once, twice, three times. And then, just as I was about to give up hope, she answered.

"Hello?"

But the words wouldn't come, my tongue thick and heavy in my mouth. The room was spinning faster now, the edges of my vision blurring as the alcohol took hold.

"Cooper?" Her voice was laced with concern, with a tenderness that I didn't deserve. "Are you okay?"

I wanted to tell her that I was fine, that she was an idiot for thinking otherwise But the words stuck in my throat, choking me with their falseness.

And then, before she could respond, before she could offer me any more of her unwanted sympathy, the darkness claimed me. I slipped into unconsciousness; the phone falling from my limp fingers as I succumbed to the blackness.

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