Page 115 of Bring You Back

“I’m sleeping.” Her voice is still hard, yet flat, her fingers digging into her arm with each word like she’s trying not to crack.

“Well enough that you need pills,” I say, swinging my arm toward the nightstand. “That’s a big ass bottle and it’s almost empty. Pain pills, too,” I add as she tears away from my stare, not wanting to hear this. I know the feeling, but she has to push through it, anyway. We both do. “You have panic attacks at my porch light—”

“And what does that tell you?” she snaps at me. “You think that’s not me dealing?”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t supposed to see that, was I?” A change in her expression, a quick lift of her brows confirms that I wasn’t supposed to see any of this. “You’re struggling,” I amend, listing off the right words. “You’re numbing. You’re hiding. You’re avoiding—”

“Are you really trying to lecture me on hiding and avoiding?”

The accusing question makes my fingers curl into fists, and I say again, “There’s a difference between needing time and being stuck.”

“I’m not stuck!” Her nails dig deeper, and I take a small step closer. “I just know when I can’t change something.” Her voice is lower, less edge, but still pointing a finger, still trying to take the heat off herself. She knows the more she pushes, the more I’m going to pull.

“You can’t even acknowledge it.”

Tommy noticed—not long after I did—that Camille can’t say Caleb is dead, and she can’t. The wordsdeadordiedordyingaren’t even anywhere on the first page of that notebook. Anything she wants to block out wouldn’t be.

“Last summer, I was falling for a girl who left me without a place to land,” I start, acknowledging my own hurt, my own problems, showing her I can. Her eyes slide up to mine, but I continue before she can find the pain still there. “My parents lied to me my whole life. They cheated on each other. I’m hurting practically everybody I care about.” I lean in with my point. “I know what’s happening in my life. You’re ignoring it.”

Her jaw twitches. “I’m doing what I can. What any normal person would. Can’t sleep, take some pills—”

“That’s not even—This isn’tnormal, Camille.” I’m yelling now, but I’m too frustrated, too anguished to tone it down. “Normal people didn’t just lose their brother.Nothingis normal anymore. We’re all pretty fucking far from that right now.”

“Julian—” Her voice is tight and rough around my name, a beg for me to stop, but we’re pretty fucking far from that right now, too.

“You won’t even talk about it,” I go on. “You dodge questions. You walk around like everything isfine—”

“Because ithasto be.” She matches my volume, her nails digging even deeper into her skin.

I close the distance without a thought, place my hand on top of hers with a whispered, “Stop.” She avoids my eyes but loosens enough to allow my fingers to slip through hers. She yanks her hand from my hold and steps back, rubbing her palm over the indentions in her arm.

“It’s fine.”

I meet her step, eyes steady on her face to get hers back on mine. “You’re not fine.”

“I have to be,” she says, low, then stronger, as she finally meets my stare, “I don’t have a choice.”

She looks off again, biting down on her lip, then letting it go. My eyes fall to her mouth, and my hands itch to touch her again, to run my thumb along the new indentions, to soothe every mark. I have to dig my nails into my palms to keep from trying. I don’t know how much more of her rejection I can take.

“If I say I’m fine, I’m fine,” she reiterates, her stare back on mine.Let it go.Fuck that. “You have no idea what I went through.” Her eyes are wet, but not a single tear falls. Her features are stiff, her breaths deep and heavy.

“So tell me,” I press, soft but earnest.

She scoffs a laugh, putting her shield back up. I cast a quick glance to her fingers, but her hand stays relaxed against her skin. “And which version of you will I be talking to?”

My mouth opens to sayMe, but I’m not quiteme, am I? I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever bemeagain. So what do I say to that? I haven’t exactly been welcoming. My arms have been mostly closed to her.

But you know whose hasn’t? Tommy’s. Reyna’s. My mom’s. Camille has people she can turn to, people besides this fucked up version ofmewho care about her. I won’t let her make me feel like it’s my fault she hasn’t.

“What happens when the pills run out?” I question, bringing it back around to the real topic of this derailing conversation. “Or the porch light won’t turn on?” It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask her the story with the porch light, what’s behind her need for it, but we’re not there yet. My next question is pointed, probing to get the answer we both know is true. “Why’d you come back here?”

“Foryou,” she says with a force and desperation that stalls my breathing. Everything stalls. Our history, everything we’ve both felt for each other and still feel is in those two words, penetrating the wall between us holding all of the things I should’ve done that I didn’t do. I should’ve put our shit aside and been there for her sooner. But I’m here now. She’s here now. We’re still not quite ourselves, still not quiteus, so when she retracts with, “For my friends,” that’s where I keep the focus.

“So let us be your friends,” I urge, hearing desperation in my own words.

She just shakes her head. We’re both spent, our breaths heavy, voices tired. But I’m still nowhere near finished.

“Have you let it in?”

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