Page 61 of Working Out West

“Is there anything you need?”

“No, get out!” he screamed and got to his elbows, but his face pinched from the pain, and he dropped back down. “I want to be alone. I don’t want to see you again. Go back to your life, Adrik.”

“I will be back in a moment,” I told him.

He groaned, and as I walked from the room to grab my bag, he yelled, “Don’t.”

Picking up my bag, I made my way back into West’s room and placed my bag beside me as I sat on the chair. West glared at me. “I want you to leave.”

Ignoring him, I bent, unzipped my bag, and pulled out a book. “I am on the second-last book. I thought I might read it to you.”

“I don’t want you to,” he snarled through clenched teeth.

I opened to the start, even though I was halfway through, and started reading.

“Why are you doing this? Why can’t you get it through your thick Russian head that I don’t want you here?”

I went on reading.

He groaned. “Jesus, you think you’re that important? You’re not. Go away. Go back to your family.” He paused for a reaction, but when I didn’t give him one and looked back to the book, he added, “This is my room. I want you gone. You have to listen to me. Fucking listen to me!”

Glancing back to the book, I opened my mouth to continue reading but stopped when West whispered, “Why are you doing this? Why won’t you listen?”

“Because I care for you. As do Lucas and the others. No matter how much you hate yourself, we like you even more.”

His breath hitched. “Please leave.”

“Nyet, West,” I said softly, and then went back to reading. He said no more and eventually drifted off to sleep. There was nothing he could say that would have me leave him, not when his mind would be playing tricks on him, telling him things, wrong things.

He needed me.

He needed us all, and we would be there for him. Through everything.

Chapter Fifteen

Adrik

Aweek later, I stepped into the living room from being in West’s room early morning. It had been the same the last few days—where I spent my days working on the businesses—but at night, I returned to West’s room to read, talk, and sleep. Even when he never responded to me. After the first night, he had taken to ignoring me when he had asked me to leave, and I refused.

“Lucas, he would like to see you. He said it was something medical.”

“On it.” Lucas smiled, but it was not fully there. It hadn’t been present since West had fallen into his anger. We tried to talk to him about seeing someone professional to speak with, but he refused each time. Unless he was asked a direct question or wanted something, he didn’t seek conversation otherwise.

All of us were worried.

Had they gotten to him? Had they planted their seed into his mind, which had grown into something bigger?

He refused to get up, to move, only to lie there and allow himself to fall deeper into this state of despair. We could no longer see the person West had been. He did not argue. He did not invite people to see him. He did not want to see anyone. If it was not for Lucas, Kylo, Wreck, and me being persistent, West would have his way and be alone. We ignored his verbal abuse and spoke to him as if he had not said anything harsh at all.

The others were worried that it would be more harmful for West and his mental state if they kept coming back. It did not stop them from dropping into the house to check on him, though. West had so much support, so many cared for him. He was yet to see through his misery to notice it.

West had been through a lot. We could understand his anger, his pain, his fears.

All we had to do was wait it out to get our West back. And he would come back to us. Every now and then, he would say something hurtful and wince. Regret would shine in his eyes before he forced it down.

I did not understand the anger he showed Lucas and Kylo, though. They were his family. I was new in his life, so I expected him to try and push me away. Why was he with his family too?

“You okay?” Dimitri asked from where he sat on the couch. He had been here every day, only leaving at night when he knew Wreck was home. Somehow my friend had come to like the man I was still yet to not want to punch in the face.

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