Page 21 of Always You

I needed him like I needed to breathe.

Chapter Eleven

JAZZ

I don’t need you.And you don’t need me.

What a freaking liar! I needed Alex in ways I couldn’t begin to explain. I was desperate to return to that last summer when we still loved each other before money became more important to him than me. Before he told me he felt nothing for me.

And needing him fucking sucked because I’d always love him, and I couldn’t do anything with that.

I couldn’t believe I’d laid myself bare like that in the group meeting. The words had tumbled out, a tidal wave of confessions and memories I hadn’t admitted to myself until that moment. Each revelation felt like shedding a layer of skin, leaving me raw and exposed, and through all of it, I was facing Alex, and he’d seen what I’d become.

So, I’d told him I didn’t need him.

I’d lied.

I wanted to be friends again. But if I did that, then I would drag the man he’d become down to my level, and I would destroy him. How could I let him be anything more when I didn’t sleep because of nightmares, and those same nightmares chased me into the daylight?

I’m doing the right thing when I tell him I need him to stay away from what I am now.

Right?

Only he’d stared at me as if I’d stabbed him in the chest, with his guilty expression and his bright eyes.

When I returned to my room, the aftermath of my openness hit me hard. I felt lightheaded as if speaking my truth had physically drained me, and exhaustion enveloped me like a thick blanket. Glancing at the clock, I realized I was running out of time, with less than an hour before Marcus expected me in the medical room. The thought alone was enough to make my head spin.

Then, there was the skills session this afternoon with the careers advisor, a lady called Greta. The idea of sitting down, discussing prospects and deciding about a life I was still trying to piece back together felt premature. How was I supposed to plot a course forward when I was still navigating the past?

To top it all off, I was scheduled for dinner duty in the kitchen. The last thing I needed was to face others and function in a team when I felt I was barely holding myself together.

It was all too much.

Sitting on the edge of my bed, I tried to take deep breaths, to steady the spinning room and quell the rising panic. “One thing at a time,” I whispered to myself, a mantra I wasn’t sure I believed. First, Marcus and the medical room. I could handle that. Marcus had always been straightforward, quiet, and undemanding, and he was just checking my skin and the chest infection.

“I can do that.”

But the careers session, the decisions about a future I couldn’t imagine, and the kitchen duty with its demands on my already depleted reserves of energy and sociability were something else.

I dreaded them.

I stood up, pacing the small space of my room, trying to shake off the fatigue and gather my thoughts. I had to focus on the immediate, to navigate this day step-by-step, even if the prospect of what lay beyond was enough to send me spiraling.

As the minutes ticked by, bringing me closer to my appointment with Marcus, I had to be strong.

With a deep, steadying breath, I set my shoulders and counted down the time left, and the knock on the door jolted me, gave my thoughts a hard shove, when I was trying to center myself.

“Who is it?” I called out.

“Me. I mean, Alex.”

Fuck. Fuck.

“Go away,” I called back, harsher than I intended. Underneath the command, there was a plea for space, for a moment to gather myself.

There was a pause, and then, Alex was persistent and gentle again. “I was hoping we could talk?”

Talk. That word seemed simple, yet it held so much significance. Did I have the energy or courage for this?

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