Page 266 of Before We Were

I grasp Jake's hand, squeezing what little strength I have into it.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For always being by my side, even when I don't deserve it."

"You do deserve it, and I'll always be by your side." He pauses, weight gathering in the silence like storm clouds. "I meant it when I said I love you."

My breath catches because I know what he wants to hear, but saying 'I love you too' would mean something entirely different from what he needs it to mean.

Some silences are kinder than words.

And some truths are better left in the wreckage of a car on the side of the road, buried beneath twisted metal and broken glass, where they can't hurt anyone but me.

CHAPTER77

BROKEN PROMI?E?

NATE

The world dissolves into liquid,reality bleeding at the edges like watercolor on wet paper. My body's dead weight against Monty's half-deflated mattress, but my mind—my mind fragments like shattered glass, each shard reflecting a different version of my personal hell.

When Monty pushed the needle in, his words evaporated before they could reach me through the chemical haze. Whatever poison cocktail he's given me this time burns through my veins like liquid fire. Too much, maybe. Or finally enough to drown out her screams that have been echoing in my skull for weeks. I'm weightless yet chained to earth, suspended in that razor-thin space between sweet oblivion and raw agony.

My limbs feel foreign, like borrowed parts that don't quite fit. My chest is hollow, a void consuming everything except the pain that refuses to die.

The room spins in slow motion—or maybe I'm the one rotating, caught in orbit around memories I can't escape. Colors pulse with my sluggish heartbeat, while bass vibrations rattle through my bones. Monty's laughter cuts through it all, sharp and jarring against the chemical quiet in my head.

Reality comes in disconnected snapshots now. My head falls back and fireworks explode behind my eyelids—her face, her blood, her body broken on blood-slick asphalt. Everything blurs together until I can't tell what's memory and what's nightmare. I've lost track of time on this filthy floor that's become my home. Days blur into weeks when you're trying to dissolve yourself into nothing.

Through the fog, voices pierce the veil—familiar, urgent, disappointed. Jay and Nick materialize like judgmental ghosts through my chemical haze. I try to focus on their faces, but my body's already surrendered to whatever darkness Monty pumped into my veins.

"Jesus Christ, Nate." The words reach me like they're traveling through deep water, warped and distant.

Fragments of sensation assault me: rough hands gripping my arms, feet dragging across carpet that reeks of stale cigarettes, the world tilting sideways. Then cool leather against my back—a car seat becoming my new reality as voices float above me like storm clouds.

"Keep this quiet." Nick's voice cuts sharper than any needle. "People don't need to know."

Jay says something lost to the void while the engine's vibration hums through my bones like a lullaby for the damned.

I'm sorry, Leni.

I'm sorry I couldn't save you.

I'm sorry I became everything I swore I wouldn't.

The darkness swallows the rest.

Time melts like wax, dripping and pooling at the edges of consciousness. I'm somewhere else now—Nick's house, I think. The air here is clean wood and expensive cologne, jarring after weeks of breathing Monty's cocktail of stale smoke and desperation. They lay me down, and the leather couch swallows me whole. I squeeze my eyes shut against the spinning room, but darkness brings no peace. Instead, she materializes like a ghost I can't outrun.

Nora.

She's five, a snapshot of innocence in that purple dress scattered with daisies. Pigtails bounce as she moves, bright eyes sparkling with the kind of hope I'd forgotten existed. Her tiny hands clutch a crayon and paper like they're precious treasures.

“Nate, you have to sign this."

"What is it?"

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