Page 40 of Thorns from the Fall

“All that matters is you can resist it when you need to, I suppose,” Hale responds. “I’m cutting myself off by the way, so drink up, buttercup. He won’t believe it unless you do it right.”

Hale shoves the recently arrived Dirty Shirley into my hand before pushing off the bar. He heads to the dance floor, gesturing for me to follow. The bass thumps heavy beneath my breastbone, and I try very hard not to look at the imposing figure in the corner.

I should be pleased Hale has agreed to being my DD: Designated Death-Intervener. I’ve mostly gotten over the whole “drink away my feelings” thing, but Roman doesn’t need to know that.

Roman needs to pity me. He needs to think I’m a goddamn mess. Because Roman likes to clean up messes. It’s self preservation to lean into the sloppy party-girl persona. So what if it feels an awful lot like the old me has come out to play?

I adjust my top, making sure my boobs look perfect, before I follow my friend to the dance floor. He tugs me close and steals a sip of my drink before leaning down to whisper in my ear.

“I think you like putting on a show for him,” he says.

I bite my lip.

So what if I do?

After the dream I had last night, all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. But after checking the footage from the last twelve hours, I think perhaps what I really want is to never wake up. I slam my laptop shut, and Sasha peeks her head into my room. She thinks the curtains have been shut because the sun hurts my eyes. Sheprobably thinks I’m hungover, and that’s why I’m still in bed. I doubt she realizes just how close I am to a mental breakdown.

She’s not who I need when I’m on the verge of losing it. The person I need is on his seventh or eighth straight day of getting his dick wet and avoiding talking to both me and Sasha.

Sasha is dressed like she’s about to go somewhere. She’s wearing black, skin-tight leggings with a thick Velcro knee brace on top. Emile had only managed to bruise her kneecap—which I didn’t even know was possible—and with time, she’ll be fine. Despite the brace, her outfit looks great. She wears a turtleneck beneath a thick, olive-green coat that nearly touches the tops of her shiny leather boots. Her hair is piled on top of her head in a stylish wrap, and she’s wearing makeup. Her brown skin is glowing with highlighter. I don’t know why; it’s not like we’ve left the penthouse in a week. She’s been entertaining herself with books from Bjorn’s library and a game on her cell phone. Right now, we’re almost in purgatory, waiting for Hale to return.

But he won’t be the same, and we both know it. We’re tiptoeing around the bitter truth and giving each other space.

I don’t think I’ve left my room the past week.

“You alright?” she asks.

All I do is glare at her. I do have a headache, after all. I’m tempted to roll away from her when she sits at the foot of my bed.

“Same girl or a new one?” When she nods toward my laptop, my mouth drops open, and I sit up against the headboard. All she does is smirk at me. “You think I’m not watching you like a hawk? I know what this is.” She gestures at the state of my room, at the state ofme. “You’ve been listening to Morrissey, for fuck’s sake.”

“The Smiths, not?—”

“Point stands.”

“Morrissey is a douchebag?—”

“You’ve been watching Roman again.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I can see you log into the system!” Sasha says, tossing her hands up in exasperation. “I have the login. The minute she left this morning, I got a notification. And another when you pulled up the footage.” When she grabs my ankle and squeezes, I inhale a breath that is far too shaky for my comfort. She thinks I’m a traitor because I fell for Roman, and she won’t forgive me for it anytime soon. Especially if I’m creeping on him and his fucking booty calls.

I don’t deserve it anyway.

“I just want to know what he’s up to.”

“Of course you want to. But do you need to? Isn’t that why me and Hale are here? To help you?” Sasha has a knack for being a gentle asshole. She says the shit I need to hear, but her delivery is usually soft. Even as her words sting, the grip on my leg is soothing. A tether.

“You know that’s not the only reason I need you both,” I say, staring at a snag on the bedspread. I want to pull on it. I want to unravel the blanket slowly, watch as it turns into a pile of loose thread. If I could unwind my insides and twist my intestines into the mess, perhaps I’d be able to untangle this wretched feeling in my stomach.

Sasha raises a brow. “Mhm,” she murmurs, fiddling with a ring she’s wearing. I don’t recognize it, and I assume it’s something she bought while I was gone.

While I was willingly held captive, and had lost myself in the process.

I don’t know why I expected everything to stop while I was gone. My friends aren’t an abandoned video game save file, so I don’t know why my mind has treated them as such.

Their world doesn’t revolve around me.

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