Page 60 of Bitter When He Begs

He walks into my room that Thursday afternoon and tosses my keys at my chest with a muttered, “Get up, you’re driving.” I catch them with a sigh.

I’m sprawled out on my bed, hoodie over my head, watching some bullshit documentary I’m not even paying attention to. “I’m good,” I mutter without moving. “Go away.”

He doesn’t.

Instead, he steps fully inside, kicks the side of my bed hard enough to rattle the frame, and stares at me with that unreadable, emotionless look he’s mastered. “I didn’t ask.”

I groan, pulling my hood lower over my eyes. “Dude, I just wanna chill.”

“That’s your problem,” he mutters, already walking back toward the door. “You’ve been ‘chilling’ your way into the fucking ground.”

The door doesn’t slam, but it clicks shut with finality, and for a second, I stare at it, irritated, until I realize the bastard’s not coming back. He’s not going to ask again. If I want to know what the hell that was about, I’ve gotta move.

So, like the dumbass I am, I follow.

He doesn’t say where we’re going. Doesn’t even look at me as I follow him out the door, sliding into the driver’s seat while he takes shotgun and immediately reclines like he owns the damn vehicle.

He starts fiddling with his phone, settling on some grunge playlist that sounds like it was made in a basement full of cigarette smoke and teenage angst, and I drive, the silence between us only filled by distorted guitars and his directions.

It takes me a few minutes to realize where we’re heading.

The lake’s about half an hour out of town. It’s quiet and remote, one of those places you don’t go unless you’re trying to drink in peace or hide from something. I went there a couple of times during freshman year, back when parties meant beer and noise and pretending I had a future beyond what people expected of me. Back when hiding was something I still did for fun, not survival.

I glance over at Killian, but he’s not looking at me. His gaze is fixed on the road ahead. He’s one of the only people I’ve ever met who makes silence feel like a statement.

When we pull up to the gravel lot by the water, I kill the engine and sit there for a second, waiting for him to say something. He doesn’t, he just gets out and starts walking. So I follow, shoving my hands into my hoodie pocket as the breeze kicks up off the lake.

We don’t say a word until we’re standing at the edge, the surface of the water calm and glassy, the only sound the occasional rustle of wind through the trees.

He lights a cigarette, takes a long drag, and exhales slowly before speaking.

“You ever feel like people only look at you to see how far you’ll fall?” he asks, his voice flat.

I glance at him. “All the time.”

He nods once, like he expected that answer. “My twin brother was an addict,” he says, just like that. No lead-up. No warning. Just drops it like a brick in a still pond. “He started using when we were sixteen. Pills, mostly. Shit he stole from our dad’s cabinet. I thought he could handle it because he was smart, because he was strong. Because King men handle their shit.”

I stay quiet. Killian doesn’t talk about his family. Ever.

“I didn’t notice,” he continues, taking another drag. “And even when I did, I didn’t care. I figured he was being weak by letting himself fall apart. I told myself I didn’t have time to babysit someone who couldn’t control their own shit.”

He laughs, bitter and low. “He OD’d on heroin three weeks before graduation. Didn’t even make it to prom.”

I move, the gravel crunching under my feet. “I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, most people don’t,” he mutters. “It’s not something I ever felt like sharing. Didn’t want the pity or the whispers. Didn’t want people looking at me like I should’ve saved him when I couldn’t even be fucking bothered to look.”

He drops the cigarette, grinding it out with the heel of his boot. His jaw tightens, but his voice stays calm. “When Damon told me about you… I told myself I won’t let it happen again. I lost Kade because I thought he was weak. I won’t fucking lose you, too.”

I stare at the lake, the sting behind my eyes immediate and unwelcome. “I didn’t want anyone to see it.”

“You think I give a shit what you wanted?” he snaps, and for once, there’s fire under the surface. Not rage, not violence, but something worse. Grief. Guilt. “You thinkthatfucking matters to me when I walk into our house and see you shaking in your bed, looking like death? When Roman tells me you’re puking your guts out and begging for something to take the edge off? When I find out one of my closest friends was two steps away from dying and I didn’t even fucking notice?”

I wince. “Kill—”

“No,” he growls, turning on me. “Don’t tell me it’s fine. Don’t tell me it’s your problem or you’re handling it. I watched my twin rot from the inside out and did nothing. I won’t do that again.”

His eyes meet mine, and for the first time, I see something raw there. Not just anger, not just cold calculation. But pain. Real, bleeding pain that he’s buried under layers of control and detachment for so long, I’m sure he forgot he was even capable of it.

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