Page 134 of My Lovely Tragedy
This was such a bad idea. I should’ve… I should’ve just stayed gone. Drove until the car ran out of gas and then just…
Just fucking…
I want to disappear. Again. With him. And I can’t because he sent me away, and I can’t go back because he doesn’t want me to, and that would be pathetic, and I can’t do anything because he forced me to promise, so now here I am, freaking the fuck out because I don’t belong here—“Brooklyn!”
I jerk up at the dissonance of voices shouting my name, a gasp wheezing out. The first glimpse at my family after months of not seeing them has my throat closing up all over again.I missed them.
But not enough to want to stay.
“He—” I swallow the rush of bile with a grimace, then push myself to my feet, shoving my hands in my pockets. “Hey.”
“MyGod,” Benji bellows out before his arms are around me, yanking me into his chest. I recoil and stumble back, fighting to keep my feigned smile in place, but from the expressions on their faces, I fail—miserably.
Benji takes a cautious step back. They all glance between each other before looking back at me. My eye twitches. I canfeelthem perceiving me. Their eyes on me are like nails on a chalkboard down my spine, in my eye sockets,my brain.
I take another step back, stopping when my knees hit the chair. A rush of people come up behind them, loud and buzzing andtoo much.I sink back down, pulling my knees to my chest, almost toppling over when my untied boots slip against the polyester material. My head falls to my knee, and I squeeze my eyes closed.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Tobias fingers tapping against his thigh flash through my mind. I choke on the memory, jerking back up, hair flying around my face and sticking to the sweat oozing from my pores.
My eyes are unfocused as I stare out in front of me. Blobs of unknowns surround me, drawing closer with each beat, every breath. A slow-capturing descent.
“B…” I wince at the sound of my name—my nickname. Something I haven’t heard in weeks. It’s foreign to my ears, not hearing my full name.Not hearing it in Tobias’s voice.But I turn toward it, blinking rapidly to clear the film.
Benji comes into view, crouching in front of me with his dark hair, dipped in red, hanging in his face. He brushes it back, tucking it behind his ear as his eyes flicker up in an attempt to search mine. I glance away, avoiding his infiltration.
A soft breath blows across my legs, and the excess of warmth is nearly enough to send me sprawling away, but I sink my fingers into the cushion of the chair, steeling myself.I can do this. Of course, I can do this.
They’re my family.
It’s easy.
It should be easy.
Benji tentatively places both hands on my legs, a touch that is barely there, but it burns so fucking unbearably, I pull away, tucking my legs deeper into my torso until I can’t even breathe.
His gaze never wavers, trailing over my face, down my bruised throat. Over my—Tobias’s—expensive clothes. Ones I would never buy for myself.
“Your hair’s gotten pretty long,” he says conversationally, like we’re just meeting up after a long vacation. Relief flutters in, and I can finally exhale. It hurts.
“Yeah,” I rasp. Tobias loved my hair. He was always touching it, wrapping it around his fingers, tugging and yanking. Feeling and smelling.
I dig the heel of my hand into the center of my sternum—and that’s when I feel the key. Biting into my skin through my shirt. My hand stills, along with my breath. My heart.
Time.
I grasp it. Curl my fingers around it and flatline.
* * *
Consciousness comes backto me in flashes. The first flicker is confusion. My skin pulls taut and dry over my facial bones as it scrunches. My limbs tighten as I register something soft beneath me.
I flex my fingers, spread them wide. They graze over something velvety.
And then comes the panic.
