Page 220 of The Night Shift
I pick up my bat and make a beeline for the television set kept to my left and start smashing the damn thing like my life depends on it. Maybe it does. Maybe this is what anger does to a person. Makes you hurt and feel so fucking good all at once. Maybe this is who I am now.Smash. This is what I’ve turned myself into.Smash. Constantly angry and full of hate.Smash. Undeserving.Smash. Cursed.Smash. Bad. Maybe in another universe, I don’t have this much anger following me around like a shadow. Maybe there I forgave the world for being so unfair to me. Maybe there I stopped the bitterness from entering my body and I learned not to bite as much. Maybe there I don’t have to miss her, because in that universe, Aanya and I are together, laughing that in this one we are not.
“Holly?”
Hot tears flood my eyes. I start hitting the set harder.
“Holly.”
Everything inside me hurts. I hit it harder. Again, and again, and again.
“Holly.”
Tears cloud my vision, and I wipe them before they fall. I will not cry.I repeat the words to myself like a prayer.
A strong hand grips my shoulder and pulls me out of my trance. I turn around, breathing heavily. Theo’s blue eyes bore down at me and it’s as if he’s turned my mind into his own. Because the second I look up to meet his gaze, the bat falls from my hands, clattering against the floor.
“Love…”
I don’t even realize how hard I’m breathing. How hard I’m trembling. My entire body feels like it’s vibrating out of control, trying to expel something that doesn’t want to leave.
“Baby,” he says softly, his eyes going the kind of soft I probably don’t deserve.
My arms go around his neck and I pull him down into a hug, fast and fierce like I’m drowning and he’s the only thing above the surface.
It’s tight and desperate and so fucking unfair.
For a single, terrifying moment, I have no fucking idea what I’m doing. None.
I don’t hug people. I don’tclingto them like this. And yet here I am. My brain goes quiet. My synapses melt under his touch —
Wait.
Wait a second. I’m…hugging Theo and he’s not…hugging me back.
Nor is he saying anything. He’s just standing there like a mute moron. Did I break him?
“Holly?” he says cautiously.
I guess not.
I stay quiet. The fear of being seen this clearly claws up my throat like something alive, and even though he doesn’t say it, I hear it anyway.
Are you okay?
“Please don’t make fun of me right now,” I mutter. “I’m just having a bad day. That’s all.”
Nothing.
No snarky laugh.
No snide response.
He wraps his arm around my back, squeezes lightly, and says, “The next time you have a bad day, you’re more than welcome to take it out on me. That’s all.”
Something twists in my chest so sharp it almost knocks the breath out of me.
I don’t know what to say to that.
A lump lodges in my throat, sudden and unwelcome. “I don’t want to hurt you too.”
