Page 68 of Sweet Little Lies
When she leaves the room, I turn my head to face Cade. Clearing my throat, I say the first words I can remember speaking in days.
“I didn’t mean to…” Shit, this is harder than I thought and my voice cracks. “I don’t know what happened, but I didn’t try to kill myself. You know that, right?”
Cade sits at the edge of the bed and looks directly in the eyes.
“Whether you meant to or not, I think you’ve slowly been killing yourself for the last year and you’ve been hiding it from everyone, even yourself.”
Well, fuck. I can’t disagree with that.
“Maybe…and maybe it’s been longer that.”
I swallow, shifting my gaze to look out the hospital window at the sunshine and blue sky. Such a contradiction to the cold, harsh gray inside of me.
There’s no doubt that he’s right about that. I’ve been dousing my pain and self-hatred for years, starting with booze in my mid-teens. I was hiding the sadness and loneliness with alcohol as often as I could get my hands on it because it was the only thing that made me feel better about myself. I was fun and funny and people liked me. I drank to dull the razor-sharp edges of my life and bury that god awful bitter self-loathing.
And then I tried pills and they worked even better.
Until they didn’t.
“What happened? Do you know?” I ask Cade, in hopes that he can unravel this mystery for me that’s been blocked out of my memory.
He stands and moves away from the bed, turning his back for a second. His head is bent in what looks like sorrow.
“Mica,” he murmurs and I gasp.
My heart plummets to the floor. “Holy shit, where is she? Did I hurt her?”
Because I don’t remember anything, I have no idea where Mica was during all of this and what I may have said or done if I was around her.
His head whips sharply back to me, his eyes pinning me with a glare.
“Yeah, you hurt her, dude. Just not physically.”
And then he tells me what transpired.
I’d been avoiding her for days. I remember that. I was too fucked up to be in her company because I knew I would only bring her down. Plus, I was hanging out with people I knew she wouldn’t approve of. She’d be able to see right through me and that was not something I wanted when I’d been hiding the truth for so long.
“You were at some drug dealers house when you OD’d. She’d been calling and calling, trying to reach you and you never answered, until finally someone else finally did. A goddamn dealer’s house, Lance! What the fuck?”
Cade’s voice is loud and explosive. Angry. So very angry with me and I don’t blame him a bit.
He grows quiet for a moment, searching my eyes for explanation. “Why? I just don’t understand.”
I’m bitter and my words carry a bite. “No, you wouldn’t understand. Neither you or Carver. Your lives are perfect. Perfect families. You have everything you want. You’ve never experienced anything like I have. You don’t know what it’s like to kill someone you love. Or watch them die right in front of you. Or be reminded of it every time you see your dad.”
His eyes bug out wide because this is all new information to him. I’ve never shared it with anyone.
“What the fuck are you talking about? You’ve never killed anyone. I know your mom died of cancer. You didn’t cause that.”
I scoff at his naivete.
“I killed my brother and that led to her downward spiral, which led to her cancer. So yeah, I caused her death.”
His face softens and grows sad. His eyes glistening with what looks like unshed tears.
“Your brother? I didn’t even know you had a brother, man.”
Closing my eyes to avoid his condemnation, I tell him. I tell him everything.
“Landon was two years younger than me. I was messing around with him one day at the park, playing ball. I threw it over his head to fuck with him because he was annoying me. It went out into the street and he ran after it. The truck driver didn’t see him come out between the cars lining the street. It threw him a block before he landed on the road.”
Tears pour down my face and I swipe at them. Tears that have been bottled up for years come gushing out like a torrential rain. Hard and cold. I suck in gasps of air, sputtering them out as Cade comes over and wraps his arms around my shoulders. My head lands against his chest in a desperate thud.
“Dude, you’re not alone. You’re never alone. It wasn’t your fault. You need to know that. And you need to deal with this so you can move on. And we’re all here to help you, Mica even more than any of us.”
I pull back and he lets me go. Shaking my head, I’m adamant about this and I won’t change my mind.
“I don’t want to see Mica. Tell her to move on.”
