Page 70 of Drown Like Heaven
Pain ached through my ribs, strained my lungs. I pressed my lips together to hold in my cries.
“No,” I protested.
“You might cry if I do what you said. If I hurt you.”
You’re already hurting me. Just because your hand isn’t over my mouth right now doesn’t mean I can breathe.
“Well I don’t want to cry with you now.”
“Who do you want to cry with?”
“Mila,” I said on a quiet sob.
“Pretend I’m her.”
A small laugh bubbled in my chest, almost surprising me. “Wow, Mila. You’ve really bulked up.”
“I had a growth spurt.”
“You also became a terrible person. Not at all like the Mila I know.”
“I haven’t had any coffee yet today,” he joked. I tilted my head back, my teary eyes meeting Mason’s dry ones. His gaze darted to my lips twitching in a frown and his voice softened. “Or you can just cry with me, baby. Even if you don’t want to.”
“I’m only crying because my foot hurts.”And because my heart hurts and my mind hurts and I’m so tired that all I want to do is sleep forever. I’m pretty sure all of it is because of you.I hid my face in his chest.
“I know,” he murmured with his lips pressed to the top of my head.
?????
Mason took me home after letting me cry for a while and buying me more food—a cheeseburger this time. He wanted to come inside with me, but I didn’t let him, even though I couldn’t really walk on my left foot yet. I needed space. More space than he was probably ever willing to give me.
I was laying on my stomach on my bed, my hair now clean and dry and straightened after my shower, my feet propped inthe air. It had been a little difficult to shower with just one foot—and without trying to let the other one get wet, since I didn’t have the supplies to change my bandage—but I felt better after doing it.
The salt of the ocean washed down the drain, along with Mason’s scent and all the awful things he did to me.
My laptop was open next to my pillow, some random horror movie playing on it that I’d found for free on YouTube. I had my pillow laying flat in front of me, and I was arranging my shark teeth on it, the little jar in my left hand while my right hand plucked out the teeth and arranged them on my cotton pillowcase.
Most of them were small, skinnier and sharper, but some were bigger, thick and solid in my palm. All of them were black.
It was almost dark in my bedroom and I hadn’t turned on any lamps, so the only light was from the glow of my laptop screen, filtering softly through the nighttime air. My phone buzzed and I grabbed it from my nightstand, tapping on the notification. It was from my Unit Ops group chat.
Jackson :Does anyone want to meet up tomorrow to work on our report?
I rolled my eyes, dropping my phone onto my comforter. My assigned sections of the report were almost done; all I had left to work on was the error analysis. I always offered to do that section because I was pretty good at statistics, and could use the software well. But I knew that I’d end up helping with the other parts of the report if I wanted them to be done on time—which I did.
Scooping up the shark teeth and dropping them back into the jar, I flipped on my back and held my phone above my face, thumbs flying over the cracked screen. A woman’s screamplayed faintly from my laptop, along with rising theatrical music.
Me :Sure. I’ll be at Stanton around seven, if that works for everyone
Nate :Okay
I had a feeling the plans would end up falling apart by the time seven o’clock rolled around tomorrow evening, but I didn’t really care. I’d been planning to spend some time at Stanton already, trying to get stuff done. Every once in a while I liked to do that; plan to go hunker down at a table somewhere with better internet than my trailer, and make some progress on my assignments for a few hours.
The sound coming from my laptop cut off and I turned my head, finding the screen buffering.Right on cue.At least I didn’t care too much about watching this movie.
It took a minute for the movie to start playing again, and by that point, I’d lost all interest in it. I shut my laptop and climbed under my covers, rolling over to my side with my phone on the pillow by my face.
There was a missed message from Mason I’d never responded to, but I couldn’t do it now. He was suffocating me. I needed fuckingspace.
