My words come out like acid, spitting and strong. Cohen doesn’t say anything, but he does lean down and reach out for my hand. He scoops it up with his and slowly pulls me to my feet. He doesn’t feed me pity, or kind words, he just brings me to my feet and then we start walking toward his truck.
When we reach it, he opens the door and I climb in.
The drive back to the motel is silent, but silence doesn’t scare me. I find comfort in its depths. I bring my knees up to my chest and curl my arms around them, resting my chin on my knees. My tears are long dried up, but my heart still has that same ache I can’t seem to chase away.
Everything hurts.
Sometimes, I want it all just to go away.
Other times, I relish in it.
Right now, deep down, if I were to admit the truth to myself, I wish someone would take it away for me. Just once. Just this time.
“Briella told me what you said to her tonight.”
Cohen’s voice fills the darkness of the car, and it’s softer than I’ve heard him use since I’ve been back. It’s gravelly, and always deep, but it’s missing that edge he usually uses when he talks to me.
“And?” I whisper, my voice too tired to come out.
“And I didn’t know. I didn’t know that happened to you. I know it doesn’t matter to you now, Aviana, but I never fuckin’ wanted that for you. I thought you would be safe. I thought I was doin’ the right thing.”
Of course he thought that.
Don’t we all think we’re doing right by others, until we find out we weren’t?
“You were my best friend, I trusted you.”
My voice cracks and more tears roll down my cheeks.
I turn my face away.
I don’t want to say anything more.
It won’t help.
It’ll only make things worse.
Cohen doesn’t say anything else either. Instead, he pulls up at the motel and turns off the truck.
I get out of it and don’t look back.
I can’t.
If I do, I’m scared he’ll see just how much I needed him in that moment.
10NOW – AVIANA
My bed dips and my entire body goes stiff as I feel someone climbing underneath the covers with me. The warmth of another human form presses against me, and then small arms come around me and rest over my stomach. I know who it is the moment I catch her smell—I know because we used to lie like this all the time and talk for hours about boys and dreams.
Briella.
I clench my eyes shut. It’s dark, what time I don’t know.
I don’t even know why she’s here.
My automatic reaction is to kick her off, to scream at her to get out, but I know that reaction isn’t the right one.
I know it, even though that’s what my body is telling me to do.
“I let you down,” she whispers into the darkness. “You were right. I was your best friend and I didn’t come looking for you. I should have known you’d never just disappear. I should have turned the world upside down looking for you, Aviana, and for not doing that, I’ll be forever sorry.”
I can’t stop them.
Those horrible tears.
They burst forth, and I can’t control them.
They soak my face and my pillow.
They make my whole body shake.
Briella just hangs onto me—she just holds the pieces together as I cry. I cry so hard a loud sob fills the silent room.
Merleigh wakes and calls out into the darkness.
Then a moment later the lamp flicks on. She looks over to me, and I see her expression change through my blurred vision as she takes in the pathetic sight of me sobbing. She stands without a word and walks over to the bed, then she pulls the covers back and climbs in, too. She lies face to face with me, and her hand goes over Briella’s. Then they just hang onto me.
For a minute, god, for a blissful minute, I want this to be all there is to my life. Just these two women holding me together, not having to worry about a single other thing in this world but the fact that they’ve got my back, and they’re not going to let anything bad happen to me.
I want it to be how it goes.
God, I want it so bad.
But my soul is bitter, and confused, and so scarily broken.
I shake my head through my tears and push out of their grips, frantically sliding my body out of the bed so I don’t have to feel the intense emotions I’m feeling right now. I get to my feet, my hands shaking, and I look at the two women who slowly sit up and stare at me. I still have tears running down my face. My mind is a swimming mess that I can’t make sense of.
“It’s okay, Avi,” Briella says carefully, her hair messed up from sleep, her eyes tired. “We want to help you. We’re here to help you.”
I can’t breathe.
No.
“I don’t need help,” I say, my voice scratchy.
“You do, though. You do, and it’s okay to let us be the people who give that to you. We’re your family, your friends, we want to get you through this. We love you.”
Those words hit me like a slap to the face and I turn, running from the room, desperate to make these feelings stop. I don’t want to second guess myself. I don’t want to hope that maybe she’s right and they’re the answer to all my problems. I don’t want to believe their love might actually be what fixes me. I don’t want to trust them again, only to have my world ripped out from beneath me.
As I run, the memories of my life before
