Page 85 of Making Choices

The only thing stalking me is guilt.

For the first time in almost three days, I take my phone and tap to open the message thread pinned to the top of my messages app. My thumbs are steady as I type out the words I should’ve sent as soon as he left.

SLASH: Come back. Cherub needs you.

The read receipt appears within seconds. Three bubbles pop up and bounce across the screen. I watch them, heart racing, impending doom threatening to trap me beneath its weight. The bubbles disappear and I exhale hard. I’m about to shove my phone back into my pocket when his reply pops up on my screen.

VENOM: She needs you, not me

I expect him to send a follow up, but he doesn’t.

Instead, I stare at the screen until it turns black.

What the fuck does he mean by that?

22

LILY

“We have a visitor for you,” Nadia announces in the same sing-song voice she’s been using on me since I started to zone them out. Apparently staring off into the distance and needing to be called three times before you respond has a tendency to worry the people who love you.

“Bet you didn’t think you’d see him today?”

“Or any day soon,” Slash mutters as he wheels my cousin into the bedroom I’ve turned into my hiding hole from reality. “But someone thinks he knows better than the doctors, doesn’t he?”

“Had to see my favourite cousin,” Toker quips. He tries to grin, instead he hisses and presses the fingers of his unbroken arm to his swollen cheek. “Didn’t realise our faces would match, though.”

“Hardy ha.” I roll my eyes and regret it a second later when pain flares in my head. “Pretty sure my face isn’t as busted as yours.”

“Wouldn’t bet on it,” my cousin retorts. When Slash lifts him out of his wheelchair, Toker slaps at his hands. “Oi, motherfucker… don’t recall askin’ you to carry me about.”

“Just go with it,” I tell him with a laugh. “Slash needs to regularly feed his saviour complex, or he goes a little bit loopy. If it helps, I’ve been copping the same treatment.”

“And she doesn’t whinge about it,” Slash offers as he lowers Toker to the mattress next to me. Stepping out of my cousin’s reach, he bows. “Now say thank you.”

“Fuck off.”

“You’re welcome.”

Nadia fusses around both of us, making sure the covers are pulled high and the television remote is in reach. When she moves to plump up the pillow behind Toker, he catches hold of her wrist and tugs her until her ear is level with his mouth. “With all due respect, Nads, but you needa get lost. Me and Cherub… we’ve got a date with misery, and you’re not invited.”

My best friend plasters a fake smile on her face. “Sure thing.”

As soon as we’re alone, I allow my focus to drop from his face to scan the rest of him. Cataloguing his broken arm, bound ribs, and the surgical bandages around his hip, I have to take a moment to steady myself before I speak. “Broken pelvis?”

“Yep. Even got the plate and screws to prove it.”

“Busted ribs?”

“Fractured.”

“Ouch.”

“Hear yours aren’t feelin’ too crash hot either?”

“Mine are only bruised.”

Toker sighs. “And the baby… how are you copin’ with that?”

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