Page 59 of It's Always Sonny

Chapter Seventeen

Parker

I’m curled into a ball in the corner of my bathroom, wedged between the toilet and the tub.

Sobs wrack my body. My lungs ache. My throat feels like someone took a cheese grater to it.

All I wanted was for them to like me. To love me.

What must they think of me now?

Why am I so weak and stupid and afraid? What is wrong with me that my fear of heights is so intense that it caused my vagus nerve to over-stimulate? How pathetic can someone be?

I ruined everything.

I ruined their reunion.

I ruined their opinion of me.

I ruined any chance of somehow showing Sonny’s family that I was worth their time.

He must hate me. I made his family reunion about me. I always make everything about me.

A knock sounds at the door, and my head whips up. It’s not the door to my cabin, it’s the door to my bathroom.

“Who is it?” Fear spikes my pulse.

“PJ—”

It’s Sonny.

“No!” I do that hiccup, double-breathing thing that makes crying so much worse. “You cannot see me like this!”

“Fine, I won’t,” he says.

“But I will.” Ash says through the door.

“I’m okay, Ash,” I say, trying to push back my tears, trying to block out that moment of Sonny’s family hovering around me and worrying about me and the pain of him not even wanting me around. “I just need a minute.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Ash says. “I think you need a hug.”

“I don’t need a hug, Ash,” I say.

“Do you need a song, then?” Lou says.

Lou is here?

“Or how about Louis the Llama?” Millie asks. “You know how cool he is in a crisis.”

I put my head between my knees, not sure whether to laugh or cry.

“Or maybe you need to know that your friends will always love you, no matter what,” Jane says.

“You don’t have to be perfect to be loved,” Sonny says.

And the sobbing resumes.

Even harder.

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