Page 55 of Four Times Forever

"Shut up. Just shut the fuck up, Ryan. Because if you keep talking, I don't know what I'm going to do!" I barked, gripping the steering wheel as my nerves spiraled into knots around my neck.

The rest of the ride back to the hotel Matt and Ethan had booked was silent. I couldn't even look at him as I marched him into the hotel room like a prison warden.

"What the fuck happened?" Ethan grabbed him and pulled him into the room. Matt wrapped his arms around his shoulders. Ryan started breaking down and crying.

Call me a little fucking unempathetic bitch, but I couldn't handle this right now.

"Tomorrow, we're leaving Florida and we're going somewhere. I'm not bringing danger to my parents' doorstep and with this fucking liability..." I shoved my thumb toward Ryan. "...we're not safe in America. We'll dress it up as a romantic vacation to celebrate Lily's turnaround on the wedding or something."

"Eric..." Ethan started.

"It's decided. You can come or don't come. Either way, I'm leaving with Lily tomorrow." I slammed the door behind me and stormed out.

Chapter 42

Ryan

Hate was a pretty fucking heavy emotion, and it weighed down on me, bouncing off Ethan's and Eric's bodies like tidal waves. On top of that, the slamming of the door. Bang! Like a gunshot. An immediate image of Lily with a gun to her head was brought back to me.

I knew she wasn't shot, but in my head, she got the bullet. That set off the memories of what I did to protect her, and I shrugged out of Matt's arms. I already knew before I reached the door that I wasn't going anywhere. Eric said it. I'd become a liability, which meant I'd never be let out of their sight again, not until this ordeal was over. I'd lost my freedom. It was nothing close to what I deserved, but it didn't mean I had to like it.

"Fucking go to bed and don't push me, Ryan. I'm not staying up with you all night to keep my eyes on you. Neither is Matt." Ethan hauled me by the shirt collar and threw me across the bed where Matt was waiting to catch me.

"Alright. Easy there." Matt scowled at Ethan before turning to me. "What are you trying to do? Push away everyone who cares about you?"

Neither Eric nor Lily could bear to be around me, Ethan was just tolerating me, and pretty soon, Matt was going to get frustrated with me as well. I was falling apart inside, dying, growing more and more depleted with every loss. My chest caved in on me, crumbling beneath the demands on my breathing. The room went black, my brain became heavy, pushing pressure against my eardrums and behind my eyes. I became infected with a dark entity that sought to consume me from the inside out.

From my peripheral, I watched as Ethan rolled his eyes. "I can't fucking handle this right now." His words were slow and deep, whipping about in the tornado of confusion playing out before me.

Matt rubbed at his swollen red eyes, heavy with sleep, and returned with my pills. I popped the fast-acting fuckers, and it left me dizzy, not completely out of the woods.

"I'm sorry," I managed when the windstorm of thoughts slowed. "I'll do better." My eyelids fluttered shut, and before I succumbed to the hypnotic slumber, I heard him let out a breath like weight dropping off him.

Ethan

How did some people kill and go on about their lives as if nothing happened? There hadn't been a single day of rest since. Not an ounce of happiness. To be fair, if it wasn't for Ryan, I would have found a way to cope. Done my best to feel anything else, and if I was lucky, felt nothing at all. I'd have found a way to focus on this fucked up excuse that I was somehow doing this because of Lily and convinced myself that I'd done the right thing. But no, not with Ryan.

How could he have been so fucking stupid? He wanted to get caught; that was the only explanation as to why he wouldn't do everything in his fucking power to avoid the police. The worst part was I didn't blame him. That was why he pissed me off so much. He embodied the humanity that I wouldn't allow myself to face otherwise. That we were all trying to snuff out.

He was so intent on reliving what we were fighting to forget every fucking day. Speak about it. Eat it, sleep it, breathe it. Like fuck! Please. Just try to be strong enough for all of us. He made me question the kind of person I was. Brought up this broken mirror that distorted my reflection when I looked back at it.

And it wasn't that he was weak. He was braver than I was, because I couldn't allow myself to go there, not completely, to examine the memory in full detail. I couldn't bear the burden he was carrying on his back. I hated seeing him like that, and I hated him even more for not fighting it like we all were. For not hiding it.

Then, there was the threat, hanging over our heads. I was so tired. Tired enough to admit, in the quiet of my mind, that I missed my life before all of this. A tiny part of me wished I'd avoided the trip to Durham. I hated thinking that way, but it was true. No, I wasn't blaming what happened on meeting Lily.

It was just that I wouldn't have done what I did for anyone else. Not even my best friends.

Or maybe I would have. That darkness had always been inside me.

My head was a fucking mess.

Ugh, I took it back. I didn't wish that I'd avoided the trip. In fact, I also wished that I could return to the days of pure bliss with her. The days before the kidnapping. Those were the happiest days of my life. Now, I couldn't enjoy those memories. They were soiled by what happened. And I almost regretted ever knowing that happiness and therefore fighting tooth and nail to get it back.

What was I saying?

Desperate, I groaned, rattling my brain for answers. Answers for how I got here and if there was a way out. I wished I could close my eyes and re-open them to find myself safe, free, and happy again. I wasn't my happiest without her, and I was obsessed with money, but I was happy enough. Now my priorities were caught up in someone else, loving someone enough to do anything for them. That should have made me a better person. But it hadn't.

I had never been this lost. I was scared shitless. More scared than the little boy I used to be, watching some dangerous drug dealer enter our house, demand money or sex from my mother and beat her until I wasn't sure if she'd wake up. At least, then, I was brave enough to fight back as I got older. But what could I do against the mob, the police? All the money in the world didn't protect me, because I wasn't sure who I could trust or whether I wanted to keep going down this path of becoming someone I couldn't look at in the mirror.

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