Page 87 of A Wish for Us

Mrs. Farraday grabbed my arms. Her eyes were huge and rimmed with red. “Cromwell, where is he?”

I swallowed and looked toward the closed doors. “They took him through there.” I followed her gaze as it fell to the blood on my hands.

“He slit his wrists,” I said, my voice coming out whether I wanted it to or not. “I found him in our room. He sliced them open with a knife.”

A choked sound came from behind Mrs. Farraday. When I lifted my head, Mr. Farraday was there…and in a wheelchair in front of him, oxygen mask on her face and IV in her arm, was Bonnie. My heart pounded in my chest, the numbness falling away as I laid eyes on her face. Tears dropped in freefall down her cheeks, and her brown eyes were wide, looking almost too big for her face. Her frail hands shook as they lay in her lap.

“Bonnie.” I stepped closer to her. With every step, more tears fell from Bonnie’s eyes. I stopped and looked down at myself. At the blood. Her twin’s blood. “Bonnie,” I whispered. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.

“Are the parents of Easton Farraday here?” a voice asked from behind us.

The Farradays rushed to the doctor. He led them through the doors I wasn’t able to go through. I watched the door close, keeping me out. And then I heard them. The sounds of doors closing, bringing orange to my mind. The sounds of pencils being scratched on paper. The dings of the speakers. The sniffles of crying friends and family members in the waiting room.

I started pacing, trying to push them from my mind. And the numbness that had begun to fall away when I saw Bonnie shed tears to the floor instrips of scarlet red. I sat down, hands on my head, as the rush of emotions I knew I’d feel came barreling at me like a freight train.

The sight of Easton on the floor, covered in blood, smashed into my head. I could smell his blood, the tinny scent of metal bursting on my tongue. Pain split into shards in my chest, the spiked fragments blistering my skin. Easton’s eyes. The blood pooled on the floor. The black paint. Easton’s eyes. Mrs. Farraday’s voice…then…

“Bonnie,” I whispered, the memory of her face as she looked at me, as she cowered away from me, was a hammer to my ribs.

I fidgeted on the seat, not knowing where to go or what to do. I didn’t know how much time had passed when someone sat beside me. I glanced over, raking my hands through my hair. Mr. Farraday was sitting next to me.

I froze, waiting for what he would say. Then his hand came down on my shoulder. “You saved my son’s life.” Relief like nothing I’d ever felt surged through me. But it only heightened the already elevated emotions. I needed to leave. I needed…needed…I needed music. I needed to get these emotions out of me in the only way I knew how. “You saved him, son,” Mr. Farraday repeated.

I choked on the lump in my throat. I nodded and looked at Mr. Farraday. He looked destroyed. He had two kids. One was dying of heart failure. The other had just tried to take his own life.

I couldn’t take being here. My heart felt like it was trying to rip from behind my ribs. My skin felt itchy. I needed to leave, but…

“Bonnie will be a while yet.” Behind the pain, there was a look of understanding in Mr. Farraday’s eyes.

“I can’t leave her,” I said softly. Because even though I felt like I was coming out of my skin, I wanted to see her. To be sure she didn’t blame me somehow. I wanted to hold her hand. It was always cold now. It only ever warmed when I held it.

“Go and get changed. Freshen up. She’ll see you soon enough.”

I wanted to burst through the doors that led me to her. I wanted to screw what anyone said and run to Bonnie. Make sure she was okay after her twin tried to kill himself, as all the while she was fighting to stay alive. How the hell did she wrap her head around that?

“Please, Cromwell,” Mr. Farraday said. I glanced at him. He was broken. My father’s face flashed through my mind. Of how he looked the last night I ever saw him. When I lashed him with my words and ripped apart his soul.

I jumped from the chair and ran out of the door. I drove to the nearest liquor store and bought my old friend, Jack Daniels. I hadn’t drunk it in weeks.

I didn’t give a shit about the look the cashier gave me as I slammed my fake ID and cash on the counter, covered in blood.

I ripped through Main Street, fighting the emotions that were threatening to consume me. My head pounded, and pressure built behind my eyes. I blasted a mix that beat in time with my heart. Loud bass notes ricocheted around the cabin of the truck. They usually helped me block it all out. All of the fucked-up thoughts of Easton that were rushing in my head. But it didn’t help. It didn’t drown out the emotions, the feelings that were building in me so strongly that I needed to squash them with alcohol.

I slammed my truck into park. I ignored the stares and the whispers of the students as I stormed up the path to the music room, Jack in hand. I ripped the cap off and took a long, sweet swig, waiting for the burn to take the emotions away. To numb them until I could breathe.

I shouldered the door to the building and staggered down the corridor until I entered the music room I usually used. I stood still as the instruments looked back at me. Mocking me. Crying out for me to use them. But anger took hold. Anger and frustration. I was just so damn sick and tired of it all. I took another swig of Jack then flew at the drum kit, knocking the whole thing over with one furious kick.

But it didn’t help. A cymbal crashed to the floor, but the emotions were still there, bright and vivid in my head. The neon colors almost blinding, the metallic taste of the pain, of the suffering, the helplessness, leaving the taste of burning acid on my tongue.

I shot out of the door and found myself at Lewis’s office. I didn’t think; everything in me was just too consuming to think. I pounded on the door, hot tears seeping from the corners of my eyes, scalding my skin. I slammed my fist on the heavy wood, the thuds building in both volume and tempo. Throbbing yellows filled my head. My breath echoed in my ears—olive green. My heart pounded in my chest—tan brown.

I hit the door harder, every sound, every emotion, every taste an assault on the senses. No, not an assault; a damn near air strike, obliterating everything in its path.

The door flew open and I fell into the room. Lewis was suddenly before me, eyes wide and staring at me in horror. “Christ, Cromwell! What happened?” I pushed him off and started to pace the room. I downed some more Jack, half the bottle gone. But this time the emotions were too strong for me to fend off.

I threw the bottle against the wall, hearing the glass smash and shatter. Tarnished gold spots sailed through my mind. I gripped my hair, pulling at the strands. I hit at my head until Lewis pulled my wrists away. He held them tight and made me look into his eyes.

“Cromwell.” His voice was harsh and strict. “Calm down.”

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