Page 64 of Fractured

I hiccupped, and the salt from my tears flooded my mouth.

This was unfair.

To me. To Drake.

I wanted to be normal. To be a good person. But today wasn’t the day.

So with a fragile mind and a fractured heart, I let Atticus and Ambrose lead me out of the hospital, avoiding the troubled stares and disturbing whispers, and take me home.

Bitterness flooded me with every step.

Fifteen

Call me fucking sunshine. - September 25th

“Come out with me tonight,”Harper begged on the other end of the line.

“I can’t, Harp. I told you that.” Even I sounded drained to my own ears. In the past, I might have tried to hide it or not answered her calls at all, but I had wanted to hear her voice. The guys were amazing, and I firmly believed I’d been able to get out of bed because they were here, otherwise I would have wasted away feeling sorry for myself.

I did feel raw. Mostly due to the uncertainty that I couldn’t seem to shake. If there was one thing that always got me through rough times, it was the things I knew and could count on.

The studio was my haven.

My routines, the foundation.

Music, my sanity.

Over the last two weeks, I’d lost everything that helped me cope with life. I’d gained four relationships that meant the world to me, and in some ways, had replaced the constants. In some ways, they were even better than what I had with the unemotional things in my life.

But once again, deep in my self-pity, I started to doubt them. There were no signs that they would leave me, but how could they not when I was barely a shell of a person?

“Because you want to lay on the couch and do what? Stare at the ceiling and pick your nose? No, I’m sorry, but you sound like you need a night out. This is me, being your best friend, telling you that tonight, you better get the hell up and get dressed. In something sexy. I’m taking you out.”

“No.” I twisted my coffee mug on the table, the ceramic hot against my hands. The pattern of creamer on top stayed the same, even as the mug rotated around it.

“What happened? The other day you seemed in a good place. We had a great time. Now you sound like you did when I first met you.” She was concerned, and with good reason, but what could I do about it? I wasn’t going out.

“Just, stuff.”

“With Lauren?” she asked slowly, like she was afraid she’d be right.

“No,” I said with a huff, then went ahead and told her. She already knew about Drake anyway, and this might cement the idea that meeting with him was a bad idea. “I tried to go see Drake, and had a complete and total meltdown. So I came back home. That was Wednesday, and I still feel like a bag of steaming shit. I was trying to do a good thing, be a good person, and I couldn’t do it.”

Shoving my chair away from the kitchen table, I curled my lip in disgust.

“Oh, Lilith,” she said sadly.

“I know, it’s fucking ridiculous. Now we know a group session with you moderating won’t work, because I can barely get within ten feet of the man.”

“Okay, let me think about this, okay? Because if this is really what caused a setback, it needs to be addressed. I’ll do some brainstorming, and we can discuss the options,” Harper said succinctly.

No, this was not okay. I never wanted to be in the same room as Drake. A new emotion surfaced, and I examined it. Great, now I was embarrassed. The man hadn’t even seen me at the hospital, and I was still too embarrassed to see him.

He had other more important things on his mind than worrying about any feelings of mine.

“I don’t know, Harper.”

“I have some free time at lunch. Why don’t I bring lunch over? We don’t even have to address what happened, just hang out. Company is good for you.”

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