Page 138 of The Truths We Burn

And Rook is the trickiest of them all.

A puzzle that only gets more confusing with added pieces.

But even still, I want to unravel him. To probe and decipher every part of him, searching for answers to his mystery every day, because that’s what he deserves.

Someone who would never give up the search in finding him.

With gentle movements, he wraps the gauze around my foot a few times, tying the ends together at the top when he is finished.

“It was a punishment,” he says, still fighting me before he returns the first aid kit back to where he grabbed it earlier. He comes back into the kitchen to lean against the counter across from me, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Why would Thatch need to punish you? What did you do to him?”

“Besides annoying the shit out of him? Nothing.” He tilts his head to the left, cracking his neck violently. “I wanted to punish myself. I wanted him to cut me. I could’ve done it on my own, but that felt selfish. So I let him do it.”

A cold chill racks my bones, and goosebumps scatter across my skin.

“For what?”

He looks me dead in the eyes, and even in the dark, they are still so fucking luminous.

“You.”

The emptiness in my chest throbs. I didn’t think it was possible for anything else inside of me to break, but something did. It shattered.

“I asked him to cut me because I needed to be punished for trusting you. For allowing myself to be weak.”

“Rook, I don’t understand,” I mutter.

“If my father taught me anything, it’s that we all have sins we have to answer for. Repercussion for our actions. I’d rather be in control of the punishment that happens to me for the things I’ve done.”

There are just some things that don’t deserve forgiveness, Sage.

All this time, he’d been hurting himself for what? Because he trusted me? Because of the things he’d done?

“That’s why you let him beat you?”

“I like the pain. I live for it.” He shrugs, and his admission slices me raw.He’s been going his entire life hurting himself just to pay for mistakes that he himself didn’t even make. He’s so damaged, so broken, that the pain was the only release he had.

“I don’t believe that. That can’t be the reason—”

“Because I killed my mother.” His nostrils flare. “Is that what you want me to tell you? Do you want that ugly, bitter fucking truth, Sage? I killed my mom.”

He releases a sober breath, raking his fingers through his hair. “We were on the way home from school. She was on the phone with my dad talking about picking up Thai food for dinner. It was such a normal day, I never thought something bad could happen on a day like that.” He shakes his head. “It’s not supposed to happen. Not to people like her.”

I sit there, frozen, absorbing every single word, feeling every single bit of his past inside my bones.

“I was being an asshole, kicking the back of her seat. And she turned around to scold me for it.” His gruff voice cracks a little. “There was no way for her to have seen the car in front of us hit their brakes. There wasn’t enough time to slow down. Everything was fuzzy because my head was hurting, but I remember someone had pulled me out of my car seat, carrying me to safety just before the entire vehicle went up in flames. It was consumed in an orange blaze and smoke, so much that I couldn’t even see her inside. I’d thought she’d made it out. That someone had saved her.”

That’s what he’s been carrying around on his shoulders most of his life. The sin he thought he’d committed. That is the root of all his pain, blaming himself for his mother’s death.

“I did that.” He pokes himself in the chest. “I took my mother’s life, and I deserve to pay for that. So yeah, I let him beat me. But it’s a small price to pay when I’m the reason he lost the love of his life.”

I slide off the counter, walking towards him, not caring that he doesn’t like me right now. Not caring about anything that happened before this moment right here.

When I was inside Monarch’s facility, there was a young girl in one of my groups. She’d struggled with depression and severe self-harm, using her thighs and wrists to deal with the problems she had within herself.

It’s a nasty battle to fight, especially when you’re alone.

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