Page 89 of Breaking You Open

“You’re not scared of me?”

“I was never scared of you,” I begin, but when Louis gives me a pointed look, I admit, “Okay, maybe a little.”

“How about now?” In one swift motion, Louis grabs hold of me, lifts me into his lap, and kisses me hard, hands tight around my waist.

I let out a gasped whine, more of a sob, and Louis stops kissing me abruptly.

“What’s wrong? Are you hurting?”

“No. I’m just…happy.” A giggle bursts up my throat, and I say it; it just slips out of me. “I love you.” Our foreheads touch, and Louis sighs deeply into my mouth.

“I love you too. Fuck, I love you too.”

Tears spring to my eyes, and I think this, this is how it’s supposed to be: my tongue in my lover’s mouth, his strong hands wrapped tightly around my waist, and all the truths between us laid bare and raw at our feet.

At least that’s until my phone starts ringing. At first, we ignore it and keep making out, but then it rings again, buzzing so incessantly that it takes me completely out of the moment.

I bend over the coffee table and look at the screen. It’s Lilith.

She rarely calls me, and certainly not twice. Something must have happened.

I answer. “Yes?”

“Sparrow?” Lilith says in a raspy voice at the other end of the line. “Are you there?”

I crawl out of Louis’s lap to sit beside him. “I’m here.”

“I…I didn’t know who to call.” Her voice sounds thin and uncertain and wholly unlike herself.

“What’s wrong?”

She swallows thickly.

“Lilith?”

“Can you come here, please?” she asks. “I’m at the dorm.” And with that, she hangs up.

“What was that about?” Louis asks.

I stare at the screen in confusion for a moment. “Lilith. She…I think she needs my help.”

Louis grunts wordlessly. I’m sure he’ll tell me to ignore her; he doesn’t like her very much, after all, and altruism has never been a dominant feature of his, except when it comes to me. But then he nods in determination and rises from the couch.

“I’ll drive you.”

He drops me off by the entrance to the dorms. “Come home when you’re ready. I’ll be there.”

I unmount the bike and lean in to kiss his cheek. “Okay.”

I find Lilith on the bed in our dorm room. Her pallid complexion is covered in a sheen of cold sweat, and she looks miserable, with dark circles under her eyes and a pained expression on her face.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Are you ill?”

“What do you think?” she snaps, shivering and shaking under the covers. “I’m in fucking withdrawal.”

“Oh.”

I knew she was doing drugs, but I didn’t know to what extent. I guess this explains the times she looked sick and unlike herself. I would ask her why she takes that stuff in the first place, but the truth is I already know. I can’t judge her for wanting to feel good; I’ve gone to quite extreme measures myself for the same result.

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