Page 97 of Severance

“Do you wanna know what I feel?” he continues.

I hold my breath; my heart’s stuck in my throat.

“Do you want to know what it’s like to always be second best, Alana?” His warm mouth lingers at my ear. “Do you remember that night you baked cupcakes in our apartment and I came home early?”

Panic crawls under my skin and into every single bone of my body. I close my eyes and press my cheek against the door in an attempt to hold in the scream that’s forming in my lungs.

“I heard you that night.” His whisper slides down my neck and strokes my shoulder. “I heard you with him and I wanted it to be me instead. For once, I wanted to be first because I was tired of him getting all the firsts. I wished he’d never been born, and now that he’s dead, I wish it was me.”

My heart drops to my stomach, all my emotions running rampant.

“I wishIwas dead instead of him. For you.” Mikah’s fingers move into my hair and his mouth touches my cheek. “I would die for you…if that would make you happy again.” His body draws tense.

Silent tears roll down my face as I swallow past the rock in my throat. His words are like knives, slicing right through my heart.

“Is that what you wanted to hear?” Mikah’s lips feather across my skin.

That is absolutelynotwhat I wanted to hear.

His heart drums inside his chest and feeling its low, hard thumps against my back is terrifying. It reminds me of us on the floor at The Crystal Room.

“Is that what you wanted to hear?” Mikah repeats quietly.

I spin around to face him, my chest aching from the assault of emotions. “You’re sick,” I say, unsure if that’s what I really mean, but I don’t know what else to call him. I don’t know what else to call someone who wishes his own brother would have never been born. He tossed that idea into the universe and now Dakota’s dead. “I hate you.”

“Do you think I don’t hate myself?” Mikah’s gaze locks on mine. The line on his forehead deepens. “Do you think I don’t hate myself for wanting him gone? Do you think I don’t hate myself for wanting his girlfriend?”

Heat hits my cheeks. I’ve been waiting for him to admit his feelings for me for what seems like an eternity, but this isn’t how I imagined it. The urge to inflict some sort of pain on him for doing the same to me pushes me over the edge, and I slap him across the face.

Mikah doesn’t react. “You think I don’t want him back? He’s my fucking blood.” His voice grows loud. “No one wanted me. Ever. I was supposed to be dead. Not him.”

My mind is in overdrive. Mikah’s confession is suffocating me and I can’t look at him right now. I have to turn everything over in my head once it has cleared.

“I need to leave,” I force the words out and jerk the door handle. “I need to leave…”

He moves out of the way and I slip onto the staircase without looking at him or saying another word. The misty cool air stings my lungs, and my cheeks burn as my feet carry me to my car. I reach for my face, anticipating to feel glass and blood, but it’s just rain and tears, and then I realize I’m not at The Crystal Room anymore and there’s no one here with me.

* * *

It’s almost four in the morning when I pull into the Tillers’ driveway. My knuckles ache from clutching the steering wheel for so long and my breathing is out of control. The trees surrounding the house are trembling under the onslaught of the pouring rain, and the street looks a lot like a scene from one of those eighties slasher movies Dakota used to make me watch. I never understood why exactly he liked them, but I used any opportunity to cuddle with him. Being in his arms felt nice.So did being in Mikah’s.

I shut off the engine and sink back into my seat to analyze every single minute I’ve spent with Mikah. I don’t want to believe he truly wished Dakota gone. We say things we don’t mean in the heat of the moment. Just like I told him I hated him earlier, but I don’t. I don’t, because his torment is a part of me. What I actually want is to make him feel better. To make him stop hurting.

I scrutinize every word and every touch, looking for signs I should have noticed before, but there aren’t any. The fact that my need for him hasn’t faltered scares me.

I scramble for my phone to dial Jess. I only noticed her pissed-off messages hours after I ran off from Mikah’s place.

The line rings a few times and goes to her voicemail.

Closing my eyes, I try to breathe through another wave of panic.

A tiny fraction of me still questions Mikah’s words, but the rest of me wants to erase tonight and get a do-over. A do-over where I’m not a high, raging bitch and where we’re not saying the things we don’t mean. Too bad real life doesn’t work that way. There’s no rewind option upon request.

The phone in my hand buzzes and I realize the call is from Jess. A strange feeling of relief floods me.

“Do you know what time it is?” she asks in a gravelly voice.

“Late.”

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