Page 141 of My Lovely Tragedy
“You don’t have to talk to us about it,” Dexter says softly. “But we do know thereis something.And we just want to make sure you’re okay.” I part my lips to tell himI fucking am,but he continues, “We know you’re fine, B. But you’re also not.”
“If you just wanna forget about it, that’s okay, too,” Cobain adds.
“Can’t really forget about it,” I say—mostly to myself—as I pick at a loose thread. “But I don’t want to talk about it. Not yet.” I dig the pad of my finger into the sharp corner of the notebook cover. “And maybe not ever.”
It’s quiet for a while as they all process. Or something. I don’t know. I can’t really think too much about other people’s thoughts—not when my own are so much. Never-ending and piercing and throbbing.
A lonely silence that echoes its own screams.
“Do we need to have the cops come back?”
“What?” I ask, startled. My heart lurches. “Why?”
“I don’t know; you tell me. You told them pretty much what you told the press, but we all know it’s a lie.”
“Yeah.” What’s the point in lying aboutthat?
“But clearly, you weren’t on your own.” I frown, growing uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation.Fuck, I wish they’d just leave it alone. I can’t keep all these lies straight.
“No, I wasn’t, okay?” I snap, whipping my head toward Benji. Paper digs under my nailbeds. I grit my teeth and curl my fingers. “But I’m not saying anything else about it. I fuckingcan’t.And not because I’m traumatized or some other shit. I just need tothink.And not have a hundred people breathing down my neck.”
“Why’d he let you go then? That Tobias guy you told me about.”
The sound of paper ripping echoes in my skull. “Who said he let me go? Who says I wasn’t with him because I wanted to be?” I bellow, slamming my hands down. I ignore their flinches. “You’re just trying to fit shit together to make sense of something that hasnothing to fucking do with you!” I scream breathlessly. My voice cuts out, leaving me panting. The room spins precariously.
At the first graze of touch, I flinch away, but they persist, and after a few moments, I recognize the foreign connection. It flickers from somewhere in the back of my mind. Their arms wrap around me from all angles. My waist, my shoulders, around the nape of my neck. They’re too close, too much. In my air and my sight, muddling everything.
I push against them, but it’s feeble and pathetic. A sob catches in the back of my throat, but only a trace of the noise escapes, coming out strangled and wet. A faint whisper echoes in the wave of damp breath, followed by a slow drip of wetness. I jerk away from the sensation, but it only brings them closer.
“P-please stop,” I croak, sinking my teeth into my lip, shredding through the thin skin until more copper bursts forth and bleeds onto my tongue. But it’s not enough. I shove my arms away, kick my legs out. I vaguely register my notebook sliding off my lap, and my heart pricks with the anxiety of losing it, but they’retouching me,and it’s so much and too hot and?—
“We’re with you, B.”
“We’re always right here.”
“Fuck,” I choke out, dropping my head and sinking into wherever it lands. Fingers clamp, holding me steady. Rubbing and digging deep into my muscles. And it hurts so fucking bad, but they don’t stop, and I can’t ask them to.
But I have to. “Please,” I try again, face burning with shame as another sob bubbles up, wracking my shoulders. My chest concaves. “Leave me alone.God, just leave me alone!” My scream shatters this time, bouncing off the walls and back. I feel my pain in reflection, secondary and somehow even stronger as it fights its way back into me, right where it belongs. Burrowing and clinging onto the raw, gaping hole in my soul.
“You don’t have to be alone anymore. We’re here for you.” I think that’s Cobain, but all their voices sound like the faint, feigned echoes inside a seashell.
“Now,” I rasp with a harsh sniff, struggling to keep everything inside of me, but it just keeps fuckingleaking out.
Because it knows where it wants to go—and not insideyou.
“You’re here for menow.But I haven’t been alone.”
CHAPTERTHIRTY-FIVE
BROOKLYN
Despite me screaminguntil my vocal cords shredded themselves, I’m still cocooned. And so fucking hot, my blood is boiling, and my skin is itching with the compressed layers of perspiration.
But even still, they hold on to me, keeping me pieced together through their touch alone. And even if I can’t feel it now, I’m grateful for it. The overwhelming existence of love.
It’s… more than I deserve—or even want. But they don’t seem to care.
“How you doin’?”
