Page 8 of Make Me Bleed
“Peris, what the fuck? Are you… suicidal?”
“No,” I scoff and drag my hand through my hair, pushing it out of my face. I turn my back on him and scour the floor for my underwear. I can’t find them, so I yank open the dresser and pull on a pair of shorts so at least I’m not having this conversation naked.
“Then what the hell did you mean? I know you said last year… but I didn’t think it was that serious…” He seems to be talking more to himself than me, so I let him, dropping down on my bed again, back to the wall because I need that coolness as I grab the pack of smokes from my nightstand and light one, inhaling the nicotine deeply. I catch Gabe’s narrowed gaze, but I couldn’t care less.
Gabriel paces back and forth across my floor, fingers twisted in front of him, curls bouncing with every heavy step on the carpet. I watch him in silence, cigarette hanging between mylips, smoke curling up and stinging my eyes. The burn makes my stomach hurt, but it’s a necessary kind of pain.
When my smoke is nearly half gone, he finally speaks again, voice softer than I’ve ever heard it. It immediately puts every hair of mine on end. He stands right in front of me and takes the cigarette out of my mouth to put it between his own lips—something I haveneverseen him do.
“Do you want to die, Peris?” he asks, dark brown eyes peering deeply into mine, searching for something I hope I don’t give him.
But what else is there? More lies?
What even is the truth?
I stare back, unsure of what I’m going to say until the words spill from my lips.
“No,” I tell him truthfully, feeling the weight of it settle on my chest like the shards of glass still resting in my throat. “But I don’t think I want to live, either.”
“Oh, Peris…” he says, so softly, and as he reaches for me, I panic. His arms extend, face soft and open and it’sGabe.My best friend. The only one who’s never left—aside from Ma—but Ican’t.
I jerk away from him with a hiss, jaw locked tight. “Don’t.”
“Peris…” And it’s the way he says my name that pisses me off. Like I’ve done something wrong. Something to be ashamed of.
“Get the fuck out.”
His eyes widen, nearly bulging out of his skull in shock at my venom. “What?”
“I said,” I drawl, feeling a new wave of heat come over me. It flushes through my limbs, where it settles in the very tips of my fingers, tingling and pulsing. “Get. The fuck. Out,” I hiss. “Before I kill you.” I push into his space, putting us nose to nose.
Gabe’s nostrils flare as he pulls in a deep breath. “You don’t mean that.” He’s hurt. I’ve hurt him.
And I don’t care.
“You wanna fucking bet?” Just as I reach up to clock him, he jerks back, putting a good foot between us before I can make contact with his jaw. He stares at me in shock, but there’s something resigned in his eyes. Something sad and desperate and a bit hollow.
Welcome to the club, buddy.
“You can’t push me away, Peris. I’m not going anywhere,” he says as he walks away from me, his words a contradiction to his actions. But even as I’m filled with a tingling heat that’s itching to be released, a part of me—the rational, intuitive part of me that’s buried down deep—believes him. I just can’t let it in. Because if I do that, I’ll have to let itallback in, and that’s sure as shit not going to happen.
I’ll lose my mind if I let him in again.
No.
He needs to stay out, and this is the only way I can make it happen.
“You fucking reek.”
“Good thing I didn’t ask you,” I snap back as I stumble to class, still slightly hungover. I’m sweating tequila from my pores, and I know I stink, but I didn’t have time to shower. I barely woke in time to get here.
My phone buzzing in my pocket pulls me away from Gabriel’s stare, the prick, and I pull it out of my pocket, but I freeze when I see the name illuminating the screen. It could be one of two people…
Gabriel leans over my shoulder—the nosey fuck—and asks snidely, “You gonna answer that?”
“No,” I mutter and shove it back in my pocket, hating every single vibration against my leg as I continue on to English something or whatever the fuck it is. But my heart rate has slowed somewhat knowing it’s nothim.
“When was the last time you talked to her?”
