Break Me (Brayshaw High) - Meagan Brandy Page 0,124
nothing to do with the ache on the back of my head or the burn along my temple, the sting in my chest, but everything to do with my stolen sight.
This is the longest it’s stayed black.
It’s normally only short periods of time, fifteen or forty-five seconds, enough time for me to panic even more, make it worse and then force myself into a calmer state.
It always works.
Why isn’t it working?!
“Why isn’t what working?”
I freeze.
“My... I...” I close my lids one last, long minute, leaving them that way for five full breaths, and when I reopen them, the room comes back into view. It’s nothing but a shadowed silhouette, but I can see.
I see Royce helplessly slumped against the wall, Maddoc holding him up as his body hangs limp in his arms. His head is dropped back against the wall, lips parted, and brows drawn in.
With a black cloud surrounding him, he forces his gaze to mine and holds.
A shuddered breath pushes past his lips, his eyes squeezing tight.
And then he walks away.
Somehow, with nothing but a world of gloom and gray in front of me, his departure colors it spades darker.
My limbs grow too heavy to hold, a sudden wave of exhaustion overcoming me.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I gasp, my head spinning, my body breaking out into a full sweat.
The voices around me grow muffled, and my eyes close.
“She’s passing out again,” is shouted.
Darkness wins.
Chapter 32
Royce
I don’t remember leaving the school, but suddenly I’m standing in the middle of a hospital room, and everything inside me is deep and dark and fucking tragic.
I try to wash out the realization of the moment, but it’s creeping in, taunting me, mocking the parts of me that believed I could ever do right and reconfirming I’m nothing but a reckless fuck up who will forever remain one.
No matter how bad I wish I could be, the more Brielle claims she sees.
Fact is, I’m not more. I need to stop trying to be and embrace who I am.
I’m a dick, I ruin.
I break.
My goal for today, above all, was to keep Brielle safe. That was number one, and it went out the window the second I smashed through it.
I couldn’t control myself, and to be honest, I didn’t even try.
I wanted to fuck the man up as much as possible. He deserved a beating and more.
A good man would have wanted to protect his girl from seeing that.
Decent one would have at least cared.
I did neither and look where it led.
I went in there to protect my girl from harm, and I’m the motherfucker who ended up hurting her.
I hit her.
Square across the temple when I wound my hand back, and my fucking god... she fell.
Brielle went straight down onto her back, went unconscious, and all I did was stand there and fucking die inside.
I didn’t drop beside her, cry for her, help her.
I was frozen, unmoving.
What’s that say about me?
My head lifts on its own, meeting the eyes of a monster’s in the mirror on the wall, and the person staring back can’t face himself.
He’s weak, suffocating, red-painted palm prints smeared along his neck, and matching the shade stained across his hands and arms and clothes.
My clothes.
I wish it were mine, pooled at my feet and allowing me to drown in it, because I sure as fuck don’t deserve to stand here right now.
So, I walk away, into the hall where my family stands with wide, worried eyes, but I don’t pause beside them, and they don’t dare to try to stop me.
But she does.
My name is whispered from behind, and it’s a song that sears my soul.
It’s the softest, gentlest voice, the calm I don’t possess but desperately need, crave, and want.
I feel it tugging at my insides, allowing the smallest bit of air into my throat, reviving my lungs.
Breathing life into a fuckin’ zombie.
My mind refuses, but my body spins, facing the way I’ve just come from.
My chest caves in, hollows out.
Tears the fuck open.
My girl, my baby, fuck. She stands in the doorway, leaning on it for support because I’m offering her none.
She reaches for me... but I don’t reach back.
I turn and give her mine.
Hours must pass, because the next thing my eyes are peeling open and it’s nightfall. I know I’m sitting on the fucking ground, fisting the neck of the bottle, so fuck it, I tip the bitch to my lips, but nothing comes out. I glare at the gold-flecked thing.