a groan, letting his head fall back into the pillows. His eyes are closed, but his teeth are clenched. It's pretty obvious he doesn't like feeling so helpless, but he just needs to give his body time. He'll be back to being an asshole before the week is out. “You need to sit down. I'll … bring you tacos.” I start to turn away, but he curls his fingers around mine and squeezes them tight.
He may as well have wrapped that inked grip around my heart.
“Bernie,” he pleads, and the depth of emotion in his voice makes my heart stutter. I close my eyes against a surge of my own feelings; I'm just not ready to face them all yet. “Please, sit down.”
“The tortillas will get cold,” I argue, even though my hunger pangs have disappeared completely. How can I eat after what Victor just told me? He made me sign my life away in blood, but … he also just told me the other boys didn't want that for me. I'm so confused. What does Oscar care about me? Likely, he just wanted me gone, but Aaron … I look back at him, and our gazes lock. “I can't go to my grandmother's house, not now, not ever,” I tell him for the second time, just to make sure he’s really getting it. I got no response last time, none at all. “You understand that, don’t you?”
“I do,” Aaron chokes out, closing his eyes. He lets go of me, but I don't leave. I can't imagine being anywhere but here right now. This is where I'm meant to stand. “I know that, but I worry about you.”
“Really?” I ask, cocking a brow in a way that makes me think of Vic. I scowl, but Aaron's eyes are still closed, so at least he can't see me. “Could've fooled me. How do you show that worry, Aaron? By watching as your friends drag me off, by letting them lock me in a closet?”
“Bernadette,” he starts, dropping his chin to his chest. He drags both tattooed hands over his face. “There was no winning for me, you know that, right?” He drops his hands to his lap and looks back up at me, anger darkening his face. “I had two choices: lose my sisters and be a piece of shit not worthy of you … or I had to give you up so you could have a better life.”
A sick sad feeling shoots through me, taking over my body, infecting my bloodstream. I don't want to feel this way right now, drowning in empathy. I'm pissed. I have a right to be pissed.
“That's what I thought I was doing,” Aaron continues, leaning back and putting his left arm on the edge of the couch. The way he tilts his head and frowns at me, he's got the cocky asshole thing down pat. From here, it looks an awful lot like a defense mechanism. “I thought I was setting you free, Bernie. You don't need to be stuck in Springfield with a bunch of kids and a whole lot of baggage.”
“It's a little late for that now, isn't it?” I snap back, turning fully around to face him. “So maybe you stop with the bullshit and man up. I'm not going anywhere now; my fate is sealed in blood.”
“It doesn't have to be,” Aaron says, breathing hard, like maybe this is too much exertion for him. My eyes slide down his chest and stomach, admiring the deep grooves of his muscles. He's bulked up a lot. When we were in freshman year, he was just a skinny little thing. Skinny little thing with a big cock, but still. I frown. “We can talk to Vic; we can talk to Oscar. After graduation, you can walk away from all of this.”
I just stare at him.
“You castrated a boy because I asked you to. Callum killed a boy because he had to. All of that blood, it's on my hands, Aaron. There's nowhere else for me, so stop looking for a distant locale to drop me in, some fairy-tale of a life you wished I lived. Vic is right: I'm a nightmare. I exist in the night; my only light is the moon and the stars.”
“Stop that shit,” he snaps at me, acting like he's going to get up again. I move forward and push him back with a hand on his chest, shoving him back into the cushions. And then, for some reason