Play On - Michelle Smith Page 0,66
those green eyes. “I’m okay now.”
She seems to love that word, but I despise it. We must have really different definitions. Instead of saying that, though, I ask, “What happened?”
She shrugs. “My head’s still a little fuzzy. My psychiatrist was on-call, so he met me there. My psychologist rushed over yesterday. I was monitored every minute at the hospital, like I was some rabid animal. The only reason they let me leave this morning was because Dad pulled some power card.”
That’s not what I meant. Something boils inside me. As much as it hurts to do so, I back out of her hold with a shake of my head. I turn so I don’t have to keep looking at the confusion on her face, only to be met with an open suitcase on her bed.
“Y’all are really leaving?” I ask, clenching my hands into fists. After everything that happened this weekend, they’re still shooting off to another state. Un-freakin-believable.
“Yeah,” she drawls. “For two weeks. My grandparents would never forgive us if we bailed. I’ll be back a few days before Jay’s brother’s wedding. I promised your mom I’d help make the billions of arrangements.” She grabs my hand, tugging on it gently until I turn back to her. She narrows her eyes. “Austin? What’s wrong?”
My words build, but I don’t know how to get them out without spitting them at her, and that’s not really an option. I take a deep breath, and another, and then another before saying, “What I meant is, what happened to you? On Friday. What caused that—that—”
She tilts her head to the side. “Oh, my God.” She gapes at me and takes a step back. “Are you mad?”
My mouth opens, and closes because I don’t have the slightest clue how to form my whirlwind of thoughts into coherent words. I’m not mad. I don’t think I could ever be mad at her. But it’s not sadness. It’s not bitterness.
“I don’t get it,” I finally tell her. “You were fine a few days ago. You were smiling, laughing, and kiddin’ around with me. You kissed me. You hugged me. You told me that you were okay then. So how can I believe you now?”
She sighs, moving past me toward the bed. I watch as she folds a shirt, a pair of pants, then another shirt, and places them all in the suitcase, like this is all just another day. Like she didn’t have a damn razorblade sitting on her nightstand less than forty-eight hours ago.
“There’s something you have to understand about depression,” she says. “Things can be going great, and for me, they were awesome. You helped make them awesome.”
She smiles. Even though I know it’s supposed to make me feel better, I can’t return it.
“Depression’s like a thief,” she continues, closing the suitcase and zipping it up. “It weasels its way into your body. Sometimes it’s slow, and sometimes it just barges in like it owns the place. It robs you. Before you know what’s happened, coal is in the place of your heart. Your soul? Empty. Nothing and no one can bring you out of it. No one but you—and sometimes that doesn’t even work. It can last an hour, a week, or six months. There’s no telling.”
She holds my gaze for a moment before adding, “And sometimes, nothing brings you out of it. And it’s that fear that can drive a person to take it into their own hands. Make it end.”
I can’t handle the thought of her being in pain and there being nothing I can do about it. But she lied to me. When I asked her straight-out if she was all right, she lied. So yes, part of me is mad.
“Why are you mad?” she asks, crossing the space between us. “Your subconscious demands to be heard, Austin.”
“I’m mad because you lied to my face.” I’m surprised by the bite in my voice, but she doesn’t seem to be at all. “I was right here, in this room, a week before this happened. You looked into my eyes and said, ‘I’m fine.’” My throat tightens, but I force the words through. “Thursday, after my game, you promised me that you were okay. That was another lie. And you know what? You were right last week. You said that I already knew the worst about you, so you had no reason to lie. Why would you lie when the truth counted the most?”
“Because I didn’t want to put that on your