by Coralee June
Tears and Other Fears
Book Two in the Lies Trilogy
CoraLee June
Tears and Other Fears © 2019 June Publishing
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.
Created with Vellum
For Raven,
I love you, Cowrife. I know I said I’d dedicate my first Romcom to you, but this feels more special. I love our friendship. I treasure you so damn much. Thank you for loving me until I feel like me again. And especially thank you for all the dildos.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Thank you for reading!
Burnout Preview
About the Author
Also by CoraLee June
Chapter 1
“Favorite color?” I asked as Young drove his pretentious rental car out of the parking lot. He had one hand on the steering wheel, looking relaxed and laid back. He acted like we didn’t just take a leisurely stroll out of the institute I’d been forced to stay in for the last month.
Young didn’t take long to break me out of hell. After one phone call to his lawyer brother and a rushed evaluation by my piss-poor psychiatrist, I was headed out the door with all my belongings in hand. It was anticlimactic, and if it weren’t for the prescription drugs still coursing through my system, I’d be disappointed that there wasn’t a bit more pomp and circumstance. Jerry, the chronic flasher, didn’t even whip out his dick one last celebratory time. The bastard waved goodbye, all normal-like. After everything we’d been through. I should have exchanged emails with him so he could send me unsolicited dick pics, but it was too late now.
“Trick question,” Young answered while exiting the highway towards the airport. “William didn’t have a favorite color.” It was true, William didn’t like having favorites; he hated to disappoint people or inanimate objects or our shitty parents. “His favorite sound was a fan, though. He loved white noise.” I swallowed. Maybe William liked it because it drowned out his dark thoughts. I was starting to like the sound of my screams for the same reason.
I kept wondering when reality would yank me back to the white room with a single twin bed and drawings on the wall. I was scared that all of this wasn’t real, so maybe that’s why I still clung to Young’s arm. My tight grip made our drive a bit awkward, but I’d never cared about that shit. It felt like I was waiting for karma to drop a confetti bomb and laugh in my face.
Although, my time at the hospital wasn’t necessarily worthless. It brought me to Young and refocused my sense of purpose. Before, I’d been too busy fucking and painting and pining over my drunk therapist to keep my eyes on the prize. Now I just had one simple goal.
End Samuel.
Another bonus was that Young had completely changed my opinion about being wealthy. It might have bought you more trouble and secrets, but it also bought you out of hell—Thorne Institute being hell in this instance.
“I hated that he always slept with it on,” Young mused while twisting his face into a scowl. “I prefer silence.” Of course he did. It was another way I was completely wrong for him. I was like a constant scream, always belting out the injustices of the world until my throat was raw.
“William always slept with a fan on at home. He told me it was to drown out my snoring. Maybe you snore, too,” I replied in a bored tone while openly observing Young. He chuckled at my bland insult, but I couldn’t smile back.
The drugs were a severe buzzkill for my libido, but even the bitch trying to take my feelings couldn’t stop me from appreciating how beautiful Young looked just then. Maybe I liked him for saving me. Maybe I liked him because William did. Perhaps he was just another warm body I could use up to forget my temporary place in this temporary world with temporary feelings that were bleeding me dry.
Or maybe, I liked him because he was handsome and sad. That seemed to be my type. Noah certainly fit that bill. And now that I knew more about Samuel, he kind of did too. I liked disasters, and the men surrounding William’s death were catastrophic.
Young’s phone started to ring, and he lifted it off the dash and looked at the caller ID, frowning when he saw Noah’s name flashing on the screen. “You going to answer that?” I asked, challenging him to show his true intentions. If he brought me to Noah, I’d lose my fucking mind. Well, more than I already had.
“No,” he replied.
I liked that Young was Team Octavia. I felt like the last pick in middle school soccer, but the sentiment still made me feel…something… I just didn’t know exactly what yet. My feelings were jumbled and out of sorts, like a box of puzzles stored away in my grandmother’s old hutch. I couldn’t compartmentalize the anger and disappointment. It was just swirling in my gut, like constant bees stinging me.
“He keeps calling, wanting to know if you’re okay. I have a couple of drunk messages, too,” Young explained. “I can’t believe that he’s a fucking therapist. If someone needs to be admitted, it’s him.”
I cringed. No one ever needed to be admitted against their will. “No. He’s just…obsessed with me,” I replied, honesty scraping against my voice with the blunt edge of the knife in my back.
“Oh yeah?”
“I have that sort of effect on people,” I added. “Hell, you flew to Georgia to see me. Samuel sends me flowers every Tuesday. Noah is on another bender. Admit it, I perplex you.” If Young was surprised that Samuel was sending me flowers, he didn’t show it. The roses were a ridiculous gesture intended only to make me question everything. Every time the nurse brought them to my room, I’d eat a petal, internalizing his remorse before throwing the rest away. They upped my medication the first time I did that.
I was feeling sluggish again. Tired. It was hard being myself for Young. But for some reason, I didn’t want to slip back into the numbness whenever he was around. I wondered if he had this same sort of effect on William.
“You’re pretty cocky, don’t you think?” Young asked, neither confirming nor denying my statement.
“No. I just understand an obsession when I see one. And you’re obsessed with the idea of me, and I’m selfish enough to feed your mania.” I knew blind devotion when I saw it, had lived and breathed my own sense of toxic devoutness since I got a diagnosis at the age of sixteen. I knew what it felt like to have something buzzing under your skin so hard that the only relief you could get was to act on those impulses. I knew what it was like to have your feet dragging you towards something terrible for you while feeling helpless to stop it.
And in case you needed help following along, I’m the terrible thing Young was drawn to.
We
pulled into the airport, and I was hoping that the drive would last longer than it did. I had no fucking clue what I was going to do. Before, when I’d left for New York, I had a plan. I knew all the variables, all the pieces on the chessboard. Now? I just knew the end result. This was one fucked up game of Chutes and Ladders that I was determined to win.
I once listened to a motivational speaker. He said that the key to success was to visualize what you wanted most in this world. I wanted to find a gun that actually worked and put a bullet in Samuel’s skull. I wanted to see Noah and knee him in the balls. I wanted to fuck Young and feel whole for a little bit, maybe steal the love he had for William and keep it for myself. My laundry list was long and toxic and all kinds of fucked up, but it was keeping me going.
Mom called me yesterday to let me know that I was not welcome in her home. Surprise, surprise. I’d rather stay at the institute than go crawling back to her. My next step to freedom involved severing all ties, legally binding or otherwise, to my mother’s hold over me. She didn’t actually give a fuck about what I did, she just didn’t want me ruining her cushy marriage with Liam.
Young stayed in the driver’s seat, patiently waiting for me to say something or allude to some decision I’d made. He was so fucking patient with me. I told myself I was annoyed, but I was really endeared by his ability to ride out the storm that I was. “When is graduation?” I finally asked.
William would have walked the stage—should have walked the stage. Sitting in a large auditorium while listening to a list of names that survived college seemed like the appropriate thing to do. Was that the meds talking? Making me want to do the proper thing? Or was it my need to feel something again?
“Next week,” Young answered in a timid voice.
“Can I listen to Noah’s message?” I asked while holding out my hand to Young and bluntly changing the subject. I wanted to hear how miserable Noah was. Wanted to drink up his guilt and puke it at his feet.
Young rolled his eyes before dialing his voicemail and putting it on speaker. “Nathaniel, please, man. I just need to talk to her; I fucked up,” he said, words slurred. There was obvious distress in his voice, but it felt hollow. “I know you have her. Her mother called me—”
“Turn it off,” I ordered. I wasn’t in the mood to talk about how he had nice little conversations with my nice little mother. Rage was bubbling below my numb surface, and I was clawing through my reality.
“Where are we going, Tav?” Young asked again while looking out the windshield and up to the sky. He looked handsome despite the bags under his eyes and his wrinkled shirt. He was wearing slacks and a button-down shirt that his massive muscles filled nicely. It didn’t escape my notice how he said we or how somehow in my fucked up vendetta, Young attached himself to me.
“We, huh?” I asked with a frown. “Are you trying to save me because you couldn’t save William?”
He let out a long sigh, and I waited not so patiently for his response. “Yes. We. Yes, I’m trying to save your crazy ass. Is that such a bad thing?”
“But why? What are we doing, Young?” I asked. I might not have been like myself...but I knew enough to understand that I couldn’t make a decision if the lines weren’t clear. I was starting to realize that the world had a lot of really messed up rules about what to say and what not to say. William understood me, and I never felt the need to hide my don’t-give-a-fuck nature before, but now I understood that there were consequences for letting the screams out. I had to do better. I had to know what Young expected of me.
“Since when do you like labeling things?”
“Since I got sent away. Since I found out that Samuel murdered my brother. Since I started thinking that maybe something is wrong with me and I should work on doing things…right.”
Young let out a huff of air, probably trying to decide what problem to address first. “I still can’t believe the whole Samuel thing. I believe you, but I’m not like you. I don’t just jump from one vendetta to the next. I’ll need proof.”
Fair enough. I could be impulsive enough for both of us.
“And as far as...whatever fucked up thing we have going on? It’s simple. I need...something you can offer. I need closure. And information. You’re wild and annoying and the best thing to happen to me since William died, so if we could just not label this weird symbiotic relationship we’re working through, that’d be great.” I loved Young’s version of honesty. He danced around it, clinging as closely as possible to the truth but never really jumping over the edge.
I bolstered up enough of my old self to tell him what he was really thinking. “So you’re basically saying that you want me and feel like shit because of it?” I asked. It wasn’t exactly what he’d said, but I could read between the lines. Young gripped the steering wheel of the parked rental car so hard his knuckles turned white. Seeing that burst of barely contained emotion fueled me. “Well, here’s something for you. I want you, too, Young.”
He snapped his attention to me, his dark eyes appraising the hollows of my cheeks and my pale lips. “So what do we do?” he asked.
I let out a sigh, wondering how to decide. I could go back to New York. I could see this thing through. I could hurt. Bleed. I could fight for my life back and get the closure I needed to shut off my brain. Shut off my fucking soul.
“Let’s go to New York. I’m going to get you that proof. I need your help finding a certain drug dealer, though.”
If he was surprised by my choice, Young didn’t show it. Instead, Young did that cliche, bullshit, rich-boy act. The kind where I told him where I wanted to go and he waltzed up to the ticket counter and bought two first-class seats last minute, sliding his black credit card across the desk while smiling at the ticket lady. It all happened so fast. A decision was made, he followed through. No wavering, no asking me if I was sure. If anything, he seemed relieved that I was letting him join me.
We got on the plane first and settled into the comfortable leather seats while everyone else boarded the plane, staring at our privilege with annoyance and jealousy. I half expected him to apologize for not taking the private jet, but instead, he sat there in silence, staring out the window and thinking about life or William or the champagne in his hand.
“I thought you didn’t drink,” I observed while he took a sip.
“I don’t.”
Why did he look so sad? I settled into my seat, feeling comfortable and, for the first time, okay about where my life was headed. I had direction. I had a plan, and I was clinging to it like it was the only possession I had in this world, and I guess it was.
“You look sad,” I said while looking down at his arm resting against mine. Some things never changed; I was still me, still willing to call people out on shit that made them uncomfortable.
“I am,” he replied, keeping his tone simple and not giving away any additional information. Young was drumming his fingers against the armrest, and I did this crazy thing: I reached out to hold his hand, to thread my fingers through his and offer him a bit of the better parts of myself for a moment. Why couldn’t it be that easy for the rest of the world to be as upfront about their feelings?
“Why?” I asked.
Young squeezed my hand once, then threw his head back, looking up at the ceiling of the airplane as businessmen pushed down the middle aisle to sit in their seats. “I went into this determined to give you a choice, but I wish you’d have picked differently. I want you to come back with me. I just don’t want to find out that Samuel did this. You know he’s the first boy I ever kissed?” Young said with a chuckle. “When we were kids, I told him I thought I might be gay, and he told me to try kissing him, just to test it out. That’s the kind of friend he was. Most thirteen-year-old boys would have called me names or teased what they didn’t understand. But not him.”
My pills made everything feel...dulled. Like the emotions couldn’t fully reach the surface, but my amusement at their friendship did manage to pound in my cage of a chest. Amused felt like
a hollow description, but saying joy hurt too much. Nevertheless, I smiled. It was a sad little smile, but still a smile.
“I bet Samuel was a terrible kisser. Made you question yourself even more,” I replied.
Young chuckled again, the sound burdened by his disappointment. “He was. We looked weird, like two dumbasses trying to recreate what we’d seen in a porn video. Our tongues were a slobbery mess.”
At that, I laughed. From my limited experience with Samuel, he was nothing if not talented. He knew how to use his body effectively. It was weird to think of him as inexperienced. I kind of wished that I knew that side of him. That was the problem with Samuel: he was too cocky, too experienced. The thing that bothered me most was that he knew the right words to say, the right touches, the right looks. Everything about him was choreographed, and I wanted nothing more than to see him sloppy.
“He just wiped his lips with the back of his hand, nodded awkwardly and asked, ‘You good?’ Then he left my bedroom without a word. He didn’t bring it up again for the longest time. Not until we could look back and laugh about it.” Young tried to look nostalgic about that memory, but his expression revealed how he truly felt. He was sad, and I knew that at the end of this, I’d be ripping away these good memories and replacing them with regret. Vengeance had consequences, and it was no longer just my life on the line.
I was trying to think of words that would help. That’s what a person with sympathy would do, right? But I struggled for too long to think of what to say that would make things better for Young and failed miserably. By the time I finally realized to just say I’m sorry your best friend is a selfish murderer, it was too late, the moment had passed, and all that was left was this realization that I’d always be too late or too brash to comfort him. William was better than I was at this. William was better at everything.