by Coralee June
“Why?” Noah asked.
“Why? ’Cause he’s crazy. ’Cause he’s got some sick and twisted views about the world…”
Noah spun around, his hands clenched into shaky fists. “Why did you leave me? I’ve never judged you, never tried to change you. Why’d you leave me there, Octavia?”
Looking Noah in the eye, I replied with a humorless laugh. “Because you don’t deserve the kind of fucked up I have to offer.”
Noah walked towards me and sat down, making the bed dip near where I sat, and our arms touched. “You’re not right, Babe. You need help.”
“I’ve never pretended to be anything else, Noah,” I replied.
“You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“So?”
Noah slapped the tops of his thighs with his open palms. “Dammit, Octavia!” he screamed, and I was sure the neighboring hotel rooms could hear. “I’m not okay with this, I care about you. But you’re impulsive, manic, self-destructive. You don’t feel things the way you should. You don’t love…”
That was the grit of it, wasn’t it? Who was he to say that it wasn’t right—that I wasn’t right? Assigning reactions and feelings and appropriateness was just another way people gave up control of their lives. I didn’t have to feel anything, nor did I have to conform to his need to save me.
And this was why I could never love Noah the way he deserved. I could never love anyone the way they deserved. Because love for me was boxes of paint and three a.m. banter. Love was a car ride with a stranger. Love was forbidden feelings and hate and guilt and that sensation you got right before pulling the trigger. Love was something I was borderline incapable of but also the thing I understood better than most. Love destroyed people.
“I’m never going to be what you want me to be, Noah. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me. I just feel too much but also don’t feel enough. Is it so bad to not be like the rest of the world? I thought you liked the challenge.”
“I’ve failed you,” Noah whispered. “I’m a goddamn therapist, and I let you get this bad.”
Now, I was mad. Boiling. Burning up with a white-hot anger that grabbed hold of us both and didn’t let go. “I didn’t start talking to you in the hopes I’d get saved, Noah. I took your hand and never let go because I wanted to be understood and accepted. I wanted a distraction. Nothing more. Stop trying to fix me or save me. I was the one that saved you.”
Noah looked at me from the corner of his eye before rolling his neck. My words seemed to wash over him. He was stuck in his ways, and nothing I said would tear him out of it.
“You did save me, Octavia. I’ll always be thankful for that,” he whispered.
I’d never been the type to handle a well-placed thank you. It left me fumbling and wondering if I deserved it. “Let’s get out of here, okay?” he then said before grabbing my hand and squeezing, the comforting gesture felt hollow though.
Noah went quiet for a moment, probably thinking of the dark gutter I found him in. Thinking of his daughter, of the ex-wife he finally made peace with only as a ploy to help me. I was a distraction.
“I’m kind of tired,” I replied. I had a lot to think about, a lot to work through. I didn’t want a long, awkward meal with Noah where we stared at each other from across the table without knowing what to say. I was already overextended and wanted to retreat to a corner where I could listen to William’s voice telling me that Nathaniel Youngblood was going to destroy him. My fingers were itching to grab my phone and pace, that obsessive coping mechanism I’d perfected over the last year.
“Humor me,” Noah replied, his voice unwavering. Fine. If he wanted an awkward brunch, then more power to him. He held my hand as we descended in the elevator, brushing his thumb along my skin as he leaned into me. And despite craving space to decompress and pack away all the different thoughts in my head, I allowed it.
“You know I’d do anything for you, right?” he asked. And something felt suspicious.
“No, I don’t,” I lied. Noah had already done so much. How could I not see that he was trapped in my mind just as much as I was trapped in his redemption?
The doors opened, and I looked at the ground while stepping out of the elevator, not really paying attention to where I was going. “I’m so sorry, Octavia,” Noah whispered, making me look ahead in confusion.
What was he sorry for?
And there was the real reason Noah looked so tortured today. Lucinda Wilson looked out of place at the dingy hotel in Harlem. She was wearing a white pantsuit, stained at the hemline where it was so long that it had dragged along the concrete. “What the fuck is she doing here?” I growled, digging my heels into the ground as Noah pulled me closer. Behind her was a woman I didn’t recognize.
Before seeing me, Mom looked bored. She was staring intently at her nails, not worried about the world or that she was far from her home in Georgia. But the moment she saw me, her entire body seemed to slump into a defeated posture that I didn’t understand nor have the energy to analyze. “Oh Octavia,” she cried out. Already causing a scene. Lovely.
“You called my mother?” I asked. “After everything I told you, that’s who you decided to call?” I asked Noah while trying to wrap my head around the situation. For a fleeting moment, I considered running off but decided to keep strong and meet this head on. Besides, the only person I ever ran from was Nathaniel Youngblood, and he wasn’t here. “What have you gotten into?!” Mom said, while cradling her head in her hands.
I looked at the other woman and noticed that she looked like a nurse, scrubs clung to her curvy body, and I started to look at the exits. “First, President Robinson called and then your therapist. We’re all so worried about you, Octavia.” She made it sound like I had a group of people in my corner, but really, all I had was Noah.
I looked at him. “Why?”
“I’d rather have you hate me than lose you…” His voice was soft, and he refused to look me in the eye.
Everything after that happened so fast. More men appeared. I looked left and right, trying to gauge how many were approaching. This was a mental health intervention of epic proportions. My mother looked smug as four men circled me. I felt like a trapped animal, debating on dropping to the floor to play dead for a little while. I wanted to scream and shout and cry a bit. Really give them the show that they were wanting. But I was complacent, knowing which battles to fight and which ones to concede. If they were hoping for me to prove them right, to prove that I wasn’t in control of my mind and my body, then they would be sorely disappointed. I’d go calmly. Quietly. I’d use the parts of myself the world didn’t understand to my benefit. I’d shut off completely.
Chapter 23
I liked that the mental institution Mom and Liam picked for me was named Thorne. I hated those ironic places named after sunshine and daisies. Why call hell anything other than what it was? And this place was certainly hell, or at least I thought it was. The medicine they made me take turned my thoughts a little fuzzy. My weekly visits with my new, completely unfuckable therapist were a bore. He said the meds were working, which basically was just a fancy way of saying that all the things I liked about myself were slowly dying. Pretty soon I'd be nothing but a shell of the angry woman I once was, which according to my new therapist wasn’t such a bad thing. Hell, my old therapist thought it was a great thing. I didn’t realize how much Noah didn’t like the girl he supposedly loved until he called my mother and had me sent here.
When Mom first dropped me off, she promised to visit me at least once a week. They picked an institution close to home for that very reason. But like the last time I was admitted when I was sixteen, Mom didn't show up. It was kind of fun being alone, I was very familiar with the sensation. Noah called regularly, and I refused to speak to him. Being here meant that I didn't have many ways of punishing him for what he did, but there was still nothing more punishing than my silence. If he wanted to talk to me, he’d have to look me in the eye and see the evidence of al
l he’d done.
The last words Noah said to me were still ringing in my mind, "I'd rather have you hate me than lose you."
But what he didn't realize was that by sending me here, he would lose me. He thought hate was just something we could get past, but I had a feeling it would a bit more permanent than that. Octavia Wilson was gone, locked in my mind along with my will to fight, my challenging disposition, my wit, and my passion. After a month, I finally understood what Mrs. Mulberry meant when she said that there was a woman taking over her body, making her complacent. That woman and I were now good friends, enjoying breakfast together alone at a corner table. I stirred my oatmeal in my bowl and stared at the TV off to my right. They didn't let us watch anything that would incite heightened emotions, so it was a home decorating channel. It was visiting hours, and the part of me that wasn't controlled by the psychiatrists’ treatments still wandered into the common area every day at the same time, hoping someone would show. For three hours, we were allowed to visit with people, but every day, no one showed up. William would have. "So sad, always so sad," Michael, the man who occasionally had outbursts and danced on the breakfast tables, said. I personally didn't think there was anything wrong with him, he was just chronically honest. Like me, I guess. I was swimming through the fog of my mind when the chair across from me slid out, and a man sat down. A warm awareness feathered over my skin, making me grow hot. I knew who he was without looking. "It took you long enough, Young," I said. I'd worked hard to push forward that flirty banter and now needed a nap. My on switch now was permanently disconnected so it took a considerable amount of energy to be me again. I listened to him sigh, and after a moment’s pause, he then responded, "I couldn't decide if I missed you or not." I felt a laugh bubble up in my chest, but the bitch that wanted to numb me wrapped her fist around my joy and suffocated it before the giggles could break past my teeth. "The girl you're missing will be here at about four o'clock—about an hour before it’s time to take those pesky evening meds. It’s when she likes to surface. Although, you should hurry. They were discussing upping her dosage next week." Young stared at me, and I could almost feel something, but again the void swallowed it up. "Would it be insensitive of me to ask what's wrong with you?" he asked. "What do you care if it's insensitive or not?" "Damn, Tav." I sucked in a deep breath for the speech I was about to deliver. That familiar spunky behavior was forcing her way to the surface, clawing through the prescription drugs and disappointment over Noah to deliver a message to Young. "Does it matter? I could give you a name, I could give you my symptoms. I could try to tell you that the world is just a clusterfuck of emotions, and I'm just a girl grieving her brother. I struggled to fight through the fog, keeping my head above the current that tried to drag me under. If I told you what I was suffering from, then you'd no longer know me as Tav. You'd then know me as a diagnosis. It wouldn't make you hate me any less. It would just make you look at me differently, and I'd rather have you look at me with hate than with pity." Young smiled. And it was one of those smiles that made Thorne look a little less like hell and a little more like purgatory—the place...between. I wanted to lean across the table and taste him, I wanted to make the nurses eyeing us with scrutiny, nervous. I wanted to challenge their ideas of what was appropriate and what wasn't. They said people like me didn't deserve love, but that's not what I was after; I just wanted acceptance. In Young’s smile, I saw his acceptance of me. "Did you know my older brother is one of the best lawyers in the country?" Young asked. I felt sluggish and tried to keep up with the change in conversation. I went from hating him for asking about why I was here, to wanting him, to being confused by him. Round and round we go. "Are you here to save me, Young?" If I weren't so goddamn tired I would've made a quip about how he couldn't save my brother. But I couldn't force the words out because the lady wanting me numb was putting a filter over my mouth, stopping me from being cruel before I even had the opportunity. But I didn't have to say those words, because then Nathaniel's dark eyes flashed with an anger I didn't expect. And it was then that I knew the truth, he was saving me because he couldn't save William. And he didn't have to confirm it, because he didn't owe me an explanation. He didn't owe me anything. And yet he was here, and I was somewhere locked inside of my body. "You don't need saving, Tav. You just need a ride out of here. I'll take you where you want to go, and if where you want to go is with me, then I think I wouldn't completely hate that idea." I looked down at my now cold oatmeal, spinning my spoon through the mush while I considered his words. "What if I wanted to fight Samuel?" Nathaniel reached across the table and grabbed my hand, squeezing. "What if I wanted you because you remind me of him?" Was this his way of telling me he could deal with that if I could deal with this? I guess there were some perks to feeling everything and nothing all at once—I could be used and not break. Swallowing, I looked out the window, past the bars keeping us inside and off towards the courtyard. The Georgia summer was in full swing. "William used to hate the humidity," I said.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the letter I wrote William the first night I got here and handed it to Young. “I once wrote another letter, but this one seems...better. Read it out loud.” Young pulled at the collar on his shirt for a second then unfolded the paper. It was crinkled from all the times I’d clutched it in my fist.
“Dear William,” Young began with a cough. “You fucking asshole.” Young’s laughter was bright, making everyone in the room turn to look at him. “Why’d you leave me here? We had a good system going. You felt everything, and I felt nothing. I fought our battles, you healed our wounds. Did you not tell me you were depressed because you thought I wouldn’t understand?” Young paused to look up at me. I raised my brow, encouraging him to continue.
“Now you’re gone, and I’m pissed. I’m pissed at you for dumping all these feelings in my lap, and I have no idea what to do with them. Remember the time we found that puppy chained outside in the rain? I broke into the owner’s shed and stole his chain lock cutters, and you nursed the little bastard back to health. There’s no point to that story, I think it just seems nice to remember it.”
Young was reading too slowly, so I ripped the letter from his hands and read for him. “You left me with Young. I’m okay with unchaining him. But I can’t make him better. Only you can do that. And you’re not here. You had to go and take shitty drugs given to you by a shitty person all because you couldn’t handle shitty feelings. Samuel saw an opportunity and gave you an the chance to forget for a while and you took it. Now you feel nothing at all. I’m coping with all the little layers of life that led to you ending yours. The school. Young’s cheating. Your depression. Renon’s faulty drugs. Samuel’s fear. I get it, okay? I was looking for blame, and I found it, but now I have to burn the entire fucking world down to make things right. I’m starting to wonder if every little millisecond in the universe orchestrated your death, and I hate everyone for it. I’m in a mental hospital. You promised, you fucking promised that I’d never have to go back to one. You taught me how to mask my impulses. You convinced Mom to let me move to Los Angeles. You fixed me, William. So why the fuck couldn’t you fix yourself?” I let out the shaky breath I’d been holding before looking at Young to read the last line. “I love you, William. And I hate you a little, too.”
The sigh that Young let go of was music to my ears. A haunting symphony that both broke and rejuvenated me. I could give him little pieces of William. My William. Vendettas were rarely free, and I guess in some ways, a memory was the ultimate price.
I stared at him, taking in his dark, rugged features. I saw what my brother found attractive about him. And it was then that I realized the price wasn't a memory, it was knowing that Young would never be mine. Not really. I wasn’t sure when I realized that I liked the kind of pain and nothingness he offered, but I fell into an appreciation of him I didn’t understand.
And I guessed once I began to feel things again, this would hurt. But until then, I’d just have to
lie to myself and lean on a diagnosis that didn't exist. And prescriptions that didn't work. And a sadness that never left.
Tears and Other Fears Coming Soon
Also by CoraLee June
Sunshine and Bullets
Sunshine.
It’s a nickname I haven’t heard since I lived on Woodbury Lane, where the houses were pretty but the secrets? Deadly. It was a pet name known only to the Bullets. Rough, violent, and ruthless, they laid claim to the town — and my heart.
I wasn't supposed to fall for a boy from the wrong side of the tracks—especially not four of them. But they were the only ones who understood that sometimes hell hides in plain sight.
I was the girl with all the conveniences a privileged upbringing could provide. The world only saw two loving parents and a pristine home life, but I knew the truth. And it was going to get me killed. So, I disappeared, from everyone and everything I’d ever known. I changed my name and my appearance, but the scars I carry, they’re still the same.
The Bullets are all grown up now, too — a crime boss, a pro fighter, a bounty hunter, and a federal agent. Life took them in different directions, but they once shared the bonds of a brotherhood forged under the harshest conditions. Together they were fearless. Brutal. Unstoppable.
I'm praying they can find that unity again. If I'm going to survive this, it'll take everything they have. Because that's the thing about running from the past.
Eventually, it catches up to you.
Prologue
The club Gavriel picked for our annual meeting was different than his usual preferences. Over the years, I’d noticed the clubs he chose grew progressively upscale, each venue more lavish than the last. This time, it was a red-brick building hidden in the shadows of Harlem, but designed with posh comfort in mind. I didn't have to fight a line of drunks to get inside. When I gave the bouncer my name, he immediately fumbled to unclasp the gold chain in front of the door, allowing me in. It was busy enough to slip past the crowd unnoticed, but not too overcrowded, which meant we could speak comfortably. Being seen with a federal agent was “bad for business,” as Gavriel liked to say, so we had to be careful.