Total pages in book: 215
Estimated words: 199344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 997(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 997(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
The past week has been a blur. Mom and Dad have fought. Random people I don’t know have knocked on our door, offering their bullshit condolences. The police. The funeral home director. Tears. Hazel. But all I’ve seen is darkness.
It’s like a cloud hovering over me, bearing down on my shoulders, getting heavier every day, and I’ve tried to hold it back, tried to push it away, but it’s too fucking hard. Everybody is relying on me to be strong. Mom keeps looking at me as though I can somehow make her pain go away, and Dad? Dad has been nothing but an ass these last few days. But Zoey needs me the most, and I’m trying to be strong for her, but I’m slipping. I can’t take it anymore.
The guilt, the anger, and the darkness are eating me alive. It’s agony.
I killed my fucking brother. He’s lying there in that casket because I sent him away.
This is all my fault.
Zoey was right. I should have told him that Mom was planning a movie date for him and Hazel, and he never would have tried following me to the park. He never would have been out on that road. I wasn’t even nice to him.
Some old asshole stands at the front of the church, talking about how much Linc will be missed, and Zoey’s head falls against my shoulder as silent tears roll down her face. Keeping my eyes on the old asshole, I grit my teeth, anger burning through my veins as I reach up and wipe the tears from Zoey’s cheeks.
This dickhead never even met Lincoln. How dare he stand there and tell everyone how much he’ll be missed. He doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know what kind of kid he was, what he liked, what he didn’t. Doesn’t know he was probably going to grow up to be East View’s biggest menace, and he sure as fuck doesn’t know that over the next few years, he would have eventually figured out that Hazel James was going to be his whole world, the same way Zoey is mine.
With each passing second of Linc’s funeral, the numbness takes over, and when it finally comes to a close, I break away from Zoey and storm down the long aisle, barely able to breathe. I break out into the hot Arizona afternoon, gasping for air with my hands braced against my knees.
I can’t do this anymore.
Everybody needs me to be something, to hold them up, but how the hell am I supposed to do that when I can barely get through the day? I always thought I was strong. I thought I was everything that Zoey would ever need, but I’m fucking pathetic. I killed my little brother, and soon enough, she’s going to see it. She’ll know that I’m just a worthless fraud and realize I’m not good enough for her, not anymore. How can I be what she needs?
The cloud of darkness grows heavier, the guilt weighing down on me, pulling me further and further until I’m drowning in my own grief, and as I drop to my knees outside the church, I can’t fend it off a second longer.
I fucking break.
It claims me, filling my veins and pulsing right into my soul, staining it with its ugliness, infecting me with nothing but guilt and anger. Where there used to be hope, love, and a beaming excitement for my future, there’s nothing but charred ruins.
I can’t be the person they need me to be. I can’t be anything.
Not anymore.
I’m drowning, and anyone caught in my orbit is going to be dragged down with me and there’s not a goddamn thing I can do to stop it.
Zoey James is the epitome of goodness, and I’m her exact opposite. I’m cruel and unforgiving, and when pushed enough, there’s no line I won’t cross. But what the hell does that say about me? How long before I aim that cruelty toward Zoey? How long until I’m sending her away and history repeats itself?
If I lose Zoey like I lost Linc . . . fuck. I won’t just be drowning in grief, I won’t just be struggling to breathe, I won’t fucking survive it. She’s my whole world, but this darkness that clouds over me . . . I can’t let it destroy her too.
“Noah?” I hear that sweet, angelic voice say, and as my head snaps up, I see Zoey standing at the top of the church’s grand entrance, that chestnut hair sweeping back over her shoulder in the breeze. Her eyes are glued to mine, trying to read me just like she’s always been able to, but I shut her out, needing to sever that connection between us.
I’m a killer. Linc’s blood is on my hands, and I refuse to stain them with Zoey’s too. I won’t do it to her. I can’t allow her to be dragged down by me. She won’t survive it. She’ll crumble under the pressure, and in her need to stand by my side, she’ll willingly allow me to destroy her.