“No one can help me, Shay. The things I’ve been through…you’d never be able to relate. How could you possibly help me?”
“That’s what I’m asking you,” she challenges. “Anything you need, all you have to do is ask and I’ll be there to help make this easier.”
I sit in silence, struggling to sort through the thousands of torturous thoughts rushing through my mind and making a scrambled mess. Shaylee leans forward and takes my hand and I can’t help but look down at her on my bed. Her eyes—so much like my mom’s— are brimming with unshed tears and her pain threatens to tear me apart.
“I get it,” she tells me, fighting against the lump in her throat. “You’re not ready for this, not ready to open up and share yourself with the world, but let me help you.”
“I don’t know how,” I insist, fighting against my own tears. “If I knew how to make this better, knew how to make this pain go away, I would have done it a long time ago.”
“I know,” she tells me. “Believe me, I wish I had some kind of secret formula to give you to make this all okay, but I can’t. Why don’t we start small? I know I can’t relate to you about your parents and the hell you’ve been through over the past thirteen years, but I do know what it’s like being seventeen and in high school. So, tell me about that.”
I study her for a long moment, wondering why I’m finding it so hard to suck in a decent breath. Why does my chest hurt like this? “I…I don’t know,” I tell her, terrified of making any sort of connection with her. After all, the people I love are always taken away from me, and just when you think you can trust someone, they hurt you. I can’t risk letting her in.
I want to trust her. I want to be able to let go of this pain and finally open myself up to the possibility of a future, family, and love, but for now, it’s just me and Blake against the world, just as it’s always been.
“That’s okay,” she tells me, giving my hand a squeeze. “It’s too soon, you’ve only been here a week, but just know that I’m not going to stop trying.”
“I don’t want you to.”
A soft smile brightens her face and the features that remind me so much of my mom. “One of these days, you’re going to realize that you have the whole world at your feet, just like Blake and it’s going to be such a joy to watch.” The tears finally drop from her eyes and she hastily wipes them away. “Crap, I promised myself that I wasn’t going to cry. I want to be strong for you, Skylah, because you deserve nothing less.”
“It’s okay to cry,” I tell her. “You’re only human.”
“Aren’t I supposed to be the adult here?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I was forced to grow up quickly.”
Shaylee sighs to herself. “I wish I knew the horrors that you’ve been through, Sky.”
I don’t answer but it’s not like she was expecting me to. “Okay,” she says, getting up from my bed. “If you’re sure you don’t want to talk, then I might go and work out what I’m going to make for dinner, but you know where to find me if you change your mind.”
I nod and with one more tight smile, Shaylee slips out of my bedroom and gently closes the door behind her.
The second the door clicks into place, intense loneliness sweeps over me. Tears begin to fall and I collapse down onto my bed, smooshing my face into my pillow. I search within for that hatred and anger that I felt when dealing with Slade Cruz at school today as clinging onto those feelings is a shitload easier than feeling the pain and turmoil that comes to haunt me whenever my parents and past are mentioned.
The pain begins to fade as I allow the war with Slade to overtake my mind and just like that, I realize that Slade Cruz is going to be the new shining star of my life, at least until I find someone or something else that can help dull the ache that resides inside my soul.
Chapter 4
A bright light flashes through my bedroom window and my eyes shoot toward it, but it’s gone in a split second. My heart instantly races as my fingers curl around the pocketknife under my pillow.
He’s found me. I knew he would come, but I didn’t realize it would happen quite this fast.
I barely have a second to throw my blanket off my legs before the light is shining through my bedroom window once again. I tighten my grip on the knife, never so damn relieved that Blake’s spending the night with friends.