Page 83 of Apathy
After she was admitted to the hospital, I had a chat with my uncle, who insisted on me getting closer to her because he thought Skylar was the key. I was trying to do the right thing, dammit. I tried ignoring the fact that my chest hurt every single second while she was in the hospital.
Updates from Lauren stopped on the second day, and I knew that if I wanted to know how she was, I had to be there. I had to see her, but I couldn’t fathom seeing her and not breaking apart.
Because that’s what she did to me. She broke me.
She took all those pieces I was hiding and ripped them away from me, making me see only her. A month ago, I would’ve been furious. I would’ve been angry at myself, but right now I didn’t give a fuck.
The problem was, I lied to her. I lied when I told her that she would always get the truth from me. I lied while I held her, while I told her that everything was going to be okay, because it wouldn’t be okay.
Not until she gets out of this town. Not until she forgets about me and everything that happened here.
And even though she was sitting next to me, talking to Lauren, it already felt as if we were a million miles apart from each other. Because the truth I was hiding was going to destroy what we had.
My arm was loosely hanging around her shoulders, while she kept her hand on my thigh, as if she too didn’t want to stop touching me.
We were in Danny and Rowan’s house, celebrating their birthday, and instead of going through their house, trying to find more clues, trying to find out more about their family, I was wrapped up in Skylar. I didn’t want to be anywhere else.
I just had to figure out how to avenge my parents without burning her in the process.
A good man would let her go. A better man would tell her all the secrets this town was hiding, giving her a much-needed advantage, but I never said I was one of the good ones. I lied, cheated, played the people around me, and I would do it all again if it would bring me back to her.
I would burn everything in my path, if I knew that she would be waiting for me at the end of the road.
“Now you’re the one thinking too loud.” Her voice penetrated through my thoughts, and I turned to the side, seeing her smiling face. Her eyes were already bright from all the alcohol she consumed since we came, and it was only a matter of time until her pupils would dilate. There was no way that she wouldn’t take the drugs Lauren brought.
The rest of the group was hanging somewhere around the house, but I didn’t give a fuck about any of them. If it were up to me, the two of us would be back in her room, getting lost in each other.
We didn’t have enough time. With October creeping up on us and Samhain just around the corner, I feared I wouldn’t have enough time to do what I needed to do and to save her from this world.
If she hated me after that, at least I would know that she was safe. That she was as far away from here as possible. I couldn’t save my parents because I was too young, but I could save her. I could make it better for her, even if it killed me letting her go.
I hated being here, surrounded by all these people I didn’t know. I didn’t have control and any one of them could be the killer. Any one of them could be the masked monster who attacked her the other night.
We’ve been in Winworth for four months, and I still knew as much as I did when we came to the town. They kept their secrets well-hidden, and every single attempt to sneak into City Hall failed, filling me with more and more anxiety.
They had the upper hand here, and I hated that even after all the preparations, after all those stories, all those sacrifices we made, we were nowhere near close to the truth. I had no idea who was killing those girls or why. It was obvious it had something to do with the Black Dahlia.
The runes carved into their skin, the way they were dismembered, Skylar’s name on them, somebody went through a great trouble to prepare for Samhain.
I just couldn’t understand why Skylar was involved. That was one piece of information that never fit in. One puzzle piece neither my uncle nor I could understand. If the documents were right, the last time they did ritual killings like these, was when they had just arrived in Winworth. So why now?
I was getting frustrated by the lack of information from Lars, our only source as to what The Order was planning. After that meeting with Indigo, all I got was radio silence.
It was getting harder to hide the truth from her, especially when she looked at me how she was looking at me now—innocently, with stars in her eyes, as if I could make the world a better place just by being here with her.
I stood up, letting her hand fall away from my thigh. “I’m gonna get another drink.” I shook my plastic cup. “Do you want anything?”
She knew something was up, of course she did. Skylar wasn’t as clueless as she wanted people to think, but instead of pressing me and asking about my behavior, she just shook her head, and turned back to Lauren, who was talking with Danny.
Right. Drinks then.
Truth be told, I just had to get out of here for a minute. The room was filled with more unfamiliar than familiar faces, and I slowly started feeling like I was suffocating. As if I carried all the weight of the world on my shoulders, and I didn’t know how to shake it off.
Getting lost in her was one way, but once the high wore off, when she wasn’t there to hold my hand, I was left alone with my thoughts and the things that were weighing me down.
Was I going to fail?
Was I doing the right thing?
