Page 98 of Iced Up Love: Part Two
“I have it all planned,” he says. “Everything. It’s going to be perfect.”
My stomach turns again.
“I can’t eat anymore,” I say, my voice barely there. “I feel—”
My head dips forward slightly, the room tilting with it.
“How many drugs are in my system?” I ask, the question coming out before I fully think it.
He laughs softly.
“Nothing for you to worry about,” he says. “I know what I’m doing.”
My fingers curl slightly against my legs.
“It’s just until you stop doing things that get you hurt,” he adds, his tone gentle again. “Then you won’t need them.”
The words settle somewhere distant.
Not close enough to react to.
“Just rest,” he says.
He helps me up again, guiding me back to the bed, his hand steady at my back as I move, my body slow, heavy, like it doesn’t fully belong to me anymore.
The chain shifts when I sit, the faint sound of it dragging across the floor barely registering.
I lie down because it’s easier than staying upright.
Because everything feels like effort. He comes with me.
His hand moves through my hair again, slow, repetitive, his fingers brushing over my skin in a way that’s meant to be comforting.
It isn’t.
It makes my skin crawl. But I don’t move away. I don’t have the strength to. I don’t have the clarity to.
I just lie there, staring past him, letting it happen without reacting to it properly.
His voice continues somewhere above me, talking about the future, about us, about things that don’t feel real enough to understand.
I don’t follow it.
I can’t.
My thoughts drift.
Slip.
Fade.
And somewhere in that space, something shifts. A thought that doesn’t disappear immediately. A feeling that doesn’t slide away before it forms.
If they were going to find me, they would have by now.
It settles slowly.
Heavier than everything else.
