Page 461 of Summer Heat
I open the door without thinking of the cuts on my back and the pain sears through me.
“Why do you have to be such an asshole all the time?”
Tyler’s question is met with nothing from me. Not a single emotion that I can give him.
“You don’t have to make her feel like she’s not welcome.”
Anger makes me swallow hard. I still don’t respond.
I’ll never tell him how I feel about her, but at least now I know how she feels about me.
“Are you going to say anything?”
My lips part and I want to give him something, anything. But the fact that I went out of my way for her last night … maybe that’s why. Maybe she knows I want her. The idea hits and steals my words from me.
“She’s a good person,” Tyler tells me as if that’s why I stay away from her.
“I love you, Tyler. God knows it. But you’re a fucking idiot.”
I should have kept my mouth shut, but everyone has their limits.
“She loves me and she’s not going anywhere,” he tells me with a confidence I’ve never seen in my baby brother.
My baby brother who’s oblivious to what we really are and what goes on here.
My baby brother who’s never been struck once by my father.
My perfect baby brother who wants to make everyone around him smile because he’s never known pain like I have.
“She only loves you because she has no one else who loves her.” My gaze pins him where he is as I say the words. “Remember that.”
***
Loneliness is a bitter pill to swallow. I know I’ve brought it on myself, but still. A sarcastic, humorless huff leaves me as I grab the bottle of whiskey and take a swig.
It must be karma.
I left Addison to her loneliness so I could survive.
Now she’s leaving me to mine to ruin me.
Touché, little love.
The whiskey burns as I take another heavy drink. And with it every possibility of where I lost her flashes in my mind. The times from back when we were younger and I held back so much, to only moments ago when I didn’t hold back a damn thing.
I lick my lower lip and then pick the bottle back up, but a timid knock stops me from chugging back more of the amber liquid.
“Daniel,” I hear Addison’s voice from beyond the door. Hope flickers deep inside of me, flirting with a darkness that’s nearly consumed me.
My heart pauses. So do my lungs. It’s only when I hear her again that they both decide to function again. She’s here. She came to me.
My blood buzzes as I stand up and make my way to the front door. All while I stride to the door the alcohol sets in, and I hear her call out again. “Please open the door, Daniel.”
She’s mid-motion of knocking again with her mouth parted and more to say when I pull the door open. She looks shocked and even flinches slightly.
“Daniel,” she says my name with a hint of surprise, but quickly her expression and tone change. “I wanted to explain.”
And that right there is why I didn’t let that hope grow. The coldness in my chest puts out the small flame. It’s hard to school my expression. It’s hard to hide it from her. But a part of me is screaming not to. To let her see what she’s doing to me. To make sure she knows she’s destroying me bit by bit.
