Page 165 of Dirty Hit
“I’m trying,” I say. “My stomach is still convinced it got stabbed, too.”
He stares. I take another bite just to get him to stop looking at me like that. Every time I so much as shift, he materializes out of nowhere, a large, anxious shadow.
“I’m just going to the bathroom,” I snap at one point, when he appears at my elbow the moment I lever myself off the couch.
“You’re wobbly. I’m going with you.”
“You’re not coming into the bathroom with me,” I say, scandalized. “I draw the line there.”
He looks at me, then at my side, then back at me. “Fine,” he says, at last. “Door open. If you faint, shout.”
“Oh yeah, that’ll work great,” I mutter. “I’ll shout on the way down.”
“Brendon,” he warns.
I sigh. “Door open.”
He stands in the hall like a guard outside a royal chamber while I pee, the door ajar like a toddler’s, and it is stupid and humiliating and somehow also bizarrely sweet, which just makes me more irritated.
By the time the sun sets on the third day, and the living room is bathed in orange light, my nerves are raw. Every little thing he does grates. The way he plumps the cushion behind my back without asking. The way he adjusts the blanket if it slips half an inch. The way he asks‘you okay?’every time my face moves.
At first, I swallow it. That is what I do—I swallow, smile, say thank you, and push things down until they sit in my gut and rot.
Tonight, the rot reaches my throat.
He comes back from the kitchen with another glass of water and the pain meds in his hand, brows drawn in that permanent frown he wears when he is pretending he’s fine.
“Time for another dose,” he says. “You’re starting to tense up.”
“I’m fine,” I say, even though my side is throbbing.
“You’re not,” he says. “You’re pale, and you’re doing that thing with your mouth. Take the pills.”
“Stop.”
His eyes flick up, surprised. “Stop what?” he asks.
“Hovering,” I snap. “Fussing. Treating me like I’m going to shatter if I move wrong. I’m not made of glass, Dominic. I got stabbed once, that doesn’t mean I break every time I stand up.”
His jaw clenches. “I’m making sure you don’t rip your stitches out, or bleed internally, because you think you’re fine when you’re not. Excuse me for giving a fuck.”
“I didn’t say you shouldn’t care,” I say. “I’m saying you’re suffocating me.”
His eyes flash. “I carried you into an ER covered in your blood while a surgeon dug around inside you to make sure you didn’t die,” he says. “Forgive me if I want to make sure that wasn’t for nothing.”
My patience snaps.
“I’m the one who started this whole mess!” I fire back, voice rising. “I’m the idiot who left his apartment in the middle of the night because he missed his boyfriend and wanted to be in his stupid murder cottage instead of staying where he was safe. I’m the one who fell asleep on your couch like a fucking child and didn’t even wake up when your mother walked in and stabbed me. You’re not suffocating me, Dominic; I suffocated myself. I walked into the knife, not you.”
My throat hurts, my eyes burn, but I can't stop the words from coming out. Tears spill over.I hate it.I hate the way my voicecracks, the way my chest heaves, the way my vision blurs. I swipe at my face angrily, only making it worse.
“I’m always fucking crying and I hate it,” I choke. “I’m weak and small, and I can’t handle anything without falling apart. You went and killed your mother and came back like some avenging angel, and I’m here sobbing on your couch because I can’t stand that you’re watching me breathe.”
“Brendon—”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Listen. You’re… you. You’re this impossible, terrifying, beautiful monster who stares down linebackers like they’re nothing and cuts the rot out of his life with a knife. You’re better off with someone who can match that—someone who doesn’t flinch at every noise or has panic attacks. Someone who didn’t almost die right in this spot because they were too pathetic to stay in their own bed. Someone who isn’t always going to be the weak link in your chain. You deserve better than a whining, crying, church-bred mess who can’t even walk to the bathroom without supervision.”
By the end, I’m hiccuping on the words, tears and snot running, head pounding. Jericho has abandoned the back of the couch and is now a little black loaf at my feet, ears flicking anxiously. The room feels too small, too bright. I swipe at my face again, furious at the wetness.
