Knowing now how he feels, it would be so easy to fall into his warmth and security. But my heart sits elsewhere, beating for someone who hasn't even come to see if it's still beating at all.

"You're safe with me, Nor." His voice carries the weight of promises I know he'd never break. The kind of promises that should make a girl's heart soar, not sink with the gravity of what she can't return.

I nod, because lies of omission are still lies, but they hurt less to tell.

"It's all just a lot," I manage through sniffles, fresh tears glazing my vision.

"I know it is. And you're doing one hell of a job keeping it together. You're going to get through this. I'll be there, carrying you if I have to. Both figuratively and literally."

My lips tremble with an earthquake of emotions—grief, fear, and guilt fighting for dominance.

"Jake..."

"I should have fought harder." His voice hardens with self-recrimination. "I shouldn't have let you walk away that easily. I should⁠⁠—"

"Jake, don't."

"This is all his fault. If he didn't run off like he always does to prove a fucking point..."

Anger flares hot and sudden in my chest, a wildfire in a field of guilt. I pull away, the movement sharp as broken glass.

"Where is he?"

Pain and frustration shadow Jake's eyes.

"I don't know. I haven't spoken to him since that night. Since you were admitted."

Almost four weeks of silence.

Nausea rises like a tide.

Had anyone checked on him? Made sure he was okay?

The questions circle chaotically, but I swallow them down with the bitter taste of abandonment.

I grasp Jake's hand, squeezing what little strength I have into it.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For always being by my side, even when I don't deserve it."

"You do deserve it, and I'll always be by your side." He pauses, weight gathering in the silence like storm clouds. "I meant it when I said I love you."

My breath catches because I know what he wants to hear, but saying 'I love you too' would mean something entirely different from what he needs it to mean.

Some silences are kinder than words.

And some truths are better left in the wreckage of a car on the side of the road, buried beneath twisted metal and broken glass, where they can't hurt anyone but me.

77. Broken Promiƨeƨ

CHAPTER 77

BROKEN PROMIƧEƧ

NATE

The world dissolves into liquid, reality bleeding at the edges like watercolor on wet paper. My body's dead weight against Monty's half-deflated mattress, but my mind—my mind fragments like shattered glass, each shard reflecting a different version of my personal hell.

When Monty pushed the needle in, his words evaporated before they could reach me through the chemical haze. Whatever poison cocktail he's given me this time burns through my veins like liquid fire. Too much, maybe. Or finally enough to drown out her screams that have been echoing in my skull for weeks. I'm weightless yet chained to earth, suspended in that razor-thin space between sweet oblivion and raw agony.