Suicide Saved Me

Chapter 13

I awoke to the darkened walls of my bedroom with a new sense of clarity and a faint buzzing in my ears.

Blaze was not lying beside me as she had been before, so I kicked off the blankets and got out of bed. I stood upright too suddenly and my eyes blackened out.

When my sight returned, so did Blaze.

"Carter!" She pushed my bedroom door open and rushed over to me in alarm. "How are you feeling?"

"Never been better," I smirked down at her as she wrapped an arm around my waist and tried to carry some of my weight. I realized I tipped off my balance before she held me, and looked at her gratefully for it.

"I was just coming to call you down for dinner," she smiled.

"Dinner," I repeated mindlessly, in turn feeling the emptiness inside my stomach.

She helped me all the way down the staircase, and by the time we reached the bottom, I could feel the wooziness from the medication wearing off.

"Oh, thank you, Blaze!" My mother hurried toward us. She was spending an awful amount of time in the kitchen nowadays, cooking and cleaning and trying to be an ordinary person. I would have minded it before everything had changed, but her pretending fascinated me.

My mother softly clapped her hands onto my cheeks and looked me in the eyes. "Are you feeling better? The doctor left, but if you need me to call her I will."

I smiled. "No worries. I'm all right."

"Come. Sit." My father's usually booming voice arrived rather calmly. He was addressing Blaze and I, motioning towards the dining room chairs.

He dragged the chair at the head of the table across the polished wood, and sat down after we did. His eyes were on my face throughout dinner, but instead of the pity I expected to find there, his eyes were filled with concern.

Remarkably enough, Blaze and my mother made conversation. Actual conversation. And at the end of the evening, Blaze thanked my parents for their hospitality.

The moonlight shone off the hood of the white Mercedes that was parked behind my car in the driveway.

I walked Blaze outside to her car.

"I'm impressed," I confessed with a smile on my lips.

She paused beside the driver's side and turned to face me, raising her chin proudly to the sky. "As am I."

I narrowed my eyes curiously. "With?"

She shrugged and wrapped her arms around my neck. "You. Forgiving me and all..."

Reminding me of what had happened felt as though she dug her nails into the memory, clawing at the open wound.

"You do forgive me, right?" She focused her eyes onto my own and raised her eyebrows. It wasn't so much what she said, but the way that she said it. She expected me to forgive her as though I had no choice of my own.

I sighed. "You don't have to ask a million times."

"I'm trying to make sure."

I nodded, avoiding her gaze.

"You don't," she realized after a moment and removed her arms from around my neck.

"Blaze, I cared about you." I shook my head in disappointment. "And what you did—"

"You know why I did it!"

"That doesn't mean that it was right," I countered, setting my jaw into a straight line.