Chapter 32 - Rock Bottom
"I killed someone." And just like that, the whispered confession killed something in me. Some light I hadn't known existed until it was gone. That darkness provided only one comfort; that I'd hit rock bottom and I couldn't get any lower than that. I wasn't sure if being stuck there was any better though.
There was suddenly a giant hook in my stomach that had the ability to hold me on the verge of nausea without ever providing the relief of throwing up... a tornado inside me that had a knife caught in it, swirling around my stomach and cutting me up from the inside.
I think the regret was what hurt the most.
The guilt would destroy me — stir up a burning hatred inside of me, a hatred of everything and everybody, mostly of myself.
But the regret took everything from you. Not just the present, but the past and the future. It was the knife stuck in the middle of the tornado. The tornado had to pass eventually but the knife would still be there, doing its own damage.
It was that wish that you could go back in time and do one small thing differently— because then your life would be perfect, then everything would be okay — followed by the realization that no matter who you were or what you did, you could never change the past.
West was shushing my cries as he carried me somewhere, but I was too sad to breathe, let alone move. I just watched him, with a heavy detachment that brought me anything but comfort.
He placed me on the counter of the master bathroom, reaching over me to grab something from the cabinet next to my head. Our faces were so close, I should've been able to see every wrinkle of distress on his face but there weren't any. I was breaking and he was so damn calm.
I finally worked up enough energy to say something but I couldn't breathe and the words came out scratchy, straining my throat as if I'd screamed.
"I don't understand, I didn't drink that night, I knew I had to drive home." I watched as he brought a first aid kit in front of me, tearing open an antiseptic pad as he picked up my bleeding foot.
"That's why I forgave you. You had a drink right? Soda or something? I think it got spiked." He said it so calmly I almost didn't hear the admission that put everything in place and shattered the last semblance of reality I thought I understood.
"Forgave me?" He tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, nodding his head. God, I felt so small.
"Does this hurt?" He asked softly as he cleaned the gash on my foot. My heart ached.
"Everything hurts." New tears managed to escape the shattering hold I had on my sadness.
It was all over. Slate, my chance at a new life... all gone. More tears pooled out. And here I was being selfish, crying about my life coming to an end, when I'd ended someone else's. For just a second I tried to pin it on whoever had drugged me but I'd gotten behind the wheel all on my own.
West cupped my jaw with a force I hadn't expected. It wasn't painful but it took me by surprise. He'd been so calm and now his eyes were burning with an energy that wasn't there before.
His fingers flexed against my neck, tightening then releasing as if he wanted to grip me harder but he fought the urge as he angled my head up to look him in the eyes. "I can make it go away baby."
"No you can't." I cried, pushing at his chest until he moved enough for me to jump down from the counter. Pain seared through my foot as I landed on the un-bandaged cut but I needed to leave before West concreted the unwanted information he'd already hinted at. His jaw clenched tightly and I had a flashback to when he'd slammed me against a brick wall so hard I'd felt my skull shake.
If I'd been wrong about our roles in this relationship, if West wasn't the villain...
"He was a friend of ours. Vinny and I were in the car too but we had to run before the cops got there."
...then I was.
His words brought me to my knees. I'd been calling him a psychopath when I'd been the murderer all along.
I was sobbing now, throwing out 'I'm sorry' like it'd bring back his friend but I knew well enough that words had the power to take a life but not the power to bring one back.
His hand came behind my head, holding me as I cried against his leg but he remained standing, unmoved.
My cries quieted down eventually, purely a result of exhaustion, but West took the opportunity to speak.
"My friend Vinny wanted revenge after the accident. Noah died on impact, there was nothing we could do for him, but we had a shit ton of cocaine in the car that we were about to bring across the border and we had to get rid of it. You were out of it but we'd gotten a good look at you before we called 911 and ran off.
When your brother turned up as the offender at the court case a week later, Vinny looked into it. He came to me, told me he found out Jace was your brother and that he'd taken the blame for you. He wanted to do something, said justice hadn't been served. I hesitated at first, I was angry too but not like him, him and Noah were closer. Eventually he convinced me and we started planning.
The whole 'boss' thing was his fùckin' idea, he thought it'd give our threats more weight if you believed we had power, so I went along with it. The plan was just to toy with you, ruin your life like you'd ruined Noah's. But as time went on Vinny's bloodthirst only seemed to grow and mine started fading." He crouched down then so that we were face to face. I couldn't meet his gaze, there was so much guilt, I stole your friend, I stole your friend, I stole your friend. My stomach rolled all over again but I bit down the nausea. I wouldn't fall apart more than I already had, not here, not in front of him, not in front of anybody.
"Look at me," His words were soft but assertive and I did what he asked. I would've done anything he asked.
His eyes were like lasers, burning into me. Wasn't green supposed to be calming? I didn't feel calm.
He dragged his thumbs below my eyes, wiping away my tears and smudged makeup. "I met you. I got to know you. It didn't take long for me to realize you weren't a bad person but I thought you were selfish for letting your brother take the blame for you. Then... well then I talked to Jace and I found out you didn't remember any of it and he told me you were drugged. You'd been talking to him on the phone right before the accident and he said it was like a flip had switched, one moment you were fine, just complaining about a headache and next you could barely form intelligible sentences. I told him you deserved to know the truth and then he swung at me."
I whimpered at the mention of what Jace had done. The thought of what he'd given up for me, for my mistake, was an unbearable one. I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to look him in the eye again.
"And that's how you ended up at the police station the other day." West nodded his head in response, eyeing me hesitantly.
"I need to go." I whispered, standing quickly and making my way out of the bathroom and towards the front door. It took him a second to react but I heard him trailing behind me not long after. I grabbed my shoes, not stopping to put them on and swung the door open, I had about half my body out when West called my name, halting me.
"I understand you need time to process everything, I get that, but we need to figure out where we're gonna go from here, Vinny might not be my boss but he's angry and he's still a threat to you."
"We're not going to do anything. He should be angry...I'd be angry." The last three words came as an afterthought, I'd already slammed the door shut behind me by the time they left my mouth and West's muffled yell of my name helped to drown them out.
Once I'd escaped his apartment, I ran. I had no idea where I was going, only that I couldn't stop long enough for reality to catch up to me.
I knew I'd been running for a while when my phone started blowing up. The ringing pulled me out of my trance and I all but collapsed in the middle of the sidewalk as exhaustion clawed at me.
My lungs were working harder then they were capable of, causing pain to tear through my chest with every inhale. I was wheezing like I had asthma and I found myself crawling to the nearby bench. I didn't even want to look at the damage I'd done, I'd been running barefoot on an open wound and I couldn't feel my foot anymore.
I pulled out my phone, the time let me know I'd left West's place two hours ago and fear paralyzed me as I realized I'd been zoned out since, running blindly for miles. The word crazy rattled around my head as I realized I'd pushed my body beyond its limits and hadn't noticed or felt the pain until now.
Missed calls from Slate were piling up on my phone but it was the hundreds of worried texts from Christian, AJ, Alec and Jace that had me throwing my phone into the middle of the street where a car passed a second later, crushing it into nothing. I didn't deserve for them to worry about me. I scanned my surroundings not knowing where I was, but a nearby gas station had me pulling on my previously neglected shoes that I was still holding. My foot was slick with blood but I ignored it along with the ache and shakiness of my legs and made my way to the gas station, heading straight for the bathroom.
I braced my hands on the sink, staring at myself in the mirror. My mascara was smudged, darkening my usually bright eyes and there was a sheer layer of sweat covering my bright red skin. The world seemed to tilt on its axis as I saw myself clearly for the first time.
I'd never expected to see the eyes of a murderer staring back at me.
I wanted an escape, something to take the pain away; pills or alcohol or Slate but I only had a hundred dollars in my pocket and I already knew how I was going to use it.
I grabbed some toilet paper and wiped the mascara and sweat from my face until I looked decent and planted a fake smile on my face, straightening my spine like I had a bar in my back. I walked out of the gas station and headed straight for the tattoo parlour next door.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Slate ambushed me the second I walked into the lobby of my hotel. He stormed towards me causing the wind of the hurricane surrounding me to pick up, but the closer he got the warmer the wind became, and then finally he touched me and I was back in the sauna from this morning. As long as he was touching me the cold couldn't.
He tossed me over his shoulder, the anger rolling off of him creating a force field around us as he carried me to the elevator. Neither of us spoke until we got to my room.
He slammed the door closed and brought me down so I was standing in front of him. I leaned back against the closed door, wanting to be closer to him but knowing I couldn't stand much longer, not now that I was behind closed doors. The dam holding back the after-effects of the hurricane was threatening to crack and it didn't seem to care that Slate was here.
"Where the fûck have you been?" He seethed, grinding his teeth together so forcefully that the sound sent a chill down my spine. He wasn't bothering to conceal his temper with me anymore. He'd told me he had anger problems but he always seemed to have a good hold on his emotions around me, even the times I'd gotten hurt he'd tried to contain his anger. But not now.
"I went for a run." His hand came slamming down hard against the door, causing my head to vibrate as the whole thing shook under his strength. Wrong answer? His hand lay only a few inches away from my head but I didn't flinch. Slate had never scared me, not in that way at least. My heart was pounding for a different reason.
"Don't lie to me. Anyone else, but not me." I flipped my gaze up to his, bloodshot eyes met mine and I realized mine probably matched his.
This was love, our twisted form of it at least. I'd disappeared for a few hours and he'd lost his mind over me?
I grabbed his shirt, pulling him against me until our lips met. I couldn't give him up and I knew he'd forgive me for the sin I'd committed, he shouldn't, but he would.
Slate pulled away from the kiss eventually, keeping our heads close as he gripped my face in both of his hands. "Do you have any idea how worried I was? Four hours Willow, you disappeared for four fûcking hours without telling anyone, after making me drop you off at some random building. I thought you got hurt."
I squeezed my eyes shut tightly, I did get hurt.
His sharp intake of air had me snapping my eyes open and the moment he grabbed my wrist, a flip switched in me. I lost it. He might be able to forgive me but I couldn't forgive myself.
Saran wrap was peeking out from my sleeve, and he quickly pushed back my sweater to reveal the freshly tattooed date on my wrist.
"What the fùck is that?" He questioned harshly, worry edged into his features like he knew what it meant.
"I took a page out of your book," I shrugged, a miserable smile turned up the edges of my lips as I sunk deeper into myself. "I got the date he was born as a reminder that I took that away from him." Slate's hands went slack on my face, dropping away a second later as he took a step back like I'd pushed him off balance.
The cold rushed towards me from every direction, wrapping itself around me with an iron grip. "Did you hear I killed someone? No? Surprise." The words rang out like a gunshot, harsh and terrifying, echoing around me.
Slate moved quickly, grabbing the blanket off the bed and wrapping it around my shaking form, but I shrugged it off just as quickly, sidestepping him. You're too late, the cold has me now and it's not letting go.
"Who told you?" His voice sliced through me, and I spun back towards him, a new dose of adrenaline coursing through me. My vision went red and rage burned in my chest like I'd just swallowed a mouthful of vodka. I almost slapped him.
"You knew?" Betrayal laced my words as I pushed at his chest repeatedly causing his face to twist with anger. Then his eyebrows slammed together hard, transforming his expression into one of irritation.
"This is why I didn't tell you, I'm not gonna lose you to this shit." He was shaking his head side to side as if he'd already made that decision for us, as if it was true just because he'd said it.
"I KILLED SOMEONE!" I repeated, yelling this time to get it through his thick fûcking skull. His hand slammed into the ceramic vase beside us sending it into the wall forcefully as he met my tone and intensity.
"STOP FÙCKING SAYING THAT." The low baritone of his voice mixed with the loudness of his words created a deep vibration in his throat but I was already shaking my head as I cut off his attempt to make an excuse for me.
"I quit." I whispered, resting my back against the wall as I brought the neck of my sweater to my lips, a weak attempt to hide my trembling lips.
"What do you mean you quit? This isn't a game Willow." I could hear the hurt straining his voice as he approached me slowly, scared I would run away.
"I wish it was." My throat felt tight, constricting and strangling me as I watched my words touch him. I meant it too, if this was all a game then I could just press the restart button. Why did he look like he was in pain? I didn't want to hurt him.
"How can you say that?" He demanded, his voice heavy with emotion. His hands gripped my hips as he sunk down to his knees in front of me, putting us in the same position I'd been in with West this morning, but the roles were switched. He made me feel strong and powerful when my entire life felt like it was slipping out of my grasp, about to shatter on the ground all around me. "After everything we've been through?"
"Don't you get it?" I asked, my vision blurry as I held his head in my hands, playing with the shaved hair around his ears. "It's all you, Slate. Nothing else matters. But I did something horrible and I can't control how that makes me feel about myself."
"I can help you — " He started, but I pulled him up to my level not wanting him to be bowing down to me when it was my fault everything was falling apart.
"—Even if you can, the scales have to balance themselves out Slate. I did something bad and now something bad has to happen to me." I wasn't sure when the dam had broken but the evidence that it had was dripping down my cheeks. Slate was cupping my cheek again, his fingers buried themselves in my hair as his eyes pierced into mine, a scoff pulling from his throat as he rolled his eyes.
"Because you haven't been through enough shìt already." I wanted to laugh at how true his words felt. It all felt so brutally unfair and I wanted to scream that I'd never even gotten a fair chance at life but I'd seen with Cherry that self-pity was the deadliest of illnesses.
So I took a deep breath and swallowed my anger. Letting Vinny get the closure he needed so he could move forward with his life, even at my own expense, was the only way I could see this ending.
"Then what?" He was angry with how I was handling the situation, but we were carbon copies of each other and I think knowing that he would handle it the same way was what was causing him the most pain. He didn't want to accept that this was the only option but he knew it was.
"And then you realize maybe this is it, maybe you've hit rock bottom and your shirt is stuck, and you can't get it out no matter how hard you try."
"Take the damn shirt off."
I could feel more tears forming in my eyes as I shook my head, causing his hand to fall away.
"It doesn't work like that."
A/N
No vote gif today, it doesn't feel appropriate 😭😭😭
xoxo
-SlytherinAfff