Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 73230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
“I want to be an architect,” I said.
“Why that? You could be anything,” Jet said. “Like a nurse. Or a volleyball coach. Maybe a train conductor.”
I blinked, turning over onto my belly to look at him.
But before he could say anything else, the whole freaking wall behind us caved in.
We both scrambled, him going one way, and me the other.
Then a piece of the ceiling caved, and then I couldn’t see him anymore.
“Jet!” I screamed loudly. “Jet!”
I’d screwed up. Bad.
My mother and father had told me not to come here, but this was our place. Just Jet and I.
This was our place where I could hang out with him. Be with him. Talk to him without my parents thinking anything of our new relationship.
My parents were devout Catholics, and nowhere in their household would they allow my very best friend to have any sort of relationship with their sixteen-year-old daughter.
Jet was older than me, but only by a few months.
My dream morphed to the day he’d tried to kill himself.
Did kill himself.
I looked around the hospital room, wondering how long they’d allow me to stay before I was told to leave.
My eyes fell on the bed where Jet laid, tubes running out of him everywhere.
He had a breathing tube down his throat, and it was taped to his skin at the side of his mouth.
His eyes were closed, and his brown shaggy hair that I loved to run my fingers through fell limply against his head.
He didn’t look alive.
Not at all.
This wasn’t my Jet.
My Jet was always laughing about something.
It didn’t even have to be funny for him to be laughing.
He’d been doing well. Recovering. Then he’d relapsed. Something had happened, and all of a sudden I was left with this. This shell of the boy that I used to love.
He was only alive right now because his mother refused to take him off of life support since his father wasn’t back from his business trip out of the country.
I sat down heavily on the side of his bed, bringing his scarred hand up to my chest before dropping my head to press my lips against the knuckles of his hand.
“Why do you want to leave me…leave us? We would have loved you. It would’ve all been okay. I love you. Please,” I whispered, tears dripping down my face. “Please.”
His hand twitched, and I looked up just as he opened his eyes.
But they weren’t the usual chocolate brown.
They were a beautiful stormy gray.
A shade that I’d never seen in his face.
But the longer I looked at his eyes, the more I realized that those weren’t his eyes. Nor was it even his body.
It wasn’t Jet at all, but Casten.
“I’m here.”
“You’re here?” I asked in confusion.
“Yes, wake up.”
Wake up?
“Wake up!”
***
Casten
The screaming woke me so fast that I launched myself out of bed before I even realized I was moving.
My Glock was in my hand before I’d even consciously reached for it, and I was across the hallway before my sisters could get out of bed.
“Jet!” Tasha screamed. “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!”
I knew those agonizing screams.
They were mine, too.
Suicide wasn’t the answer, no matter what your problem.
Why?
Because there are people other than you that you have to think about. There are parents. Friends. Co-workers. Wives. Girlfriends. Husbands. Boyfriends. Hell, even the fucking dog will miss you.
So I knew those screams coming out of Tasha’s mouth, because I’d screamed them.
Lived them.
Been haunted by them.
I landed on my knees beside Tasha’s bed, barely recognizing the burn that accompanied the move.
“Tasha!” I pushed on her shoulder, then cupped her face. “Wake up.”
“Casten, don’t do it,” she whispered in an agonizing voice. “Please.”
“Tasha, I’m here. It’s me. Wake up.”
“Wake up?” she cried, breaking my heart.
The lights were turned on behind me, and I realized I was no longer alone with Tasha.
Both of my sisters likely filled the doorway behind me.
“Yes, wake up.”
Her eyelids fluttered open, and I was met with wide, terrified eyes.
“You didn’t kill yourself,” she whispered.
I shook my head. “No. I’d never do that.”
The certainty in my voice finally pushed through the fog of pain that surrounded her, and she relaxed, holding onto my hand like it was an anchor in the storm of emotions running through her right now.
“Don’t ever do it. Please,” she pleaded, her sobs broke through, and I leaned down until my forehead rested on hers.
“I won’t. I won’t,” I promised.
She threw her hands around my neck.
“That’s what he said, too. He said it. And he didn’t mean it,” she told me brokenly. “He lied to me. To my face. I saw the signs, called him on them, and he did it anyway. He knew it’d break me.”
I didn’t know what to say.
That wasn’t good. In fact, it was horrible.
“I’m sorry, T,” I told her. “But I’m not a boy. I’m a man with a ton of responsibilities. I have a family. I have a life. I have a club. I won’t do it.”