Page 144 of Under the Waves

But I was never that lucky.

I gasped. “I-I’m not l-lying, mom!”

I was lying. I was a horrible, cheating, flamingliar.

“I have n-no idea w-where your pills a-are…”

She didn’t believe me.

I could see it in her eyes.

With a frustrated scream, she turned, picked up her empty bottle of wine, and threw the bottle against the wall above my head. Glass shards rained down on me from above. Shielding my eyes, I tucked myself into a small ball as tight as I could. Every part of me was trembling.I don’t want to be here anymore,I thought in that moment.I don’t want to be alive anymore. I can’t do it anymore.As she gasped for breath, running her hands through her hair, I managed to pull myself to my knees and make a headline for the bathroom. I ran down that hallway and I did not look back until the bathroom door slammed shut behind me and my back sank down the frame until it hit the floor.

I’d been running ever since.

For miles and miles.

The gray clouds that once covered the moon now begun to pour down with rain. My hoodie and jean shorts lasted longer than I thought they would until they became completely soaked through and through. My whole body was shivering.

I didn’t know how long I’d been running, how far I’d been running with soaked clothes and glass shards wedged into the skin of my feet and arms. My stomach pinched with nausea and my head pounded against my skull. Yet, I did not stop running. Not until Jasper’s house came into focus and I knew in my heart that this was where I was meant to be.

My pace slowed down as I neared. With a wince, I pulled out as many small shards of glass from my arms as I could without screaming the whole neighborhood awake. He was going to ask questions. Questions I couldn’t answer.

This was a stupid idea.

But…I had nowhere else to go.

Just before my knuckles made contact with the wood of his front door, it swung open.

Jasper stood before me in his gray sweats and Marvel hoodie.

His lips parted slightly like he wanted to say something but nothing came out.

He didn’t know what to say.

I didn’t know what to say.

The rain still poured down from above, completely drenching me in its wake.

But Jasper still didn’t say a single word.

Didn’t ask me what was wrong or what I was doing standing outside his house at three in the morning in the pouring rain.

Instead, he just opened his arms.

And I walked right into them.

“You’re safe with me,” he whispered, pressing a gentle kiss to my hair as his hand drew idle strokes up and down my back. “I’ve got you, Wellsy.”

Those words were all it took for the tears to erupt from my eyes once again and before I knew it, Jasper had picked me up in his arms and slowly lowered us both to the ground.

For hours, we sat like that in the thundering rain on the edge of his porch, him just comforting me silently as I cried and cried andcried. The weight of everything was just. Too.Much.

“Shhh, you’re okay, Wellsy,” he soothed, stroking the back of my head. “Just let it out.”

I was crumbling and I didn’t know how to stop myself from breaking.

“I c-can’t d-do this a-anymore,” I sobbed, unable to catch a breath. “I c-can’t l-live like t-this anymore.”