On the tenth day I contemplate suicide. I can’t do that to Jase, though, and I’ve still got something inside me that demands I stay alive. To wreak vengeance on Dornan, to drag him out to the desert, shoot him in the stomach, and wait for vultures to pick out his fucking entrails while he screams. My dark fantasies of the ways I will torture him are the only things that keep me alive. Were it not for that, I would surely let this grief consume me, whole.
Eleven days after I delivered our baby and left her still little body in a hospital morgue, I wait until Jase is asleep and slip into the bathroom. I’ve still got the bottle of pills I stole from Elliot, the Percocet for his gunshot wound that mysteriously disappeared from his bag before he left. Poor dude. I know Luis suspected me, but he didn’t find the pills, obviously. I don’t want to kill myself until I’ve dealt with Dornan, but I sure as hell want to get a nice buzz for a couple of hours and get some goddamn relief from the pain that constricts around my heart like a vice.
I reach around the back of the toilet cistern, where I’ve taped the bottle of pills. Unpeeling the tape as quietly as I can, I unscrew the lid and peer inside.
It’s empty. Fuck.
I choke back a sob as I peer inside the bottle. Not a single tablet! When I hid it there were twenty-three—I know, I counted them.
The door bursts open as I’m shaking the bottle upside down.
It’s Jase, and he looks like he’s been wide-awake for some time. Waiting for me to fuck up, I realize with a sinking stomach.
“Whatcha doing, Julz?” he asks me cruelly, snatching the bottle from my hand. He looks mad.
“You found them already,” I breathe. Of course he had.
He bunches his fists tightly. “You better tell me what’s going on. Or I swear to fucking God, I will leave you here and never look back.”
I stare at him glumly. “I just thought I could—”
“Thought you could what? Switch one habit for another? After you’ve already come so far?”
A sob bubbles up in my throat. “It hurts, okay?!” I demand shrilly, my eyes wet with tears as I clutch at my chest. “It fucking hurts.”
Jase rushes me, taking me by the shoulders. “It’s supposed to hurt,” he yells. “Shit like this is supposed to hurt.” He wipes his eyes with the back of his arm. “You think you’re the only one hurting here?”
“No, of course not,” I say quietly.
“Jesus, Juliette,” he says, clearly disgusted. “This?” he gestures at me and shakes the empty bottle in his hand, “This is what you grew up with. You really want to repeat the past?”
“No.”
“Well then what the fuck are you doing? You’re past the worst of it, past the withdrawals, and you need to start leveling with me, baby.”
I raise my eyes to him. “I know. I’m sorry.”
He rubs his stubbled jaw with his palm, clearly frustrated. “I don’t need your sorry. I need you to be fucking honest with me.”
I nod. “I know.”
“Tell me what’s going on,” he says, his dark eyes flashing in the dim light of the bathroom. “Tell me why you think you need this shit.”
“I—”
I lose it. Everything that’s happened, it all comes rushing around me like a flood, and I can’t hold on. “He gave it to me,” I say, my words quick and frenzied as they tumble from within me. “I tried to stop him. I tried!” My heart starts pounding and I can’t see straight. I sink to my knees, coming to a sitting position up against the edge of the bathtub. A panic attack. I’m having a panic attack. “He killed me. I was dead. I said goodbye. I was ready. And then,” I can’t bear the memories of him shooting me up, oh, God I don’t want to go back there, “then he brought me back. I was dead. I was dead.” I’m hysterical.
“Juliette,” Jase says sharply. “Stay with me, baby.” He gets to the cold ground beside me, wrapping his arms around me. He pulls me to his chest and strokes my hair until I breathe a little easier, until the chaos recedes a little.
Finally, I wipe my eyes and pull away a little, so we’re eye to eye. He looks exhausted. Exhausted and stricken with grief.
“It’s my fault,” I whisper. “I’m so stupid. I should have known. I thought if I just got through that cold turkey, everything would be okay.”
Jase opens his mouth to talk but I press on. I need to get this out now.
“I didn’t know stopping all of a sudden would hurt the baby.” Would kill the baby. “You know what’s stupid? I was actually letting myself believe that it would all work out. That we could finally just be happy together.”