Can You Keep A Secret?

Chapter Thirty-Four

-Rye's POV-

When I woke up, it was raining. And I don't mean your average, run-of-the-mill rain – It was fucking pouring. The streets were a shallow pond – I lay in a giant puddle, every single inch of me soaking wet. You know the feeling you get when you step in something wet with your socks on? It felt like, but all over me.

In fact, one of my shoes was downright missing, which sucked, because they had been a nice pair. Oh well – it didn't matter. Nothing did. Before I was even fully awake, I was shivering involuntarily. Each one of my eyelashes seemed to be weighed down with individual raindrops, and I wondered if that was what Andy had felt like when he was drowning.

It took me a moment before I remembered what had happened last night, what had gotten me here – After taking me to get my stitches out, Mikey had gone back home, reassuring me approximately 150 times that I could call him any time, for any reason, and that he would be right over. Throughout the day, I had reassured him around 1,285 times that I would tell my family what had happened as soon as I got home.

And then...I didn't go. I left a message saying I would be staying at Mikey's, and then took a random train, trying to combat the anxiety I felt from being there alone, and got off at a random spot, for no particular reason other than that I kept thinking I was seeing the guy, or hearing a gunshot, and that I felt like I might throw up – So, yeah, okay, maybe there was a reason.

Wherever I went, though, it followed. My first night back home, Mikey had woken me up because I'd been screaming and crying in my sleep, although I couldn't remember a single thing of it. Yesterday I wasn't so lucky, and the nightmare that I'd had was still vivid in my mind. I found in difficult to interact with anyone, and straight-up impossible to open up about what had happened. I felt secluded, like I was the only person in the universe who knew what had happened, who could understand. I'd attempted calling Liv to talk about it, but then hung up before she could answer.

I was on edge all the time, and maybe that's why I said yes when a group of guys on the street corner asked me if I wanted to join them in smoking a joint. I guess it was obvious how jumpy I was, and they seemed so mellow and relaxed, and I was desperate to get in on that. So, even though I'd never done drugs beyond the occasional cup of beer at a party every now and then, I said yes.

And at first it had worked, it had been okay – It had felt surreal, how fast things had moved in just over a week. Out of all the places I had imagined my life going, smoking with a group of strangers on a dirty street corner in a town that I didn't know the name of certainly wasn't one of them.

I don't know how long we were there, but the world became warped and twisted and erased everything that had happened, and my brain rushed with happiness. I felt like I belonged there, with these people, and the thought of a life feeling like this forever passed through my head, and my, oh my, how I was desperate to hold onto that. But it didn't last forever, nothing does, and the swirling circles sharpened their edges until I ran into a spike, taking me by surprise.

The world shivered and shook at the edges, and my heart raced so fast that I thought I was going to have a heart attack and die. Every single one of them turned into him, and I went into a state of panic. I ran and ran and ran but it was like jogging on a treadmill – I wasn't getting anywhere. The ground all looked the same, but when I looked up, the only building around was the skeleton of one just begun. The sky was black, not a star to be seen, and the guys were gone. It was just me, and suddenly I was exhausted – the bliss drained from me just like a flattened tire.

I stumbled over to the beams and wood, feeling a connection to them. The house had hardly just begun, and it felt like all the pieces were stacked precariously and could be knocked over at any time, and on the inside, it was empty – Just like me.

I walked into a pole trying to maneuver my way in, and when I tripped and fell, I didn't bother to try and get up. The sleep had taken over me within minutes. And now, here I was – in the same place, the sky unleashing its misery onto me, every part of me so soaking wet that I felt like I would dissolve and become a part of the water itself.

My head ached, my heart ached, and I probably would've stayed there like that, if it weren't so damn cold. My clothing clung to me as I slowly sat up. My phone, which had somehow managed to stay inside my pocket this entire time, was now so waterlogged that I didn't even bother trying to turn it on.

I pulled off my one remaining shoe, which immediately began to fill up with water. I slowly stripped my socks off as well, one by one and delicately hung one on the framing of the house, and threw the other as far as I could. I had left my marking; I had been here. I couldn't explain why I did what I did – nothing made any sense to me anymore.

I pulled my shirt off fighting back against its resistance, struggling to remain attached to my skin. I let the rain pelt itself against my bare skin, onto my bullet wound. Somewhere along the line, I'd let myself become less than I was – a number, a statistic, an anonymous name, a ghost who had been there, the last shot that nobody knew about.

I didn't know if I was crying or if they sky was. I twisted my shirt, a stupid and pointless attempt to get the water out of it. I was more than a fraction or a rumor, or a video or an idealistic person singing on a stage. The rain, the freezing cold, had a way of stripping you down to your truth, as naked as a newborn baby.

No melodies, no tune, no music, not now, nothing to make the fall any softer – But it was time to get back up. The pain was real, and so was I, and the fear still ran through me, but it no longer had control over me. This was no longer a secret that I could keep without it destroying me.

I put my shirt back on, left the construction zone, walked until I found a store that was open. I stood, dripping wet, as if I was the rainstorm itself, probably looking like a drenched rat. It didn't take much begging to get somebody to allow me to borrow their phone.

At first, I was greeted with yelling form my mum, her telling me that she knew I didn't stay at Mikey's, that everyone had been out looking for me, and did I know that – I let her go on until she wore herself out.

Her voice went quitter as she said, "We didn't know what had happened to you. We thought you had gotten hurt." I swallowed hard before speaking again.

"I did."