Save Me

Chapter Fifteen

A.N. HALFWAY THROUGH THE BOOK! (30 chapters, same with the other books - I'm very OCD about my books ending on a x10th chapter lol). I'm so glad to be on track to finally completing this series!

This is gonna be a bit of an explosive chapter I think. I've added Patrick Schwarzenegger to the cast, since he played Darby in the last book. Idk why I chose him I just thought he was well fit lmao. Anyway, DARBY is BACK and as you're about to find out, he knows how to hold a grudge!

"I always believed that when you follow your heart or your gut, when you really follow the things that feel great to you, you can never lose, because settling is the worst feeling in the world."

-Rihanna

♔ Chapter Fifteen ♔

The last time that I saw Darby Darling, tears were streaming his face, and anger flamed in his eyes, like he wanted to throw me over the cliff that loomed nearby, the same cliff that I threw his best friend over.

I remembered thinking the worst, the moment I finally told him what I had done - he hates me, he fucking loathes me, doesn't he?

He used to love me.

It had been building up inside of me, back then - the guilt. More than it ever did now. Days would go by where I'd feel trapped inside my skin, inside an empty room somewhere I couldn't remember, paralysed by the truth of what I'd done. I could barely live with myself, with what I'd done. Darby was the only thing I held onto, the only thing that kept me grounded to reality. Without him, I knew I'd spiral, and after he left me, that was exactly what happened.

I was lost in a world of sex and drugs and boys, until he came along. It kind of hit me by surprise, how easily I fell in love with him. To everyone but him, I was just a heartless bastard. Maybe they were right about me. Maybe I couldn't be saved. People have died trying, after all, and their blood was on my hands.

The last year of my life was blurry before university, the memories washed into each-other and were fuzzy to recall. I'd been taking so many different drugs, anything I could get my hands on that would make me feel anything other than the heartbreak and disgust that stung me constantly.

Part of that heartbreak was Darby, and everything that I'd lost with him. I put him behind me eventually, convinced myself that it was better to move on, to try and be stronger. Maybe I even believed I was better, because I felt better inside. I moved on from him, from all the drugs, but the worst things you've ever done have a way of creeping back up on you when you least expect it.

Darby was Tom's best friend, and the love of his life, and the love of mine too - I knew I'd have to tell him one day, that it was me, that Tom didn't kill himself, that I pushed him without even a second thought. I knew I couldn't build a relationship with him on lies, and when I finally told him, it was at those same chalky white cliffs in Penzance.

"I don't want to see you anymore, Isaac." That was what he said. "When I leave here, I don't want to see you again. We're done. We're fucking finished. I hope you rot in Hell, right down there with your dad."

I remembered those words, how he spat them out at me, how he turned away and left me there alone. I didn't go running after him. I knew it had gone beyond something that I could even hope to fix. So I let him leave, and I didn't see him again, not until that day at the beach with Luke.

He was still there, at the top of the cliffs, when I parked my car at the end of the road. The street lamps lit up the road, but beyond that was too dark to even see. It must have been well past midnight now. I could vaguely make out the cliff, and the silhouette of a lost boy against the black sky, and the ominous white glow of the moon. I sat in my car and watched him, shaking at the thought of speaking to him again.