Seventeen

Chapter Nine: Broken People

"Okay, I'm confused. Am I supposed to like Martin or hate him?"

Aiden didn’t answer my question. He breathed heavily, his chest rising and falling like a tempestuous sea. The darkness swallowed his eyes, turning them into stormy abysses where hope once flickered. I could almost feel the poison swirling in the depths of his gaze, eclipsing the light that used to dwell there.

"Are you okay?" I asked again, my heart racing like a caged bird, desperately searching for an escape. What had Martin done to evoke this tempest in Aiden? Though I was mere inches away, it felt as though an entire galaxy separated us, leaving behind only a hollow shell of the boy I once knew.

When silence stretched between us like an unbridgeable chasm, I turned to leave, my heart lurching in my chest, as if it might break free. Usually, I was the one drowning, the one in need of rescue. But tonight, it seemed Aiden could use a guardian angel, a savior I knew I could never be.

"Don't walk away. Please." His voice, a fragile whisper, cut through the darkness, reverberating in my mind like a haunting melody. It was barely audible, yet it commanded my attention. I halted, caught in the web of his desperation.

"Please tell me what's wrong."

"I... I can't fucking breathe." His voice trembled, raw and broken. It didn’t belong to the boy who once begged me to smile; it belonged to someone lost, someone who had brushed too closely with despair.

This was awkward. What did I do? I wasn’t skilled in mending broken souls; I was more accustomed to shattering them. How could I stop whatever dark force was consuming Aiden? Did I even want to try?

"I'm sorry." There, I finally spoke those two empty words that could never undo the damage. Two words I never had the chance to say to my mother. We seemed to grasp the weight of our regrets only when it was too late.

"Will you get drunk with me? I just want to forget this shit, even for a couple of hours."

So, he drank to drown his pain. That was his choice. I navigated my own anguish differently; instead of escaping, I had learned to embrace it, to find fragments of beauty in the chaos. Most times, it worked. Sometimes, it didn’t.

---

Two hours later, I was in Aiden's dimly lit living room, nursing my second bottle of beer. The world around me spun lazily as I felt the alcohol course through my veins, blurring the edges of reality. I hated this poison; it clung to my throat like bile. Why did people willingly subject themselves to this? I remained sober enough to feel the emptiness gnawing at my insides, a hollow echo that suggested I didn’t belong here—at this party, in this life. Aiden lay sprawled on the sofa beside me, the stench of alcohol rising from him like a toxic fog.

The party had dwindled, leaving only shadows behind; everyone else had vanished into the night. Skylar left with Jack, probably lost in some blissful moment that I couldn’t even begin to fathom. It was just Aiden and me now, and I felt an overwhelming urge to escape this equation of despair. I carefully set the half-finished beer down on the table, the bottle clinking softly, and began to rise.

But then, Aiden whispered, "Don't go," his eyes barely open, the remnants of a storm brewing within them. His hair fell across his forehead, obscuring his left eye, making him look vulnerable and lost.

"I have to go," I replied, my hand gripping the door handle, ready to flee. But his next words shattered my resolve.

"Please, Jeannie, don’t go."

In that moment, I was unmoored, my sanity slipping through my fingers. I became Jeannie Roberts, the girl who once filled Aiden's world with light, if only for a fleeting moment. I leaned in, and he pressed his lips against mine, rough and desperate. It didn’t taste like fireworks; it tasted like something else entirely—like longing, like regret, like the desperate need to fill a void.