Save Me

Chapter Twenty-Seven

"Nothing in life comes easily. Everything comes with sacrifice."

-Rihanna

♔ Chapter Twenty-Seven ♔

His face looked so peaceful from where I was sitting, right at his bedside. It looked like he was sleeping, maybe even full of life, if the sunlight was pouring in through the hospital windows like it was in that moment, lighting up his white, porcelain face. Yet it was only an illusion of health, a mirage, because Darby was at death's door, and I'd barely managed to carry him back over.

Even close to death, I couldn't help but think that he still looked beautiful, so fucking beautiful. Not because of his strong jawline, or flawless skin, gorgeous body (although they're all pretty big pluses, if you ask me) - no, I thought he was beautiful because I understood him. I could imagine his pain, his suffering, everything that he'd been through.

To feel the heavy weight of your own sins and insecurities dragging you down, I knew that there was always a breaking point, and Darby had clearly reached his. To understand him that way, and to still find him beautiful, I knew it came from a place much deeper than simple physical attraction. Darby was beautiful because he was a tragedy, a broken boy, lost and wandering, waiting for some sort of end to it all.

That had always been my type: broken boys, who I could easily manipulate and control, although Darby had always fought back. He craved a happy ending, I knew it, and I knew I wasn't pictured in that ending beside him.

It was Tom. It was always Tom. For me, and for him. He left a hole in both of us, and no matter how hard we tried to fill it, neither of us were enough. We both wanted the impossible, knowing we'd never get it. Maybe that said something about the two of us, that we were consciously hurting ourselves in the pursuit of something long gone, and would prefer that pain over being with anybody else. We were lost causes.

Darby had no colour left in him at all, and to think, he was almost on the right path, before he slipped back into old habits. He'd put a bit of weight back on, filled himself up again, so he wasn't so sickly-looking all the time. I remembered the days he was lost in drugs, looking lifeless and barely holding on to life, and clinging onto the next high.

I knew I couldn't blame him. Darby Darling was already fucked up by the time I met him, and after that, well, it only got worse. As I watched him lying there, white and non-responsive, I couldn't help but to feel so guilty. I'd had a part to play in his breakdown, but at least I'd managed to save him this far.

The doctors were unsure if he was going to wake up. I'd lied when I brought him in, said I was his older brother. I was expecting his mother to barge through the doors at any minute, but until she did, I decided to stay there with him. I didn't know what to do, so I just held his hand and sat there in total silence. People say that they can hear you talking to them, but I'd always thought that was bullshit, so I didn't bother. The business of the hospital went on around me as I sat there, waiting for him.

"Isaac?" I heard. I lifted my head, peeling my hand away from Darby's at the sight of him. "I thought that was you," said Hedley, standing in the doorway out into the open corridor. He wandered into the ward with a curious look on his face.

"Hey," I mumbled, standing up quickly. I hadn't seen Hedley in too long, and hardly knew what to say to him anymore. In the beginning, I'd felt that desire with him, that fire in his veins whenever I'd fuck him. I'd always got the sense that Hedley had never shown me his true colours, only what he wanted me to see, and I'd never bothered to peel beneath the surface and discover who he really was. And what was he doing in hospital? I asked myself.