Awake (Book 3)

One

The water dripped down his face, plinking in the porcelain basin of the sink. Nothing helped. No amount of water or pain or distraction stopped the images seared into his eyelids.

            “Augie.”

            He growled, splashing another handful of water into his face, feeling the sting as it hit his eyes. Relishing in it.

            “Don’t leave. Stay with me. Please.”

            In pure frustration, he reeled back an arm and punched the mirror. The glass shattered beneath his unmerciful fist. His knuckles split, blood trickling between the cracks of his fingers, winding down his palm, but he didn’t care. Hewas alive.

            Ellie Armstrong was not.

            A soft knock on the door interrupted his self-pitying thoughts. He grunted out a dismissive response, but the knob turned anyway. He should have locked it.

            Jessica stepped inside, worry creasing her tired face. Everybody was so damn tired, lately. “Are you okay?” she asked, voice meek. It was a stupid question. How could he be okay? Six months should have been enough time to get over somebody. A girl who shouldn’t have meant anything.

            But that was impossible.

            Because Ellie meant everything.

            August stared down at his busted knuckles, delighting in the pain. “What do you think?”

            She tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear, surveying the broken mirror. “I think you really loved her, and it’s perfectly normal to be heartbroken.”

            His head shook madly from side to side. “No, I . . . no. It’s been six months. She was nothing, I—”

            “Oh, bullshit.”

            He snapped his lips shut, shoulders dropping beneath the weight of reality; of her words.

            Jessica stepped brusquely to his side, yanking his injured hand open without compassion. He winced as she studied the damage. “Boys are so stupid,” she muttered, forcing his hand beneath the spray of sink water. “It doesn’t matter if you prove your masculinity to an inanimate object, dumbass. It won’t mock back.”

            August said nothing, clenching his teeth together so hard his jaw clicked.

            “I mean, really,” she continued, ruthlessly scrubbing the blood clean and then grabbing some ointment. “Is it seriously that hard to pull your head of your ass and just admit you have a weakness? Is that so horrible?”

            He sighed harshly, tugging his hand away. “I’ll do it, before you yank my hand off,” he muttered, grabbing gauze to wrap around his wound with considerably more finesse.

            She glared at him, planting hands on her hips. “Ellie was my friend, too,” she choked out, and August could hear the emotion clogging her voice. “But she’s gone. Has been for six months.”

            “Shut up.”

            Jessica gasped, taken aback by the harshness of her friend and former lover’s voice. “Excuse me?”

            He ripped the gauze and threw it on the counter. “I said shut up, Jessica. Don’t talk about her. Don’t.”

            An annoyed tic started off in her eyebrow. “So, what? You don’t acknowledge her; don’t acknowledge the pain? It happened, August! She’s dead!”