35. 35

35

Ember

B laze had turned up pretty fast, looked me over, declared he was going to kill Ethan, and charged at his door, kicking it brutally, until it opened enough to force the heavy chest of drawers away from it. Ethan was in the far corner behind the bed, and he didn’t move as Blaze ran across the room to accost him, with me running behind him, screaming at him to stop.

Blaze suddenly halted, and spun on his heels to catch me before I reached Ethan.

“Fuck!”

“What? Let me get to him. He didn’t mean to, Blaze, he didn’t mean to!”

Blaze pushed me back, keeping a tight grip on my wrists.

“Stay here. Promise me you won’t follow me. Sit there on the bed. Em, do it right fucking now!” I could see the torment in his eyes, so I obeyed, and he dropped down by Ethan, cursing under his breath.

“You stupid fucker,” he muttered, as he got back up.

“Em, go to the bathroom, get towels, and the first aid kit, and fucking hurry.”

I didn’t argue, because his voice told me it was a matter of life and death, and I didn’t need to see Ethan to know that. I could feel it. Like there was a chill in the room, like death was hovering right there.

When I returned with the kit, and the towels, Blaze was crouching in front of Ethan’s still body.

“Em, what you’re about to see is fucking awful, but I need you to do as I say if you want him to live.”

Oh god. I ran around the bed, and screamed when I saw all the blood. Ethan looked pale, his head tipped back against the wall, and Blaze was holding onto his wrists in a tight grip.

“Help me here. We need to patch this up, and then we need to get him to a hospital.”

“He… he tried to kill himself?”

“Obviously. Wrap your hand around here,” Blaze muttered, showing me how to hold Ethan’s wrist to staunch the blood flow, so he could patch one wrist up, and then the other.

He sent me to get dressed and bring something for him to put on Ethan, before he dragged the man I loved up onto his shoulder, still naked, and carried him to the stairs. I did as instructed, bringing some of the sweatpants and a t-shirt for Ethan, and we struggled to dress him as we put him in the back of Blaze’s car.

Oh my god. I sat with Ethan’s head on my lap, cradling it, stroking his face as I begged him to stay with me, begged him not to go like this. Apologising for everything I’d done to him. There was no way to make it up to him, was there? And no way he’d forgive me. I’d ruined his life, and driven him to suicide. I only hoped we could get him to a hospital in time to save his life.

After he was rushed into somewhere they wouldn’t let us follow, Blaze and I sat in a small room where they put family of patients, to wait for news.

“Tell me again what happened. You were barely making sense before, but I know what I saw. I know what I can see now,” Blaze said grimly, as he sat beside me. His clothes were covered in blood, but probably for the first time in his life, it was from trying to save someone, rather than killing them.

I voiced that observation, and he cursed out loud.

“Are you fucking serious right now? The last two times you tried this shit, who do you think found you? Huh? Who do you think was desperately trying to keep you alive, until we could do what we just did? You wonder how I knew what to do? Fucking practice. Jesus, Em!” I had no idea, because the times I’d tried what Ethan just attempted, I’d been unaware of what happened when whoever found me, and I’d never asked.

How selfish of me to put my family through this, because now I was seeing it from their side, and it was agony. More so, because I knew I was literally to blame for what he’d done.

“Em,” Blaze practically growled at me, because I was stalling of course.

“We had an argument,” I finally said, and Blaze slammed his fist against the wooden arm of the chair he was in.

“For fuck’s sake! You have marks on your throat where he tried to fucking strangle you! You have swollen eyes from crying, I’m guessing, and there are bruises on your wrists. Did he fucking rape you?”

Did he? Or did he just do what I’d encouraged him to do.

“It’s not like that. I pushed him to it.”

“Rape is rape, Em,” Blaze muttered, rolling his eyes. “Listen to me. What a fucking hypocrite. Jesus . When did you ink him? It looked new.”

I was chewing on my fingernails, remembering how furious he’d been when he woke up tattooed like that.

“Last night, and this morning.”

“Pretty graphic stuff, Em. He told you to do that?”

I shook my head, and Blaze groaned.

“Let me see if I can guess. You either coerced him into it, because you’re a manipulative asshole like me, or you drugged him. I mean, let’s be honest, it’s a fucking family trait, isn’t it? That and ignoring consent.”

I’d suspected things about Blaze, and my dads, but only from little bits I’d overheard, from listening to them when they thought nobody was listening. Eavesdropping is a great way to find out stuff nobody wants to tell you.

“I was trying to break his control, so he’d be with me,” I said morosely, and Blaze snorted, slumping back in his seat and scrubbing his hands over his face. They still had dried blood on them. Ethan’s blood. That realisation was what broke through the shock of the day’s events, and opened the floodgates, and for the first time since I was a little kid, Blaze held me while I sobbed my heart out.

My parents arrived, and my mum looked stunned when I ran into her arms and sobbed against her chest, the familiar scent of her perfume filling my senses, until my nose was too blocked for me to pick it up any longer. She cried with me, while my dads disappeared with Blaze to discuss whatever.

“Mum, I didn’t mean to.”

She nodded, stroking my face and brushing my tears away, after we’d taken two seats beside each other.

“I mean, all the times I did this to you guys, I had no idea what it was like for you. I can’t believe I put you through this hell so many times, and I’m so sorry. I can’t believe how selfish it was, but he was helping me. He… I didn’t mean to push him to this, you have to know that.”

Mum smiled, cupping my face in her hands, like she couldn’t bear to not touch me right now, just in case I revoked the privilege later.

“Sometimes things happen that we just can’t undo, baby. I swear we’ve all done worse, okay?” That wasn’t necessarily the most comforting response I could have expected.

She sat back again, her eyes taking in every inch of me, lingering on the marks on my throat, as she chewed on her lip.

“Did he hurt you, Ember?” She winced then, shaking her head. “Em, sorry. It’s so hard to remember, but I’m trying.” She was, I knew she was, they all were.

“He was a little rough, but it wasn’t anything I didn’t push him to, mum.”

“But it was what you wanted?” How could she see that, when nobody else could?

I nodded, staring down at my hands, screwing up the handful of tissues I held.

“That makes me a freak, doesn’t it? Liking it when he loses control and hurts me?”

Mum sighed, reaching for my hands and staring at them with wonder, as I let her take them.

“Baby, what people enjoy in the bedroom, or whatever room they do it in, doesn’t make them freaks.”

“I know, as long as there’s consent.” She looked away for a moment. I knew she was going to tell me something about her past with my dads, something that would prove what I suspected.

“Sometimes consent comes after the fact, Em. Sometimes you don’t realise it’s what you wanted, but it is. My god, listen to me counselling my daughter by telling her that lack of consent is okay. I don’t mean that exactly, but every relationship is different, and what works for some doesn’t work for others.”

“I know my dads did bad stuff, mum, just like I know Blaze has. I think I kind of understand some of it now.”

“None of it was right, Em. It just happened to be right for us.”

Ethan (a day later)

THEY WERE KEEPING ME in for observation, but at least the one benefit of my being here, alive when I’d rather be dead, was that I finally had the power to block Ember from visiting me. I was able to keep the entire fucking Cross family away from me.

I was being heavily monitored, because I was dumb enough to admit that I’d try again and get it right next time. It gave me time to think at least. I had no visitors except healthcare workers, and this damn psychiatrist they’d sent in three times so far.

“They’ll keep sending me until you at least talk to me, Ethan. Wouldn’t it be easier to just talk and let me in?” He asked, folding one leg over the other, as he tried a gentle smile at me. He was older than me, wearing black and white, and that fact alone made me think of her.

“What’s there to say? Do I want to die? Yeah, because I have nothing to live for. Write that in your fucking notes.”

He sighed, making no such note as he leaned forward a little.

“You say you have nothing to live for, but everyone has something. You have family, you have friends, are these people not worth living for?”

Ha. Nice try. “My family and friends have all disowned me, because of a rumour about me which I know you have in that fucking file.”

He lifted his hands helplessly.

“All I have here is the medical information about your state when you were admitted here. Were you seeing another mental health professional? Perhaps I can gain access to their notes, or discuss your case with them.”

“Fuck’s sake.” I stared at the ceiling, wondering why this asshole was making my head hurt more than my fucking arms did. Pain relief only did so much, and the dull throbbing in my wrists was this angry reminder that I’d tried, and failed, to take control of my life.

“I never touched her, but they suggested I did, so I lost everything. I was a fucking decent guy until her. Hey, why don’t you just write in your notes that I’m a kiddie-fiddler, and have done with it. That’s what they all believed. Even people who’d fucking known me my entire life! Oh, and she wasn’t even under age! Jesus, yeah, that’s my story. I didn’t interfere with my student, who also wasn’t under the age of consent, but somehow that still makes me a monster. You know, the system is really at fault here. But the system gets to live on without losing everything. Me? Yeah, I got a nice big fuck you from them.”

“You were admitted to the hospital, after arriving with a young man and woman, who’d administered life-saving aid, and they apparently waited for almost sixteen hours, before they were sent away at your request.”

“You’re wondering if that was her? If she was there when I did this, then yeah. It’s a long story, but she fucking destroyed me. She’s insane, by the way. Oh, her whole family is. Hey, if you like this stuff, go talk to them. They’ll give you an epic boner, with their craziness.”

The doc, whose name I refused to fucking remember, made a note that time.

“Ember and Blaze Cross were the ones who brought you here.”

“Yeah, I figured that much. Seriously, I thought you shrinks were supposed to be smart. Don’t they teach you the simple shit like that?”

He folded the notes again and tucked them in his pocket.

“The animosity isn’t unusual for people in your situation, Eth-”

“People in my situation? Wow, how many teachers whose lives were destroyed try this, and end up here? Do you have like a little therapy group specially for guys like me, who wanted to help people, and got royally buttfucked by them instead?”

The doc stood up, brushing his hands down the front of his perfect trousers, resting a hand on the metal rail along my bed, which felt way too fucking intrusive for this stranger, but then after what I’d been through with that crazy bitch, were there really any limits or boundaries anymore?

“Listen doc, let me make this easy for you. I’m completely and entirely brain-fucked, and it’s not going to be fixable, so cut your losses, and move on to the next one. I may or may not try this again when I get out, but I also may or may not hunt that bitch down and kill her instead, so yeah… I guess what I’m saying is, get fucked.”

Wow. Okay, I’d definitely lost my mind, and those were the kind of words that got a man an extended stay in a medical facility, weren’t they? Lucky me. Still, at least I was safe from the Cross family for a while. That had to count for something.