Saving 6: Boys of Tommen #3

SEPTEMBER 1ST 2004

AOIFE

I NEVER WANTED to experience a day like today ever again.

There were no words to describe the level of helplessness I had felt when I watched Joey soar and then roughly crash and burn.

I wasn’t stupid.

I could see the red flags shooting up in every direction.

Problem was, I was too in love to take heed.

Because I knew that beneath all of the pain and bullshit, there was someone worth saving in there.

He was a good person who made terrible decisions.

He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone.

He was trying to survive in the only way he’d ever known how, by self-medicating.

Even as I watched him sleep it off on my bed, I could see the heartache he represented to me written all over every inch of his skin.

He was going to break my heart, I knew it. I could see it coming from a mile away, and I still couldn’t seem to get my self-perseveration instincts to kick in and protect me from the inevitable.

Listening to him talk about his father earlier was the most forthcoming he’d ever been with me.

Sitting in the middle of my bedroom, I couldn’t help but feel like my world had been rocked.

It was a monumental breakthrough.

The omission may have been lacking in specifics, and he held many more cards close to his chest, but for the boy lying next to me, it had been a Grand Canyon sized step closer to me.

I couldn’t walk away if I wanted to.

“You’re all I have to wake up for in the morning.”

That small slip of tongue had cut me to the bone.

And as I lay on my side, running my hand through his hair, and watching him sleep, I made a mental vow that I wouldn’t allow him to lose himself to the world he teetered on the edge of.

No matter what, I would be right beside him, ready to pull him back to safety.

Even if it meant that I lost myself in the process.