Antagonym Chapter 7 Read Online for Free

I knew as soon as my eyes cracked open and a pounding headache split my brain in half that I had fucked up.

I couldn’t remember a thing from last night but it was enough for me to know exactly what had happened. There was no way in hell I would ever get this drunk unless I was having an episode. Despite the hammering in my temples, I forced myself to open my eyes in my dark bedroom, but I wasn’t alone.

Sebastian was sitting at the edge of me bed with his bulging arms crossed and the look of a worried mother on his face. “I did it again, didn’t I?” I asked in a raw voice, the sound making the pain in my head even worse. My tone sounded like nails on a chalkboard and

It pointless my temples like a sledge hammer. It took all my willpower to keep my eyes open while Seb stared at me.

“Yeah, you did. Beck called me after you left the stadium. It took me an hour to find you and when I got there you’d already downed half a bottle of vodka. I thought they were going to have to pump your stomach but you were already torturing yourself with that damn yellow Gatorade. I think you had thrown it all up by the time I got there.” I couldn’t stand that taste of it after everything that had happened to me, that’s why I threw it up every time. There was some masochist inside of me that forced me to do it. ‘Get over it,’ Was all I ever heard in the moment.

You can’t get over it.

It haunts you and everything you do.

Seb’s broken and worried voice made me regret everything. I had done that

And scared the shit out of him. I had burdened him with the responsibility of making sure I got home safe so my brother didn’t have to stand over my grave. I was selfish and I hated myself for it more and more every day.

“I knew you weren’t going to jump,” Sebastian said eventually. “In the two times this has happened I have never seen you close to that railing. You sit on the edge of the curb like you’re waiting for something.”

“I’m waiting from some one to fucking hit me,” I muttered insensitively while closing my eyes and leaning my head back on the soft pillow.

Seb let out a deep breath of frustration. “You need to go back to therapy.” It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a command. A command based in love and worry, but still a command. “That’s three times in six years. What happens when no one finds you? What happens when you don’t purge your own stomach?

Then Griffin gets a call at 3am because your half dead body washed up on the shore and the next thing you know your sister, your blood brother, and your best friend are standing in a hospital room over a cold corpse,” Seb’s deep, manly voice cracked in a way I had never heard before.

“Have you ever seen a drowning victim? Someone who died of alcohol poisoning? Someone on life support because they’re brain dead and they are so weak they can’t breath for themselves? Is that what you want? To end up like those people I help treat everyday at the hospital?” Sebastian asked. I didn’t want to open my eyes and feel the guilt of the tears I knew where in his eyes. My best friend wasn’t emotional but he could be when he wanted to. After being with him for almost four years, I knew when he was effected. I didn’t want the guilt. I couldn’t.

I know what he sees every day at his

Internships. I know what those bodies look like. “Your skin pale. Your chest compressing and jerking like a dead fish while a machine breathes for you, a tube down your throat. You’ll never have a career, a family, a life. Finn and Sylvia almost lost you once. Don’t make it a reality for all of us.”

“Small things like what some asshole said can make you upset. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to feel miserable. It’s okay to feel whatever you feel, but you cannot seriously contemplate suicide and say you don’t need therapy.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what to say. I felt like an asshole but there was nothing I could do to fix this. I can’t help my guilt. My thoughts. My sorrow. My memories. Everything was always tucked away waiting for an escape and when that moment came it was like a wrecking ball.

I didn’t want to cause my loved ones pain. That was the last thing I wanted,

But sometimes I couldn’t just help but think it would be easier with me gone. It would be easier for me. Not them. But, I was selfish. I didn’t want to feel pain. I didn’t want to feel like I deserved it.

“You’re going to Sylvia’s and you are telling her what happened or I will. I’m being a dick, I know, but I am doing this for you.” I felt Seb lift his body off the end of my bed. “I don’t care if it’s Finn or Sylvia; when you come back here one of them need to know.”

Sometimes birds need to be pushed out of the nest.

There was nothing else I could do but be pushed. There’s probably a lure around my secrets. Around the things that make me act this way and set me off into a place where I can’t think of anything but pain. It was like a monster clawing at your insides and once it’s let out, it will eat your face off. You can’t ignore it and it hurts even

More than you want to admit.

Even Axel didn’t know my secrets.

Maybe that’s why I hid my tears from my niece and nephew. They were young, so it wasn’t that monumental of an issue. But as soon as I looked at Sylvia in her kitchen, I couldn’t help but burst into spontaneous tears without even saying a word. The knife in her hand cluttered on the counter as my best friend rushed to hug me. There was only one thing that could make me feel that way and she knew it exactly.

And so I confessed. I told her everything. My mouth spilled all of the details from last night, even my almost kiss with Beck. Who knows if Jones was my only tigger. It could have been anything. When Finn walked into the room unaware of my mental breakdown, it took one look at my beyond loving brother for me to breakdown all over again.

I was glad Ace was at one of the neighbors houses and Maya was with a friend. Little kids shouldn’t have to deal with what I was going through. Then again, I was only three years older then Ace when everything came crashing down around me.

My eyes didn’t dry for hours. Maybe Sebastian was right. Maybe I needed to talk to someone. I needed to get out of here even if it was only for a few minutes, that’s why I was more than glad when Sylvia asked me to pick up Ace from the neighbors house. I was perfectly okay with obliging and getting up from the tan couch I had become stiff sitting on and staring at the wall.

The cold air felt good on my skin, like the comforting call of the ice rink. It helped me forget in a time that seemed impossible to erase. Okay, maybe ‘forget’ was the wrong word, but it certainly dulled the pain. My sneakers padded on the asphalt of a

Large driveway of one of the larger mansions two houses down. Money wasn’t everything but it sure as hell was a lot. Finn and Sylvia were lucky to live in a neighborhood like this, but they definitely worked hard for it.

My eyes landed on one of the nice cars in the driveway. The emerald green Ford GT looked familiar to me, but it could be anoyones. In a neighborhood like this rich cars were not far or few between. Besides, compared to the Bugatti Divo next to it, the $450,000 car looked like nothing. I loved the look of the cars, but I’d never understood the real draw to expensive cars. Sylvia and Finn has their own collection of five million dollar cars, but half the time Sylvia drove her suburban. But, Finn definitely had a sweat spot for his Lamborghini Aventador and Sylvia for her McLaren 720 S. Somehow in addition to the apartment, I’d ended up with an Aston Martin DB11 though I definitely protested the complete waste of money. I guess when you were that loaded it didn’t matter anymore.

Ace and Maya’s grandchildren wouldn’t have to work a day in their lives. My grandchildren wouldn’t have to work a day in their lives and I’ve only lived with Sylvia and Finn for three years under protest of being gifted money. Imagine how loaded their kids were. It hurt my head to think about it.

In all honesty, I was still studying the tiling of the driveway and the walkway instead of looking at the house. Did you ever feel poor? That’s how I felt every day growing up in this neighborhood after moving from Manhattan. My brother grew up with money, and I knew that because my mother had a portion of it. Even Sylvia grew up in a large house on the water like Finn, but it was nothing compared to what they had now.

I approached the heavy wooden door of the ginormous house, feeling

Very much intimidated. I hope Ace and Maya didn’t turn out to be total assholes after growing up like this. Then again, Sylvia would slap any child of hers for being an dick. No wonder Finn was the favorite parent.

I rung the doorbell and resisted the urge to cross my arms. Apparently there was another thirteen year old boy who lived here and he and Ace were best friends. I’d never met the family, but I assumed Sylvia knew them well. I think the child’s name was Aras, but I wasn’t sure. Subconsciously, I wiped my under eyes to make sure it didn’t look like I was crying. It had been hours but I’m sure I was still looking a little puffy. The cold weather certainly helped minimize the effect, though.

When the door opened, I was met with a very familiar face that I hadn’t expected to see here. My brows furrowed for a second, as did his, blue eyes staring back at me. “Danny? Have

You been crying?” Was the first thing I heard leave Beck’s mouth. Of course he would notice.

“No,” I scoffed like I hadn’t just been bawling my eyes out with Sylvia and watching The Office. “Since when do you live here?”

“I don’t,” he responded while letting me inside of the marble atrium. “My half brother does. I see him on the weekends. Remember when I said I moved here to be closer?”

I opened my mouth to respond when I was interrupted by the two boisterous thirteen year olds taking about some video game as they walked down one of the two grand staircases. These damn rich people.

Ace’s dark brown eyes landed on me when he reached the bottom of the stairs, but I wasn’t looking at him. I was looking at the slightly smaller and skinnier baled boy next to him. His

Skin was a little darker than Beck’s but I could see the resemblance. “Are you and mom done being depressed now? Because dad said he’d take me to their practice later but he never does when you guys are sad.” Leave it to thirteen year olds to expose my ass.

“Shut up, Ace. Your mother and I aren’t sad.”

“She was watching The Office. She only does that when she’s sad.”

I could help but glare at my nephew before Beck interrupted my tense moment with the sassy lacrosse player. “I didn’t know Ace was your nephew,” he stated like a question, glancing between the Asian boy and myself, obviously not aware before this moment that Sylvia and Finn had adopted.

“She’s lived them for like three years before college,” Aras spoke for the first time in a ‘duh’ tone at his brother.

“God,” Beck muttered while holding his hands up defensively. “I’m sorry I’m not up on the Riley family history. I’ve only been here for a month and a half.”

“Small world,” I mused before shifting my gaze back to Ace. “Come on, I’ll take you to practice if your father doesn’t want to deal with you.”

“He choose me, he better want to deal with me.”

“How many times have I told you not to tell adoption jokes in front of strangers? It makes them uncomfortable.” I looked back at Beck as he snorted, amused at my interaction with Ace. I exhaled, not wanting to be this social right now. I should just go home and cry again. “I’ll um...see you at practice, Beck.”

He looked like he wanted too say something, but he held himself back and nodded, not easing my mind from

You to practice if your father doesn’t want to deal with you.”

“He choose me, he better want to deal with me.”

He looked like he wanted too say something, but he held himself back and nodded, not easing my mind from his curious look.

“I’ll talk to you later, Danny.”

God, save me.