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Hurting myself was always less painful than what happened.

He takes a drag, closing his eyes before exhaling. “It fucking sucks that you want to die, Rey.”

I look down, feeling anger bubbling up in my chest. It’s not true. I don’t want to. Or maybe I do. I don’t know and I don’t want to fucking know.

“At least I’m still here, right?”

Our eyes meet and I instantly regret saying this. Because there’s a part of me, deep inside this mess, that wants to understand. Why am I still here if I’m not feeling alive?

“That’s not the point,” he says.

I faintly smile. “Isn’t it?”

He rubs a hand on his face before replying, “You think it’s enough?”

It has to.

“You think this is how you’re supposed to live your life?” He adds, angry almost.

My legs move without me even deciding it.

I don’t want to be here anymore, I don’t want to hear him looking at me as if I were already dead. The joint is still burning between my fingers as I slip the baggie into my pocket.

“I’m going home.”

I take a step down, then a second. Until a hand suddenly closes around my arm and I stop dead. I glance down at his hand before slowly lifting my head. “Let me fucking go.”

He keeps staring at me, with that expression I hate, the one saying he’s torn between anger and fear when he sees the state I’m in.

“So that’s it?” His voice comes out low, but I can hear it trembling. “You think you can just leave when I talk about important things?”

I give my arm a tug, my jaw tightening. “I told you to fucking let me go, Ethan.”

He takes a deep breath, like he’s trying to hold himself back, then his eyes drift down my arm. “You never think about Milo or Hayzel. It would break their fucking hearts to see you like I see you.” He slowly shakes his head and continues, “It’s always the fucking same, you get high, you get wasted.”

His eyes drop at the scars again and I push him away brutally, but it doesn’t stop him from saying, “You keep trying to die, and you want me to believe that this time it’s different?”

Anger is rising in my throat and I want to smash his face against the wall for making me feel like that. “Shut the fuck up, Bennett. Shut up!”

He involuntarily squeezes a little tighter. “You’re never going to change, Mireya.”

I can’t look at him anymore. All I hear is the same quote, repeating over and over again.

You’re never going to change.

As if me being here, breathing, fighting had been for nothing. As if all the effort, the relapses and the nights trying to make it through just one more day, all of this was all worthless now.

I slowly look up at him, my heart beating faster and faster at each passing second.

“What did you just fucking say?”

He doesn’t answer right away. “Look at yourself.” His voice is almost softer. “You’re becoming more and more like him.”

My hand moves on its own, the punch is hard, the sound echoing through the walls. Blood rushes out from his mouth because of the impact. For a second neither of us moves. My chest is heaving too fast, I want to hurt him again. He could never understand.

Ethan’s hand stays against his cheek, never taking his eyes off me.

“I love you so fucking much, I’m starting to hate you for making me feel frustrated like that,” he whispers.