Chapter 4: Aftermath and Confessions
The light hit him like a physical blow. A narrow, brutal shaft of morning sun cut across the room and landed directly on his face. Jake groaned, lifting a heavy arm to block it. Every part of him hurt. His skull was a fragile eggshell packed with hot sand. His mouth tasted like something had died in it. The whiskey from last night had curdled into a toxic sludge in his veins.
He was not in his own bed.
The reality seeped in slower than the light. The floral pattern of the beanbag chair fabric was pressed into his cheek. The smell. Lavender and girl and stale coffee. His eyes flew open.
Emily’s dorm room. The sagging bookshelf, the wobbly desk, the rumpled bed.
Memory returned in a nauseating flood. The argument with his dad. The bottle. Climbing the fucking wall. Pinning her. The kiss—God, the kiss. The brutal, unforgiving start of it and the way it had softened into something that made his chest crack open. And then… nothing. A blackout.
He sat up too fast, and the room tilted. He gripped the sides of the beanbag, breathing through the vertigo, scanning the room. It was empty. She was gone. A wave of cold, sour relief washed over him, followed immediately by a deeper, more corrosive shame. He’d scared her. He’d hurt her. He’d broken into her room and assaulted her. He was every terrible thing people whispered, and worse, because he’d done it to her.
He needed to get out before she came back with a campus cop or, worse, her mother. He pushed himself to his feet, his muscles protesting. That’s when he saw it.
A single sheet of notebook paper, folded in half, propped against the base of her desk lamp. His name was written on the outside in her small, neat handwriting.
Jake.
He stared at it like it was a live wire. A trap. His first instinct was to bolt, to leave it there untouched and pretend none of this had happened. But his feet were rooted to the spot. His heart, already pounding from the hangover, kicked up a notch.
He snatched the paper up, his fingers leaving damp prints on the edges.
He unfolded it.
Jake,
I’m at my 8 a.m. I didn’t want to be here when you woke up. I think we both need the space.
There’s aspirin in the top drawer of the desk. And a bottle of water. Drink it.
We need to talk. But not like last night. Never like last night again. If you ever come into my room like that again, drunk or not, I will call the police. I mean it.
But.
But I saw the real you. Or a piece of him. The one you keep bandaged up. The one that’s scared. I saw him right before you passed out.
The bandage is in the drawer with the aspirin. I don’t want it. It’s yours. It always was.
We have Family Dinner at the house on Sunday. Be there.
Emily.
He read it twice. Then a third time. The words blurred. The one you keep bandaged up. His own bandaged hand throbbed in agreement.
She wasn’t screaming. She wasn’t running. She was giving him aspirin and a bottle of water and a command to show up for goddamn Family Dinner. And she’d seen him. Not the performance, not the angry drunk, but the fractured thing underneath just before the lights went out.
The shame didn’t disappear, but it mutated, mixing with a bewildering, aching gratitude. She’d covered him with a blanket. She’d left him medicine. She’d seen the worst of him and hadn’t set him on fire.
He yanked open the desk drawer. The aspirin bottle and a cold bottle of water sat there, next to the curled, bloody bandage. He dry-swallowed two pills, chugged half the water in one go, the chill of it a minor blessing on his raw throat. He picked up the bandage. It felt like evidence. Of what, he wasn’t sure.
He couldn’t stay here. The room was too full of her, of his own failure. He shoved the note into his jacket pocket, careful not to crumple it, and put the bandage in after it. He smoothed the blanket on the beanbag chair, a stupid, pointless gesture. He paused at the window he’d climbed in through, looking back at the empty, sunlit room.
It smelled like her. It felt like a secret he’d spoiled.
He climbed out, his body screaming in protest, and dropped to the damp grass below. The world was bright and loud and ordinary. Students walked to class, laughing. A squirrel chattered on a tree. He pulled his hood up, hiding his face, and started the long walk back to his own apartment, the note a burning weight against his chest.
She’d given him a roadmap. Aspirin. Water. A line in the sand. And a request. Be there.
For the first time in a long time, someone had looked at the wreckage of him and hadn’t looked away. They’d just… nodded. And handed him a bottle of water.
He didn’t know if that was mercy or a deeper kind of danger. All he knew was he’d be at that damn dinner on Sunday. He had to see her again. He had to know what happened next.