Read Online Save Me: A TAT Novella by Melanie Walker - Free Book Online Page A

the top of my lungs and she flinched at my tone. I shook my head and turned to walk away, but fuck, I wasn’t done. I turned and stomped back toward her.
     
    Behind her was everyone, standing there- in shock twenty yards away on the side of the street watching. Chad and Cassa, both running toward Carrie and I, when I started screaming again.
     
    “Do you think I enjoy watching his every move, every step, every mother fucking look to make sure he’s okay? I can’t fucking sleep at night, or eat, because I’m plagued with more fear than I have ever felt in my life. You forget that he isn’t only my friend, but that the band is relying on him to pull through this, that you are and Noelle, Seth and Lilly. Every one of you are praying he will be okay and find strength he don’t fucking have Carrie!!!”
     
    Chad was now standing in front of Carrie, looking like a bull with his eyes on the red flag.
     
    I might as well had a name tag that said I was the red mother fucking flag… but oh …I wanted him to hit me and I would pummel his pretty boy face. He could see that though because like a switch, he switched focus and spoke calm. “Bro, look at yourself, look at how mad you are right now.”
     
    I was breathing fast and had ripped the fucking buttons on my shirt trying to get that fucking tie off, when Cassa stepped beside me. “Baby…” She cried and wrapped herself around me. For the first time in my life, I didn’t want her touching me.  I stood back from her and ran a hand over my head, still panting and looked at Carrie.
     
    “Do you think it’s easy watching him? You have seen him low, but this is scary and he trusts me with it for some reason.” I took a step towards her and slammed my hand against my chest. “It’s killing me.” I cried and felt hot tears splash on my cheeks. “I leave terrified every night, long after all of you are asleep and I climb in bed…” I look at Cass and decide I can’t keep the truth in. I need them to understand “Next. To. My. Wife… and toss and turn in fear he’ll end his life before the morning.”
     
    Carrie, Chad, Cassa and the rest of the peanut gallery behind us, all gasp at my confession and I shake my head. “Now you get it right? I married her the day he woke up, after I watched him fighting to talk and scream and cry and he was paralyzed with fear because of the tubes, the injuries… he begged me, screaming through that tube to tell him it wasn’t real and the fucking doctor knocked him out. I left that room and took her to the courthouse.”
     
    Cassa stepped beside me and pulled on my arm, crying. “Stop it Shamus!” She begged but I was done defending myself with stoic silence. They didn’t know what I knew.
     
    “He proposed to her at your wedding. I’m the only one who knows. She died three hours later. As he sat there begging me to tell him it was all a lie, begging me with a steel stare, I took her to the courthouse and married her the minute I left his room.”
     
    I lost all my strength at that point and went to my knees on the cement. “That night… that night he flipped his shit. I was the one who forced it on him. I was teasing this little nurse that was bubbly as fuck…” I look up at them and see them watching me. Everyone had gathered at this point and I just hung my head and kept going. “I wanted to know he could still laugh…so I played rockstar.” I look at Chad and Cal and Tay knowing they know the game I played on the nurse. Even when we were small town, that trick always got girls numbers. I see the recognition in their eyes and am glad I don’t need to explain the game… Cassa and Carrie being there and all….
     
    I sat silent looking at a piece of grass I had picked. “I wanted to know he would laugh. I knew if he laughed he would survive and maybe, just maybe, he’d let it out. He started crying in the laughter, just turned to tears and then he broke through.” I look up at them as I stand and toss