That Killed Us 19

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Chapter19 

Chase Rylan walked into the bar near the cinema; the lights were low and the music so loud it swallowed the room. 

He headed straight for the counter and set his phone down with a sharp thud. 

“Give me your strongest,” he told the bartender. “Keep it coming.” 

Glasses emptied one after another. The burn scorched his throat, but the ache in his chest refused to budge. The alcohol climbed fast, turning the room soft around the edges. And then the memories came–relentless, tidal. 

He remembered the first time he’d seen Lydia, back in freshman year. 

She’d been on the debate team, standing onstage in a white dress with sunlight in her hair, her eyes bright and fierce. She argued with grace and bite, never cruel, just brilliant. His heart had slammed against his ribs so hard it scared him. 

Love at first sight–he had finally understood the phrase. 

From that day on, he chased her like his life depended on it. 

When she had cramps, he cut class and biked across three neighborhoods to fetch brown sugar, then slipped a thermos of cocoa into her classroom. 

When he learned she loved the night sky, he stayed up three nights sanding plastic and soldering wire to build her a DIY star projector, filling her bedroom with constellations on her birthday. 

When he heard her family might move overseas, he waited behind Old Hall, eyes red, holding her like a lifeline and whispering, “If you leave, I’ll come with you.” 

He had been terrified–terrified she’d vanish from his world. 

Somewhere along the way, everything warped. The awe dulled. He forgot how she made his pulse misfire. He let Sienna Quinn thread her fingers through his, let her press closer and closer until he couldn’t tell where pity ended and betrayal began. 

And yet he had fought so hard for Lydia. He remembered the day a pack of punks cornered her after school, yanking her backpack and mouthing off. 

He hadn’t thought; he’d charged in. He took the punches, arm bruised from shoulder to wrist, but he never once stepped aside. 

After that, something in Lydia’s gaze changed–less polite distance, more possibility. His heart had ricocheted around his chest. 

He found excuses to be near her, saved her a seat in the library, sat through Study Hall whenever she did. 

When she hit a wall on a problem set, he stayed up until two a.m. to write out the solution step by step, neat enough for a textbook. 

Lydia was slow to warm, but once her heart opened, it held on. 

She showed up at the gym with a pouch of Band–Aids and iodine swabs when he twisted his wrist in practice. 

When an exam went sideways, she handed him a steaming cup of hot cocoa and sat with him in the classroom until the sky outside 

turned black. 

She kept every silly little gift he gave her; even his absentminded doodles ended up tucked into the front of her notebook. 

Back then, he had been sure. Lydia loved him. 

Lydia would never leave. They’d do everything they promised – Northbridge, graduation, from varsity jacket to wedding veil. Always. 

Now each bright memory felt like a blade, carving him up from the inside. 

He slid down the bar, his fingers clenching until his nails dug into his palms, and still felt only a hollow roar. 

Because after that, he had been the one to step off the path. 

The first time Sienna claimed her craving for touch, he had let her hold his hand. 

Chapter 19 

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After the concert, with the crowd surging, he’d watched Lydia stumble under a wave of bodies–and turned away when Sienna begged 

him to kiss her. 

Lydia had collapsed from a nut reaction and he’d still been tangled up with Sienna in Elaine and Robert Rivers’s bedroom. When the car slammed through the guardrail and plunged into the Merriton River, he had swum for Sienna first. 

He could still see Lydia fighting the water, that flicker of despair in her eyes before the river swallowed her–a vision that would not 

leave him. 

Images flashed through his mind, cruel as any film reel. He had believed that the good he did for Lydia would balance out the ways he’d failed her. He had been wrong. 

“Another,” he rasped to the bartender. 

He lost count. His stomach knifed with pain, sharper each minute. 

He folded against the bar, sweat beading on his forehead. 

Someone nearby noticed and called for help. 

Sirens cut through the bassline, and as the ambulance doors swung open, he was still mumbling, “Lydia… don’t go. I was wrong…” 

The hospital lights were too bright. 

A ceiling in stark white. It punched up another memory–sprained ankle after a game, Lydia perched at his bedside, eyes rimmed pink, asking over and over, Does it hurt? 

Now he lay alone in St. Alban’s General Hospital, the space at his side empty, the monitors steady and indifferent. 

The pain in his gut tightened like a fist. 

He shut his eyes as a hot tear slid down his cheek toward his ear. 

In the quiet, he finally understood. The person who had always stayed, who had saved him a hundred small ways, had learned to save herself instead. 

Chapter19