Chapter 48 #2
I watch him, but the words don’t land. My brain is fogged, my body heavy. I can’t make my mouth form anything. My hands feel like they’re made of stone; even the thought of signing a reply feels impossible.
Instead, I drag the blanket over my face, shutting him out, shutting everything out. Darkness swallows me, pressing against my eyelids, and I let it. Because here, in this dark, airless cocoon, I can disappear quietly. And maybe that’s where I belong.
***
I miss him.
I love him.
I want him here with me.
I want to feel him again.
I love him.
I miss you, Alex.
***
My reflection stares back at me like a ghost trapped on the wrong side of the glass—pale, hollow-eyed, barely human.
But my gaze isn’t on my face. It’s on the faint hickey just below my chest, almost gone now.
Another one lingers, fading into my collarbone.
My hand moves to it without thought, my fingers brushing the tender spot. My throat tightens.
I close my eyes, and for a moment, I’m back in that morning—before everything shattered.
Before the world split into before and after.
We were in the shower, steam curling around us.
I’d teased his nipples, my fingers grazing over them, and I watched his jaw tighten.
He’d shot me that warning look, the one that says stop but never really means it.
I didn’t. I pushed, and he snapped. In the next breath, he had me against the wall, his hands lifting me off my feet, gripping my thighs so hard and tight I had no choice but to cling to him, my arms wrapping around his shoulders, holding on for dear life while he drove into me with a brutal patience, fucking me into oblivion and leaving hickeys like marks of vengeance.
How did a day that started as heaven rot into a nightmare so quickly?
I drop my hand from the hickey, my chest clamping in on itself until breathing feels like swallowing glass.
A choked sob claws at my throat, but my brain strangles it before it can escape.
My throat burns with unshed tears I’ve been keeping locked inside for days now, but they won’t fall.
They just… sit there, Stuck, heavy, and aching.
And under all the noise in my head, the trauma, the static, the storms clawing at me with long, cold fingers—I still miss him. I still ache for him.
Even though I was the one who pushed him away.
I remember signing to Tyler in the hospital, telling him to get me out, telling him I didn’t want to see Alex.
Couldn’t see him. Not because of what he did.
God, no. I know he killed Josh and Caleb.
I’ve known it in my bones since the moment I saw the news.
And yet… I don’t feel pity for them. I don’t feel grief.
Not even relief. Just nothing. Just like the way I felt when my mom had told me Tim had died.
And I’m not mad at him for it. I’m not even angry.
What I feel is worse.
I feel ashamed of myself.
A shame that feels thick, corrosive—and confusion that tastes almost like disbelief.
He knows. He saw what happened to me. He’s carried it inside him, in silence, for God knows how long.
And still… still he touched me the same way he’s always touched me, still called me beautiful.
Still looked at me with that softness that belongs only to me, that he’s never given to anyone else.
How? How is he not disgusted whenever he touches me? How does he not hate me? How does he not see me for what I am?
Because when I look in the mirror… I see filth. I see something broken. Something rotting from the inside out.
And I don’t understand how he doesn’t.
The thought claws up my throat, bitter and hot, and before I know it, I’m on the cold tile, ripping the toilet lid open.
My stomach clenches, wringing out what little is left in me.
Water. Acid. Nothing substantial—because I haven’t eaten in days.
I’ve ignored everything Tyler brought, just staring at the plates until they’re gone, as if my silence could erase them.
All I’ve done is drink water, gallons of it. Maybe I thought it would rinse out the ache in my chest, the fire in my throat. It hasn’t. But at least it’s kept me breathing.
I’ve lost track of the days. I’ve lost track of myself.
I feel like I’m having withdrawals, not from a drug, but from him—Alex, his voice, his presence, it’s like a craving so sharp, mixed with the trauma, slicing the memories into something almost…
bearable. He’s a drug I’ve been hooked on, and now that he’s gone, my body is breaking down without him, barely functioning.
And still… I can’t go back. I won’t ruin him with my rot.
But why isn’t he here? Why hasn’t he come to tear me out of this hell? To pick me up, like I secretly want him to?
I know I pushed him away. I remember stiffening when he tried to touch me in the hospital. Turning my back away from him. Letting the silence between us choke every word he tried to give me.
But even so… why hasn’t he come? Why hasn’t he called? Doesn’t he want to know if I’m alive or dead?
fuck, I’m such a hypocrite.
I flush the toilet and drop the lid, then crawl until my back hits the wall. My head leans against the cold tile, my eyes fixed on the floor as if it might give me answers.
Maybe he’s come to his senses. Maybe he’s finally realized what I am—used, ruined, nothing but the leftover trash of a bunch of teenage boys who took what they wanted from me. Just like my mother, who used to sell herself to strangers, except I did it for free.
A laugh claws its way out of me, it’s dry, cracked, empty.
It hurts more than it should. Just then, the bathroom door creaks open, and Tyler steps inside.
His eyes catch on me, and I watch them change, shifting from worry to something deeper, heavier.
Sadness. He kneels in front of me, slow, like he’s afraid I might shatter before he gets there.
Tyler’s hands lift slowly, trembling just enough that I notice.
“Lucas…” he signs, my name moving from his fingertips like it’s fragile glass.
I don’t answer. My eyes just stay locked on his tiredly.
“I’m scared for you.” He signs, his throat bobbing, “You’re pale. You’re weak. You’re not eating. You’re barely drinking anything but water. You’re not… here anymore.”
His expression folds in on itself, his mouth tightening.
“If this goes on, I’ll have to call someone. 911. Or a hospital. I’m not watching you die in front of me, Lucas. You’re scaring me.”
The words hit like a fist to my chest.
I shake my head, a weak jerk of movement. My throat burns—not from vomiting, but from the weight of the thought of being in a hospital bed or gown again, of being impaled with needles, or worse, getting sent to a mental institute if that be the case.
“Don’t,” I sign back, small and slow, because my hands feel like stone. “Please. Don’t take me away, Tyler, please.”
“I don’t know what else to do for you, Lucas.” His eyes are glassy, wet, and unblinking. “You’re breaking down in front of me, and it’s killing me. It’s pulling me back to when things were so much worse… years ago. I hate it.”
The words land in me like a punch. I bite down on my lip so hard I taste metal, anything to keep my face still.
“Today makes it the fourth day you’ve been back,” he continues, each sign more frantic than the last, a tear dropping down his cheeks.
“And I haven’t gone to work once since then because I’m scared.
Scared you might do something to yourself when I’m not here.
I can’t sleep. I check on you every hour at night, just to make sure you’re still breathing.
I’ve hidden all the knives. The blades. Even my skipping rope.
Anything that could—” He breaks off, his hands falling to his lap as his chest heaves.
My throat feels scraped raw, but no sound comes. I want to cry, to let it out the way he does—shaking, spilling—but all my tears are trapped, thick in my chest.
Instead, my hands move on their own. “Do you know what they did to me in that treehouse?”
The question freezes him. His eyes blink slowly, his throat works around a swallow, and for a moment he looks anywhere but at me—at the floor tiles, the wall, anywhere that isn’t my face. I know it’s a hard question for him because we never talk about it, and I never wanted to.
“I don’t know everything,” he signs finally, his movements slower now, heavier. “Your mom kept it quiet. She just said some boys attacked you on your way back from church.” His jaw flexes. “But I knew you were hurt in the treehouse. I knew Nate and his friends… took advantage of you.”
My stomach knots tight, twisting with the old sickness. “How did you know?”
He looks away again, wiping at his eyes as if he could erase the conversation along with the tears. He breathes out hard, stares up at the ceiling for a moment, then drops his gaze back to me. There’s anger in his face now, but it’s wrapped in pity and something deeper, something that burns.
“I went to confront Nate a few days after the incident.” His signs are sharper now, like they’re cutting the air. “The motherfucker didn’t even look guilty. Instead, he said…”
He stops. His teeth catch his lower lip.
My hand lifts before I think about it, fingers curling around his jaw, forcing him to meet my eyes. “Tell me, Ty. What did he say?”
His eyes glisten, another tear spilling before he swipes it away. His mouth forms the word “fuck” before his hands move again, slow and deliberate.
“He said your mouth felt useful.”
The words punch through me, sharp for only a second before dissolving into the same dull, endless ache that’s been rotting in my chest for so long.
My stomach drops, my throat tightens, and then—nothing.
Just that cold, hollow space swallowing it all whole.
My shoulders sag under the weight of it.
I’m so tired. So weak I can’t even bleed anymore.