Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Looking down at my thighs, I realized just how much my skin missed the feeling of being sliced open.
It burned with the need, tingled with the anticipation, and begged for the release.
Peeling back layers and layers of myself was the only way to make all the bad stuff go away, turning me into something beautiful, like scoring artwork into a loaf of sourdough.
I hadn’t done it in a while. Like what I’d assume an addiction to be like, I’d grown to have a craving for it.
A specific craving I wasn’t sure anyone else could quite understand.
They’d probably say I was out of my mind, or even worse, try to get me help.
As if I wasn’t totally beyond any type of help.
My hands begged to hold the razor, my thighs burned with the need to be ruined, and my blood begged to be let loose.
Back in the day, they used bloodletting to rid all sorts of ailments—mental and physical.
Maybe they had been onto something there, because I always felt a hundred pounds lighter from oozing a few inconsequential drops of blood.
Cutting was my savior, overwhelming sadness being my attacker.
It was a habit I’d once kicked, only to find again later in life.
A security blanket brought back from my teenage years, after life stopped being hard and suddenly became fucking unbearable. I couldn’t leave life. I’d tried. Oh, did I fucking try, but the universe thought it’d be fucking hilarious to keep me around, I guess.
The human condition of unabashed curiosity about death was almost shameful.
I was riddled with it, poisoned down to the very marrow in my bones.
Beneath the metal, glinting cages I was surrounded by, was a boy so curious, so cautious, so wanton of nothing but permanent peace.
I was still that boy, and that boy was still me, but I couldn’t give him what he wanted.
Not without ruining my family’s lives. Not without leaving behind so few memories and so little impact in the world.
The birds outside wouldn’t miss me. The grass on the ground didn’t know who I was.
The stars in the midnight sky would laugh at my absence.
The world would keep going, but I knew my brothers would mourn, and I wouldn’t be there to comfort them.
That had to mean something. If it didn’t mean anything, then what the fuck was I still doing here?
Wasting time. Wasting life energy I didn’t deserve, since I was so ungrateful for the air I breathed in the first place.
So there I stood, planning out my next strike with the blade still in the drawer of my bathroom counter, wondering where would hurt the most. If I couldn’t find eternal peace, then I would settle for a moment of hell.
Just as I opened the drawer, I heard a knock at my door. It was faint from the bathroom, so I wondered for a second if I was hearing things when another one came. Closing my eyes, I huffed out an irritated breath and closed the drawer.
Thinking it might be a delivery of some kind, though I wasn’t sure what it would be, I only opened the door halfway, finding Emerson standing behind it. “What are you doing here?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “One day, you’ll greet me better than that. I guess today isn’t one of them.”
“Nope. You didn’t even think about giving me a heads-up? I could be naked right now.”
“I wouldn’t have cared.”
“I would’ve. “
He waved a hand dismissively. “Eh, it’s fine. You going to invite me in, or do you want to talk with your head halfway out of the door?”
I actually didn’t have any pants on, which wouldn’t be good for Emerson to see. “Give me a second. I actually am half naked. Stay put, and I’ll be back.”
“Some of your neighbors are weird, Moon. Don’t make me wait for too long.”
“Just for that, I’m taking double the amount of time to put clothes on.”
“You better no—”
I cut him off by closing the door and walking away. It truly didn’t take me long to put some sweats on, but I was feeling feisty. I made my walk back to the door leisurely, strolling along like I was admiring flowers on the side of the road.
When I opened the door fully, Emerson was glaring at me. “You really did take your time.” He walked in, stopping just in front of the door. “Now go put on clothes you want to wear in public and grab your wallet.”
“What? Why?”
“Because we are going hobby hunting.”
“What the fuck is hobby hunting?”
Emerson put a hand on his hip, cocking it to the side. “Exactly what I said. There are some workshops going on out of town. You need a hobby. I could do with finding one, too. We’re friends. Let’s go explore new shit together.”
I furrowed my brows at him, staring at his general audacity and the appalling way in which he looked so fucking handsome.
Seriously. All he wore was a plain shirt and some blue jeans, but the guy had secret muscles for days, and it almost made me mad.
Black looked fucking gorgeous on him. I didn’t need to think that about my friend.
My straight one, at that. It’d be far too easy to scare him off.
“You love making plans without consulting me, huh?”
“Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today, Moon?”
“I woke up and saw you, so maybe.”
He scoffed. “Whatever. Anyway, there is a painting workshop, pottery, and a stained glass one going on. We are going to try all of them and see if we like any of them.”
“No on the painting. Sorry, but that’s all Elio and I know for a fact I don’t enjoy it.”
“Good! We narrowed one of them down, then. Now come on, you need to look presentable to the public, and I need to stop by the gas station before we go. I’ll pay for lunch.”
I stood there for a second, processing just how serious he was being. What kind of person willingly goes out and does something like this? Was he desperate to find meaning in life, just like I was, or was he just trying to fulfill some kind of friendship duty? “Bossy.”
“Brat.”
“Shut up. I still have to see Crescent, so no can do until after.”
“Already spoke with him, and he enthusiastically said you should come with me and then go see them at their house afterward if you’re up to it.”
Not seeing Crescent on his lunch break? The idea almost tore my heart apart.
Not so much the idea of not going, because I’d done that before and was fine, but the idea that Crescent was so easily okay with it…
It made me wonder if he actually even liked seeing me, or if he thought I was too overbearing, like Star did now.
I eyed Emerson warily. “Okay, I guess. I’ll go get ready then.”
He clapped his hands together, a big smile on his face. “Good! I’ll be here.”
The car ride wasn’t going horribly. It could’ve been worse. Emerson was a smooth driver, not going too fast, not going too slow, just going the speed limit and weaving in and out of traffic like a nice person. Which, I guess, made sense since he was a cop.
We were maybe fifteen minutes out from our first stop when a call started to come through Emerson’s car. He glanced at the screen and sighed before pressing the answer button. “Hello, Olivia. Choose all your words wisely. I’m in the car, and I have a passenger.”
A woman’s voice came through, nice and light-sounding. “A passenger? Oh my god, Em, do you have a date? Can I talk to her? Is she nice?”
“He is sometimes nice. Only sometimes, though. And he is my friend, not a date.”
“Well, that’s no fun, is it? Where are you going?”
Emerson switched his turn signal on, looking from right to left. “We’re going to try out a couple of workshops for fun. Pottery and stained glass.”
Olivia hummed through the speaker. “That sounds fun! I’m glad you’re looking for something other than running to do, Em. You’re quite a boring person, you know.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “He said the same thing about me by dragging me along with him.”
“Oh, is this the not-date-friend?”
“It is indeed. My name is Moon.”
She gasped. “Moon! What a lovely name. My parents were so boring with mine. The eighties weren’t very creative name-wise, I guess.”
“I think Olivia is a beautiful name.”
“And he’s nice? Oh, Emerson Drew, you’ve got to keep this one.”
Emerson laughed, pulling into a parking lot. “As long as he stays friends with me and doesn’t run away from your chaos, sure.”
“Ugh, you talk as if I’m the worst person alive! I’m just highly invested in making sure you don’t waste away. Speaking of, I can come see you and the new house next week. When are you off?”
“Oh, uh,” he paused, looking around for a second. “The house isn’t really ready yet.”
“You think that’ll deter me? I can help finish unpacking with you. What do you have left?”
“It’s more like what don’t I have left.”
“Have you not unpacked anything? Oh, my god. This is what I was afraid of! I should’ve just moved with you!”
He put his head in his hands, groaning. “Ol, I’m fine. You don’t need to do that. I’ll get it done, I promise.”
“I never should’ve let you move there all by yourself. New town, new home, new coworkers—I knew it’d be too much. I’ll be over there ASAP. Me and Kelly both will be.”
“Please don’t. I’ll text you my schedule, and we can figure something out. For now, I have a stained glass class to get to.”
“You worry me so much. Moon, keep an eye on him, okay? Take him out to dinner or something.”
I looked over at Emerson, whose cheeks were red with a gorgeous blush spreading across them. “I will. I promise.”
“Love you, bye.” Emerson hung up the call just after Olivia had responded with the same. He looked positively mortified. It was kind of cute. “I wish I could say she isn’t always like that.”
Shaking my head, I tried to hold in the laughter bubbling in my chest. “She’s definitely something else. But she seems to have a really big heart.”