Chapter 19
NINETEEN
ROMAN
Idon’t notice the front door opening and closing. Neither does Jesse.
The sky is dark outside, but my room is well-lit as I sit on my bed with my back against the headboard, the sketchbook propped on my bent knee.
Jesse is right next to me, sitting cross-legged as usual, while his cheek rests on my shoulder watching me draw with sleepy, blue eyes.
He’s been like this since earlier. Soft, calm, his quiet exhales brushing against my neck.
I glance at him when I feel his gaze on me, and I don’t know how he manages to make me forget everything else but him.
Even now, my pencil hangs forgotten from my fingers because I’m too busy staring at him, remembering his flushed face and hazy eyes while he was kneeling in front of me, watching him now with his hair loose around his shoulders, his lips still puffy and red from my cock.
I don’t know what we looked like from outside, or what I was about to do. Probably lean down and kiss him, busted lip be damned. Taste him until he sighed and sagged against me, until he fell asleep just like that.
I don’t know what we looked like, but this is how my dad finds us when he bursts into my room.
It’s telling of how caught up I am in Jesse that even the sound of the door snapping open like that doesn’t immediately register.
Until it does, and my gaze meets that of my dad’s.
When I was little, anyone who saw me would tell me that I have the same eyes as him, same color and shape, same expression. But looking at him now, at the way he’s zeroed in on me with dark, calculating eyes—cold, so cold—I see nothing of myself in him.
A chill runs through me as my dad briefly glances at Jesse, and it’s instinct to get up and block as much of his view of him as possible.
I know that considering everything Jesse and I have done in my room these past few months, sitting shoulder to shoulder on my bed, looking at each other is nothing. But one thing my dad isn’t is stupid.
Taking a step closer to him, I mutter, “Dad—"
“I should have known that you would ruin this, too.”
I recoil as if he’s slapped me, frozen in place at just a few feet from him, whatever I wanted to say stuck in my throat.
“I should have known that you couldn’t just let me be happy, that you would find a way to make this about yourself once again.
” He lets out a humorless laugh that reaches all the way inside my chest and twists my stomach in its vicious grip.
Because I know what he’s talking about, what he never forgave me for.
“Tell me, son,” he almost spits the word out, “are you so desperate for attention? Hm? Getting into fights, getting suspended, and now this?” He nods behind me, at the person who’s listening to all this.
I don’t want him to listen to this. I want to tap his ears shut and scrape these words from his mind.
“Haven’t you done enough? Isn’t ruining one family with your constant neediness, your clinginess, enough for you? Haven’t you driven enough people away?”
I try to swallow, to suck in some air, but there’s nothing. The room is empty of it and all I can do is drown.
I don’t even know how I manage to choke out some words.
“She didn’t just leave me.”
“No. She left both of us,” he pauses, the resentment and disappointment in his gaze wrapping like a fist around my throat.
“But whose fault was it? Who made it impossible for her to stay?” He doesn’t have to yell for his words to burrow deep in my bones.
“All because you couldn’t stop being too fucking much. ”
No. I shake my head wordlessly. I tried.
I tried to be good. To not be a burden to either of them.
I always tried to smile, to put on a face they would like, even when I realized the time of our watching documentaries together would not be coming back, even when the smiles I got in return couldn’t hide the annoyance when things proved to be more difficult for me—school, friends, everything.
When things looked different to me, felt different. Felt like more. Felt like less.
“Not now, Roman.”
“I don’t have time for this, Roman.”
“Why are you acting like this?”
“Why can’t you be like everyone else?”
I didn’t want to need more effort. I just wanted them to look at me like they used to, back when it was easier, when I didn’t make their lives more difficult, when I wasn’t a nuisance.
I wanted them to ruffle my hair again when I showed them the drawings I’d made.
To hug me like they did for no specific reason, even when I became too overwhelming or when all I wanted was to shut down, just because they wanted to, because they still loved me despite turning out not to be the way they wanted me to.
Because they were proud of me and accepted me anyway.
I didn’t want to be like this. I didn’t want to drive her away. I didn’t want to be too much.
I just wanted to be normal.
Something pulls at the back of my hoodie, something warm, but I can’t turn to look. I only hide that warmth from my father. I can’t let him touch that warmth.
But he notices it.
“Do you think this will be any different?” he says, and pain slithers under my skin, bleeding into me.
“Do you think you can be anything else but something that stifles and suffocates everything around it?” The pain explodes, my head filling with static, with incessant noise, but not enough to cover his words, that voice that only voices my thoughts. “It will always be the same.”
Always the same. It will always be the same.
The words repeat themselves over and over in my head, until they sink inside me, burying themselves into my heart.
Because he’s right.
I tear my eyes away from him, because despite the pain, it’s impossible not to turn around, not to look at the source of that warmth, of that insistent tug.
At my Blue. My perfect Blue.
There are more words being spoken around me, but I don’t hear anything. There’s nothing but the wide, light blue eyes of my Blue.
Will it?
The whisper of that question makes me falter for a second.
Will it be the same?
Will I make my Blue feel like this, too?
I swallow hard, because of course I will.
In a way, it was my fault.
I got too comfortable in him—in his smiles, in the way he always looks at me, sincerely, hiding nothing. In his beautiful, open soul.
For just a few moments, I started to believe that I might come to deserve this, this happiness, him.
That I could allow myself to bask in his light and sweetness.
That I could finally have something of my own and be enough for it.
That I could maybe forget that I’m not. That I have never been enough as I am for anyone, or anything. That I have always been too much.
But deep down, I think I knew that I wasn’t supposed to forget. That I wouldn’t be allowed to forget.
Because even though this is on a different level, I want to do exactly that—suffocate Jesse with my obsessive need, wreck him until he sees, needs, breathes only me.
The tug on my clothes grows even more insistent, urgent, frantic. All I want to do is acknowledge it, tether myself to it, but even as my body leans into it, my mind pulls me back and back, away from it and from him, so far away that the distance seems unfathomable.
I don’t deserve this. Him. Not when I push everyone away with who I am.
His lips are moving, mouthing my name.
Ro.
I love it when he calls me that. It makes me so happy. It makes me feel so special.
I can’t keep him. Because he will hate me, I know he will. I will make him miserable and he will look at me like that. Like they did. Like they all do.
I don’t want him to look at me like I ruined his life.
I’d rather die than ruin his life.
He’s my blue jay, my hope. He needs to fly far and wide, and he can’t do that with me weighing him down. Not when I only want him bound, chained, shackled to me.
Not when I love him more than that.
***
JESSE
I see it.
I see it when Roman’s eyes grow distant. Empty. Lost. I see the exact moment Andrew breaks his own fucking son.
I see it. And I feel it.
I feel the words he spews pierce my chest and reach a place that still hurts, that still pulses with echoing fear for my mom and myself. His is a different kind of anger, but it reeks of a cruelty that is no less unforgiving, that only seeks to harm.
It makes me freeze, threatening to shake something inside me I thought was sturdier, stronger, making my hands tremble without me realizing it, making my body lock down.
It takes me long moments to realize why the impact of those words isn’t even stronger.
I reach blindly for him, for Roman, who put himself in front of me as if he wanted to physically shield me, to protect me from those harmful words even as they were aimed at him.
What the fuck is going on?
Why the hell did he talk to Roman like that? Like he’s someone worthless when he’s worth everything.
My heart hasn’t stopped hammering in my chest, Andrew’s words still echoing in my ears.
This couldn’t have just been about Roman getting in a fight and getting suspended. Not even about finding us together in his room, despite the fact that we weren’t doing anything.
No, I think with a sinking feeling in my stomach.
This is about all the times I’ve seen him ignore Roman, even when he’s in the same room, about all those covert, displeased glances every time he looked even remotely happy, like he doesn’t deserve it, like he blames Roman for something.
Is he seriously blaming Roman for his mom leaving when he was little?
I tug on Roman’s hoodie desperately, trying to snap him out of it, to make him look at me—really look at me—as Andrew turns on his heel and gets the fuck out of the room.
I don’t give a shit about what he does. He’s dead to me for all I care, for what he just did to Roman.
And from the movement outside the bedroom door, I realize I’m not the only one who saw.
My eyes lock with my mom’s, hers wide with shock and confusion, glancing briefly over to where Andrew disappeared, before taking us in again; the way I’m fisting Roman’s hoodie, holding him so close our bodies are almost touching.
“Bug…” she starts, and I can see all the questions she has, reflected in her worried eyes.
“Tomorrow, mom,” I whisper to her, begging her to understand that I can’t do this right now, that I have to make sure Roman is okay first. “Tomorrow. I promise.”
Her eyes flick to Roman’s motionless form, before she nods slowly at me and with one last concerned look, she leaves us, shutting the door behind her.
“Ro…” I mumble, cradling his face in my hands, looking straight into his beautiful, dark eyes.
My fingers slide into his hair, fisting the strands.
“Don’t listen to him, Roman. Listen to me, only to me.
” I can hear the desperation that creeps into my voice, the panic I can’t stop even as he finally focuses on me.
“That’s right. Look at me, don’t look away.
He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
You’re perfect, just the way you are, do you hear me?
” His eyes bore into mine, quietly, intensely, but he doesn’t say anything.
“You’re good, and kind, and talented. Don’t—” Fuck, why is my voice breaking? “Please, don’t listen to him.”
There’s no other sound in the room but of our combined breathing, only this time, the silence seems deafening.
Was it just a few moments ago that we were sitting side by side while he sketched and I watched, relaxed and quietly happy?
I wish I could have sealed that door shut so that nothing and no one would have disturbed us, so that we could have stayed like that forever.
“Roman?” I whisper in a small voice that’s barely audible even to my own ears.
But he hears it, and I could weep with joy when his arm wraps around my waist, pulling me closer, holding us together. His eyes roam over my face as his hand comes up to cup my cheek, to trace my jaw, my cheekbone, the corner of my eye. Gently, unhurriedly, as if he’s mapping it.
Committing it to memory.
It makes my chest twinge with fear. Mind-numbing, crippling fear.
“You and me, Ro. You’ve got me and I’ve got you. We don’t need anything else,” I mumble, the words rushing out, needing him to hear them, needing him to know.
My breath hitches and a startled gasp leaves my lips as Roman scoops me up, carrying me to his bed. He lays me down, stretching out next to me, keeping me in his arms, and when he leans over me to kiss me, I don’t close my eyes and neither does he.
I watch him as he pulls on my lips, as he suckles them softly, and only close my eyes when he parts my mouth and slips in, the kiss deep, hard, bruising. It hurts, it feels like it hurts so much.
I feel raw inside when we separate, and it only gets worse when he moves down my throat to suck his kisses on my skin until I’m trembling, shivering.
With a subtle movement, he plunges us into darkness, switching off the lights, pulling the covers over us.
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow, okay?” I whisper against the hollow of his throat, burrowing deep, needing his familiar, soapy, minty scent in my lungs.
“We can go somewhere together and figure it all out. As long as it’s you and me, that’s all that matters.
” My fingers tangle in his hoodie under the comforter.
“Promise me, Roman. Promise me we’ll talk about it tomorrow. ”
He nuzzles my temple, and I feel him nod against me.
“Sleep, Blue,” he mutters softly, the first words he’s spoken in a long time.
And even though I shouldn’t have been able to, I do fall asleep.
And it’s fast because my body has learned by now to relax when I’m with Roman.
So fast that I don’t feel the kiss he brushes on my forehead.
So fast that I don’t hear the words he whispers in my ear.
But they echo in my dreams, and when I wake up in the early morning and I’m alone in Roman’s bed, his warmth gone, his scent gone, I know that I didn’t make them up. That they were real.
Fly, little bird.
I never knew the sound of a heart breaking could be so quiet.