Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CALEB
I feel like I’m falling apart. My bones ache, my head throbs. It’s over. Whatever that was is gone.
I spend the following days crying, drinking, and rambling to Mal, who is far too patient with me. He vows to murder Whit.
I make him promise not to. I don’t want him to hurt more than he already is.
He’s getting married.
He didn’t choose me.
He lied.
He broke me to pieces. How am I going to put myself back together after this?
Sem and Luke make an appearance, checking in on me, trying to get me out of my funk, but I think it’s terminal. I think this is the end of Caleb van Beek.
I groan, my chest aching, pouring beer into my mouth as I lie on Mal’s small couch. It misses, dribbling from my lips and onto his cushion.
Mal grunts. “Dude, lie on a towel. You’re making a mess.”
I huff and try to drink the beer again, but the bottle is swiped from my hand.
“No more. You’re done being drunk.”
“He doesn’t want me,” I murmur. “He chose money over me.”
“Yeah, well, he sucks. I’m glad you got your shit and left him. You deserve better.”
I stare at the pile in the corner of Mal’s place, and my chest constricts. He went there for me and got the rest of my shit. I couldn’t go. I couldn’t see him.
Fuck. I miss him.
“I don’t want better. I want him.”
“Yeah, I know,” Mal sighs and then reaches down and manhandles me, forcing me to sit up.
His hands land on my cheeks, holding me so I look at him, but his face blurs slightly as I try to focus.
“You need to snap out of it.”
“I can’t. He broke me. I think this is who I am now.”
“No, he didn’t break you. You’re strong. You made it through your mom; you can make it through this.”
I shudder, and my eyes leak.
“Yeah, but I love him.”
“And you loved her. And look at you now, look at what you accomplished. What you overcame.”
I don’t feel like I’ve done much. But I still let his words sink into me.
“Yeah, okay.”
He slaps my cheek gently. “You’re going to pull yourself together. You’ve sulked enough. You’re going to show him you don’t need him.”
“But I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
When I just sit there, wobbling slightly, he sighs again and then slaps my face once more.
“Fine, then do it for him. Do better for him.”
My eyes flash to my best friend, and my heart rattles in my chest.
Yes.
I can do that.
I can do better for him.
WHIT
If I thought the brutal beatings by my parents were terrible—the days I spent locked away, starved, and miserable—I was wrong. If I thought the excruciating pain I felt after slicing my wrists open was unbearable, nothing compares to how I feel now.
I’m a shell of a person, a ghost moving from one end of the apartment to the other. Nothing has any meaning. Nothing matters. Life as I know it isn’t worth living.
I miss him.
Miss him.
Two days ago, Mal showed up, his eyes cold and wary. He looked at me like I was scum, like I wasn’t fit to even look in Caleb’s direction. Then he shook his head and silently packed Caleb’s things in boxes and carried them away.
He took him away. Stole him from me. As if he were rescuing Caleb from me, as if Caleb needed saving from me.
It’s true, I admit. He’s better off without me.
But even so, in a moment of desperate clarity, I took one of Caleb’s shirts from the pile and tucked it beneath my pillow so I could breathe him in at night.
I found it only makes everything worse.
Now the days smear together. I sit in the same spot for hours, staring at the wall, not showering, not eating, and wasting away. Classes are forgotten, emails unanswered. All I can do is replay every wrong decision I ever made since meeting Caleb. Every. Single. One.
Emily is supposed to arrive soon, but I can’t handle it. Don’t want to see her. She’s a reminder of everything I don’t want. A reminder of how I let this all get so out of control.
Of what I had and lost.
I resent her, and she’s done nothing but agree to this scheme she was forced into.
I eventually call her, asking her to lie for me—to tell my parents she visited, that we had a great time. And in return, I’ll send her on an all-expenses-paid vacation far away from me.
She’s unsure, but eventually accepts.
She doesn’t care as long as she gets what she wants. My parents are paying her handsomely for this sham of a marriage. To make their gay son ‘straight.’
The phone on the coffee table rings constantly, but I ignore it.
They keep calling, but my parents can go fuck themselves.
They’ve left messages, but I delete them.
The only person I want to hear from is Caleb, and he’s yet to reach out.
It’s a fruitless wish. He doesn’t want me. Not after what I did.
Pushing myself up, I move to the kitchen and stare at the knives.
They stare back at me, taunting me.
Perhaps I should just end it. Put myself out of this misery. I move toward them, running my finger over the hilt of one. I unsheathe it and then stare at the sharp point.
To let myself bleed out. Let myself go. I can’t stand this suffering.
My whole life, and this is the worst pain I’ve ever felt. I don’t know if I can stand it another minute.
Is this love?
It must be.
I’ve never known it, but the moment they ripped it from me, something inside me shattered. It wasn’t just a bruise, but an amputation, something torn from my chest. Whatever fragile pieces were there, slowly fitting together from loving him, have been pulled apart by his absence.
If this isn’t love, then I don’t know what is.
My mind flicks to him once more, how I broke him by lying, by making him fall in love with someone like me…
But ending it…taking myself from this world…he’d never forgive himself. He’d shoulder the blame. He’s the one who left me here. It would ruin him. I can’t do that. Not to him.
I’ve wrecked him enough as it is.
Slowly, I put the knife back.
I can make it another day without doing that. I can.
I will.
It’s been five days since he left, and I can’t breathe.
Each hour bleeds into another, each day the same as the one before it.
My phone’s died, and I don’t bother to charge it.
He hasn’t called or texted anyway. What’s the point of keeping it on when the one person who matters has left me? I have no one else I want to hear from.
I’m going to miss my finals, and I don’t care. Nothing matters. What is the point of life when there’s no one in it to love me? No one’s ever loved me enough to stay, and the one who did, I drove away with my lies.
A knock on the door has me glancing at it, but I don’t move.
Whoever is there can go fuck themselves.
“Open up, asshole,” Sem grumbles from the other side, and I inhale sharply. Sem reminds me of Caleb, and thinking of Caleb makes me want to rip into my skin and bleed all over the floor. I’ve barely kept it together the past few days. I don’t need this.
Go the fuck away!
“You asked for it,” Sem says roughly, and then I hear a faint scratching. The front door pops open, and Sem steps inside. Seeing him, how similar he is to Caleb, steals the breath from my body.
Sem looks around the filthy apartment with a scowl on his face. “Smells like shit in here, man.”
He’s right. It does. Because I’m unwashed, and I haven’t cleaned.
And I don’t care.
I could die tomorrow, and it wouldn’t matter.
I stare up at him from the couch but remain silent. I have nothing to say. Can’t speak anyway. Too many memories of Caleb are filtering through my mind right now.
Sem finally looks at me. “Wondering why I’m here?”
When I don’t respond, he sighs. “Caleb wanted me to check on you.”
My heart clenches in my chest, and I pant. So much fucking pain. Can’t breathe.
Sem moves to stand in front of me, and he crouches down, his eyes meeting mine. “Wanted me to check your arms and legs, man.”
I clench my jaw, breathing heavily through my nose, and look away. Can’t look too long at those blue eyes. So much like his.
“Shit,” Sem mutters, and then he stands up. He glances around the apartment once more, shaking his head, and then he’s gone, the door clicking shut behind him. And I’m all alone. Again. I’ll always be alone.
I didn’t have to be. But I chose this, didn’t I?
He said he loved me. Or was I just imagining that? But he still must care because he sent someone to check in on me. He still has to feel something for me. Right?
A tear slips down my cheek, and suddenly I’m sobbing, my entire body shaking. It’s messy and ugly, but I can’t stop the flood. I just clutch at my chest, hold on to my stomach as I curl up on the couch, and ride through it.
When my tears finally stop, when my body is drained, and when I finally manage to swallow the hollow moans wrenched from my soul, I hear another gentle knock on the door. And when I don’t answer, don’t call for anyone to come in, the handle turns.
And he’s here.
He’s here.
The sunshine obliterating my shadows.
“Whit,” Caleb inhales softly, his voice the gentlest of balms on my bruised heart.
I glance up at him from where I’m cradling myself on the couch, and even though I want to move, I’m afraid that he’ll disappear if I do.
So, I just let him approach, his eyes moving around the apartment, taking in the wreck that’s my life now.
And I’m ashamed. For so many reasons.
“Whit,” he says, his voice cracking.
He kneels in front of me, his hands on his thighs, and I meet his eyes. He looks tired, with purple rings under his blue eyes, but he looks so good. So damn good.
I lick my cracked lips and exhale shakily.
“Sem said you wouldn’t let him see,” he says, his fists clutched on his thighs. “Can I?”
I blink up at him, and when I don’t respond, he reaches over and pulls my shirt sleeves up. His breath comes out on a shaky exhale at finding nothing there.
He has no idea how hard that was. I did it for him.
I did it for you.