Atlas
NEW YEAR’S EVE IS approaching quickly. My mother leaves the Christmas decorations up, and my father has Barfred order champagne for the countdown.
I do not feel like celebrating.
In the four days it has been since Christmas, I’ve seen Julian less than a handful of times. Since the moment he fled from his bedroom, after ogling me for a ridiculous amount of time, he’s been outright avoiding me.
Some moments, I’m convinced I’ve wronged him.
And in other moments, I’m certain he’s running like a coward.
Sure, it’s probably smart to not get mixed up with your boss’s son, and sure, I should leave him be, considering my condition and everything—but my symptoms are getting bad again, and all I want is to smell him, to hear him, to feel his hands on my bare skin.
I’m irritable, irrational, and a downright bother to be around. Therefore, I’ve been avoiding people, too. Mostly my family, since I have to make no effort with Julian when he’s doing all the work for me.
Atticus is worried. Some days, he follows me around and grills me in the mornings, wondering if everything is fine. And I’m honest with him: things are fine. In fact, in the past four days, I’ve had one ‘nightmare.’
Only once have I awoken covered in my own come, sore and depleted, which is good and bad in many ways. Good, because I don’t have to spend so much time praying or staring into that never-ending darkness while cool fingers touch my paralyzed body.
And bad, because I’m pent up and hot all over. I need release, and for some reason, doing it myself is never the same. I’ll spend hours coming over and over again by my own hand once things get bad enough—if the nightmares don’t come, that is.
Although, to be fair, sometimes that happens on days following a nightmare, too. It’s rare, but it happens. My body has a never-ending, insatiable libido that needs constant tending to.
So, between my aching, sensitive body and Julian’s elusiveness, I’m not the best company.
It’s probably best that he’s acting this way, all things considered. I don’t trust myself right now, and if I were to jump him in this state, I know the guilt would kill me the next morning.
But I miss seeing his face. Even just in passing, when I’d run into him on his way to help Abigail get ready in the morning, or when he’d bring me tea as I stood in the back courtyard watching the Pacific.
I’m lounging in the library again, reading one of the novels I was gifted for Christmas, when my younger sister comes barreling in, her pink, flowy dress slapping against her ankles as she jumps up and onto the chaise to sit next to me.
“Hi, Atty,” she says. “I barely see you.”
I offer her a small smile, shifting slightly to keep our arms from touching. I’m in that stage of a flare-up where every brush of someone else’s skin against my own sends a zap down my spine, and nothing is worse than receiving that sensation from a family member.
“Sorry, my star. I haven’t been feeling well,” I admit, and she nods sadly. I hate that expression.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Would you like me to read to you?”
“Yes, please!” She beams, settling back into the cushion behind her as she tucks her feet beneath herself to match my own stance.
As she does so, I can’t help but ask her what I’ve wanted to ask for the past few days. “Um, Abigial? Where is Julian today?”
It’s a Saturday, so he doesn’t technically have to work. A part of me feels bad for roping Abigail into my drama with the attendee, but she would be the one to ask.
Well, her and Jeremy Walsh, and I’m definitely not asking him.
“Julie is going to see his friends in town,” she states. “They’re having a late Christmas party.”
“Oh, that’s fun,” I reply casually.
“Yeah! And on New Year’s Eve, his friends from California are coming here to meet them,” she informs me.
His friends from California? I didn’t know he had any, though the news isn’t shocking. But I am surprised they’re making the trip, considering the distance.
“And how do you know all of this?”
Abigail’s face flushes, and she turns her gaze away from me.
“Uh,” she starts. “I may have overheard a phone call or two.”
“Abigail,” I chastise. “Eavesdropping is not something a proper young lady does.”
“I know! But I wanted to know if he’d be here for New Year’s Eve.”
I can’t fault her. Not when I would have done the same, given the chance. And now I have to sit on the knowledge that Julian is out with his friends, probably drinking and having a grand old time. I wonder if Cassie will be there.
I fucking hate her. The moment I heard her name, I knew it’d mean trouble for me. If not only for the simple fact that jealousy is an evil, cruel thing, and I find it impossibly unfair that some girl from town gets to taste Julian in place of me.
Will he fuck her tonight? Will he get wasted with his new friends and not even return home? Why does it matter to me? I will be in my room, locked away from the world anyway. I might never know.
“Atty? Are you going to read?” Abigail asks, and I startle back to the present.
With a soft smile and brief nod, I reopen the book on my lap and begin to read.
I can worry about all of this later.
I worry about it all day. During a conversation with Atticus, as I stare at the ocean, and even after dinner, as my mother ropes the family into a game of charades.
I try to pretend I’m involved and interested, but I’m certain that everyone can see that I’m not.
And after the moon has long since risen and everyone has settled in for the night, I sneak back downstairs and sit at the bottom of the main staircase.
I know that if Atticus or my father spots me, I’ll get in trouble—there is always the chance that I'll fall asleep out here and something terrible will happen. But I have to know.
I thought I’d manage going upstairs and falling into a fitful sleep, but I just couldn’t.
So instead, here I sit in my purple pajama set and my black, sheer robe.
My slippers tap anxiously against the wooden floorboards underneath my feet, and I fiddle with one of the strings wrapped securely around my waist.
As the large clock tower in the back of the foyer rings, announcing 2 a.m., I sigh, standing to head back to the west tower. It is clear that Julian will not be returning home.
I make it halfway up the first set of stairs before the front door creaks open, and I look over my shoulder as a dark figure slips inside.
He wobbles slightly, leaning against the large door to hold himself up. A small huff of air leaves him, almost as if he’s laughing.
“Julian?” I question in a soft, quiet voice. It is so eerily silent around us that I can hear every breath he takes.
Julian’s head snaps up, his brown eyes connecting with mine. Then, he grins.
“Oh no,” he says, a little too loudly. “I’ve been caught by the angel.”
“Shh,” I shush him, descending the stairs again to approach where he stands. He watches me with lazy, satiated eyes. “You’ll wake the whole castle at this rate.”
He laughs, but to his credit, he does it quietly. “Sorry, sorry. What are you doing by the front door, Atlas?”
Atlas. Oh, god. My name without the formality, leaving his lips, sounds like sex. I swear I could fall to my knees right here.
Suddenly, I’m all too aware of how hot my skin is and how desperately I want to be touched. I take a step back.
“Shouldn’t I be the one stepping away from you, you temptress?” he asks me, hooded eyes narrowing slightly. He’s still sporting that seductive, lazy grin.
“And why’s that?” I ask. I know it’s cruel to myself to want the answer, considering I’m very sure what the response will be, but I want to hear it anyway.
I guess in some ways, I’m a masochist.
“Because,” he says with a huff, “I am constantly fighting my desire to be close to you, and you don’t even have to try at making it harder for me.”
When Julian is intoxicated, his words are free. He has no regard for professionalism or consequence, and I’m secretly happy for that.
“I’m sorry,” I lie. “I can try to be less tempting.”
Julian laughs once again. “You can try all you want, Atlas, but you will fail. It’s not in your nature to be less inviting.”
Something hot is swirling inside of me, and I pray with everything in me that he’s too drunk to notice that I’m half-erect beneath my robe.
“So, you’ll continue to avoid me then? To fight your desire?”
Julian’s brow furrows, his smile tilting downward until it settles into a deep frown.
“I…” he pauses, studying my face. Then, he takes one step toward me. He’s so close now that if I were to reach out, my fingers would graze his chest.
He’s sizing me up, the way one does when sorting out how to take down an opponent, or in which way they’ll devour their meal.
My breathing has grown laborious, and my hands are clammy and shaking at my sides. I want him to reach out; I want him to close these last few feet between us.
I am so terrified that he will.
He is drunk, and I am not in my right mind. This is a devastating mixture that can only lead to a catastrophe.
“Why are you down here at dark?” he suddenly asks. “Are you allowed to be?”
My eyes observe him as he looks around us, as if someone else is here. Something else might just be. I whisper, “No, I’m not.”
“What’s wrong with you, Atlas? Can’t you tell me?” His voice is pleading now, almost desperate. As if he hasn’t been able to get the question out of his mind and he’s going mad.
“If you knew, you’d be disgusted. You might even despise me.” As I say the words, I realize they are true.
I hadn’t understood it until now, but not only am I depressed that no man could ever love me after being tainted so thoroughly, but I’m crushed to know that if Julian were to find out about my condition, he would probably think very little of me.
“I could never,” he demands, taking another step toward me. “Nothing could convince me that you’re disgusting. There is nothing you could do to make me despise you.”