22. Chapter 22
Noah
When I wake up, it’s not to Asher holding me. All throughout the night, he hasn’t held me. The wound on my stomach is throbbing, burning, but the pain feels distant, unlike the hollow darkness in the pit of my gut.
I turn to look over my shoulder, to the other side of the bed, wanting to at least see him, but?…
He’s not there.
My blood turns cold. Where is he?
“Ash?” I call out, but I cannot sense his presence in the basement. He has to be upstairs.
I shoot out of bed, and my bare feet thunder up the stairs as I clench my hands into fists, my mind set on a singular purpose.
Where is he, where is he?…
I look for him in the kitchen, in the bedrooms, but he’s nowhere to be found. It’s the middle of the night still—the world outside the windows dark and unwelcoming. At last, I check the bathroom.
There he is. Sifting through the medicine cabinet above the sink, a bottle of pills in his hands.
“What are you doing?” I ask sharply.
Asher startles at the sound of my voice and turns around. I stride up to him, crowd him up against the sink, and grip his wrist so hard he drops the bottle. It clatters to the floor.
“I-I was just?…” His eyes are wide as he stares up at me, then down at my brutal grip on his wrist.
“Just what?” I snap. The relief I should feel at finding him refuses to arrive.
For a split second, I thought he’d left me, and that overwhelming fear now manifests in anger.
Not to mention the dubious position I’ve found him in: with a bottle of pills in his hand, like a kid with their hand in the cookie jar.
“I-I was just looking for the first aid kit,” he says, chest heaving. “Noah, please, you’re scaring me.”
I let go of his wrist and take a step back. No longer being held up by my body crushed against his, Asher drops down an inch, breathing hard.
I point to the bottle of pills. “What were you doing with those?”
“I told you; I was looking for the first aid kit, and they were in the way.”
I remain quiet, suspicious, and Asher sighs in frustration.
“Don’t believe me? Look at the label. They’re laxatives—a little hard to get high off those, don’t you think?”
I clench my jaw. “Okay.”
I believe him. Even if he had been looking for pills to get high off, I would have helped him with his cravings rather than judged him.
There’s no shame in pain like that. I never want him to think I’m judging him; I just don’t know how to say it the right way, especially not now, after he just scared me so badly.
His eyes widen. “Noah, you’re bleeding.”
I glance down at my naked body, and yes, he’s right; the gash on my lower belly is trickling with blood once more.
“This is why I told you we should patch it up,” Asher says, a worried crease between his brows.
“It’s fine.” What care do I have for my body? As long as I can move freely enough to touch Asher, and as long as I can talk to him, that’s all I need.
“Where’s the first aid kit?”
I reach above the medicine cabinet, grab the box stowed away there, and hand it to him.
He nods. “Good. Sit on the toilet seat.”
“I bet I can patch up a wound better than you can, Goldilocks.”
He clenches his jaw. “I don’t care if you can do it better. I’m the one who did this to you, and I’m the one who’s going to fix it.”
I do as he says, sitting down on the closed toilet seat. Asher flicks on the ceiling light and kneels in front of me.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, voice thick with tears. “I’m sorry I did this. I got carried away. I never wanted to?…?to hurt you like this.”
“It’s okay. You wanted this, and I wanted it too, remember?”
“Yeah, but?…?wasn’t it too much?” The hand holding the first aid kit starts shaking so badly I have to grab the box from his hand and place it on the sink. “What are we even doing, Noah?” he whines. “What am I doing to you? It’s not okay. It shouldn’t be okay.”
I grab his wrist, locking his eyes with mine. “But you like it. I like it.”
He sighs and shakes his head. “Sit still. Just let me take care of you and make this right.”
I look down at myself, observing the bloody gash on my lower belly. “It can’t be made right.”
“What?”
“It’s too deep. It’ll scar.”
“What?” A sob breaks out of his throat. “But I?…?I didn’t mean to?…?What do I?…”
“Shh.” I enclose his shaking fist with my hand. “It’s okay. You didn’t mean to, but it’s fine. I want that scar, okay? I want to have that memory of you. It was something special we did, you and I, together. No need to regret it. No need to mourn it. It just is. It’s just you and me. Us.”
Silent tears trickle down his cheeks, and I wipe them away, cradling his face in my palms.
“You’re okay, Ash. I’m okay. I’m not hurt. I liked it.”
“Y-You did? You don’t think it was too fucked up? Too messy? Too cruel?”
I blink. “Cruel? You did it because I wanted it, didn’t you? We both wanted it. I wouldn’t have said I wanted it if I didn’t.”
His lower lip trembles. “I?…?I don’t know if I trust you.”
I take his hand and put it to my heart. “I swear, Ash. I want everything you’re willing to give me. You with the knife, you cutting into me?…?It was one of the hottest experiences of my life.”
His eyes widen. “It was? Are you sure?”
I take both his hands in mine and kiss his knuckles. “I’m sure. Now let’s finish this and go back to sleep.”
“I?…?I don’t know if I can. I couldn’t sleep, knowing I did this to you. I don’t know what’s happening, I?…?I don’t know myself anymore.” He starts crying in earnest, knees buckling. As he sinks to the bathroom floor, I follow, wrapping him in my arms.
“I know you,” I say, kissing the top of his head. “I know you, Ash. I see you.”
“I see you too,” he whimpers.
I trail my fingers among his curls, stroking his scalp. “I could do it to you if you want. Would that make you feel better?”
His eyes go wide with surprise as well as a hint of fear. I know he fears pain more than I do, but I also know he’ll endure it to feel better about what he did, even though he didn’t do anything wrong as far as I’m concerned.
“You want to cut me?” he asks. “With that knife?”
I incline my head. “The very same. Would you like that? Sharing our experiences like that? Sharing our blood?”
“I think so, but?…?will it hurt?”
“I’ll be very careful.”
“Are you going to fuck me afterward? Like I did you?”
“Only if you want me to.”
“I want you to.” He takes a deep breath. “Okay, let’s do it, Noah.”
“What, now?”
“Yes, now.”
“Didn’t you want to patch me up?”
“Oh.” He stares at my wound. “Oh, right.”
“I can do it myself if you want, and you can wait downstairs.”
“No. No, I’ll do it. I don’t feel right without you, anyway.”
“Don’t feel right?”
He shakes his head, agitated, and he starts pulling at his fingers like he often does when he’s in this mood. “I don’t know?…?I feel wrong. Can’t relax. I can’t stop thinking about you, even if it’s just for a few minutes at a time.”
“It’s like that for me too.”
“Don’t you think that’s bad?”
“I don’t know, Asher.”
He looks up at me with pleading eyes, placing both hands on my knees. “Please don’t go into the woods again. Even if it’s just for hunting.”
“I won’t.”
“I want to be with you, always. Please don’t leave.”
I lift a hand to brush a strand of hair out of his face. “It’s okay. I want the same.”
I should feel relieved, I guess, that he feels the same as I do, but for some reason, my stomach clenches with worry. Worry because he’s worried. He’s unhappy, and if he’s unhappy, he’s just one step away from being sick of this. Sick of me and how dependent we are on each other. Sick of us.
He grabs the first aid kit where I left it on the sink and starts rummaging around in it haphazardly, as if he doesn’t even know what he’s looking for.
“Hey.” I place two knuckles under his chin and make him look at me again. “It’s okay. I’ll do it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. You can watch me and learn.”
“Okay.”
“In the meantime, I want you to think about if you really want this for yourself. I won’t do it just because you think you owe me this.”
“But I do owe you this.”
“See, there we disagree.”
His jaw tightens, gaze slipping from mine. “I want you to do it to me—I do. But I’m scared.”
“It’s okay to be scared. Hey.” I grab his chin. Tears are streaming down his face again. “I don’t think we should do this tonight. I think you need some sleep.”
“No,” he says sharply and gets to his feet. “No, I’m okay. I want to do it, I do. Here.” He takes my hand and brings it to the crotch of his briefs. “I want it, okay? I want you to cut me, and I want you to fuck me after.”
I swallow thickly. “Okay.” I can’t deny that my dick twitches at the thought of being inside him that way again. He hasn’t let me do it, or rather, we haven’t thought to do it, since the day I almost disappeared.
He rocks his hips against my hand, letting me feel his erection. “Now hurry up. Let’s go downstairs.”
I finish cleaning my wound and patch it up with a sizable Band-Aid. Asher barely lets me wash my hands before he grabs me by the crook of my arm and leads me down into the depths of the house, into the depths of our desires.
By rights, we should be asleep, but we both know we won’t be able to find rest until we’ve seen this through.
I straddle Asher’s hips, naked, like we were last night. Desperate, like we were last night. He inhales a sharp breath, trembling underneath me, his hardness already pressing against mine. The knife lies on the bed beside us, scrubbed as clean as I could get it.
“You shouldn’t have cleaned it,” Asher says, a little sullen.
I shake my head, smiling. “I won’t treat your body like I treat mine.”
“ I treated you like that. I didn’t clean it.”
“Yes, but only because I told you not to.”
“I’m sorry.”
I grip his jaw, caressing his cheek with my thumb. “Don’t be sorry. Just be honest and say you liked it. You liked cutting me.”
“I?…?I did like it.” He sighs deeply. “Fuck, Noah, I like everything we do down here. I like you . I like you so much.” His cheeks flush with color, and he stutters, “I-I mean?…”