Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Fuck me, everything hurt. My face felt swollen like a balloon, but I refused to look in the mirror to check if that was true or not. A couple of my ribs ached when I took a deep breath, so I was resigned to practicing the art of shallow, quick breathing without inducing a panic attack.
The paper Crescent had given me burned a hole in my sweatpants pocket.
I’d folded it until it was too stiff to fold again, and shoved it deep down in my pocket.
These were the same sweats I’d worn yesterday, but I’d yet to have a chance to shower.
The most Jude let me do was clean my face with soap and water while he watched, making sure that I left at least one drop of dried blood as a reminder.
A reminder of what, I was never sure. I guess a reminder of the mistakes I constantly made, like a visual justification for how he treated me.
Last night had been the first time I’d ever admitted what Jude did to me. Of course, it had to be to the one person I’d tried to hide it from the most.
Saying it out loud, albeit in the most embarrassing manner with my sobbing, was almost freeing. Almost. For a moment there, I thought I’d felt a twitch between my shoulder blades. A particularly feather-like twitch, with promises of flight and joy.
But it wilted away, just like the rest of them, the moment Crescent’s phone died and we’d realized how late it was.
The side of my mouth started to curl into a half-smile as I thought about all the cat videos he’d shown me.
Crescent had never owned a cat, but he’d always loved them.
I’d painted him a watercolor orange tabby for his fourteenth birthday.
It was still sitting on his dresser when I’d left the Miller house.
I wondered if he still had it, or if he’d gotten rid of it the moment I got rid of myself.
“Elio!” Jude yelled down the hallway.
I looked up from the floor I was kneeling on. “Yes?”
“You got my shit ready?”
“Yes.”
Footsteps marched toward me, his shoes banging against the hardwood. When he spotted me, obediently sitting in front of the door, he smiled. It was wide and serene, like when we were kids. In that moment, he reminded me of who I fell in love with so long ago.
Jude bent down to cup the side of my face, his eyebrows falling. “Oh, sweetheart. You’re so swollen. Better put some ice on it when I leave.”
His hand was gentle and warm, his voice soothing and sweet. “I will. Thank you.”
He hummed and placed a light kiss on my lips. “Of course, baby. Thank you for getting my things together and being so well behaved today. You’re not gonna go anywhere, right? You’ll get everything done like you’re supposed to?”
I nodded.
“Good. I love you so much, Elio. I just want to help you—you know that, right?”
I nodded.
“You know you don’t have anyone else. I told you I’d always take care of you; you just have to take care of me, too, baby.”
“I know.”
You don’t have anyone else.
Jude gave me one more kiss before placing his thumb beside my nose, right where he’d punched me the night before last. “God, I hate seeing you like this. I’ll miss you while I’m gone.”
“I’ll miss you too.” It wasn’t a lie. I would miss him, but not the part of him that was always angry. I’d miss the kind, sweet, and funny Jude. The Jude holding my face right now, who I knew would change by tomorrow.
“I love you.” His thumb started to dig into my skin, forcing a hiss from my mouth. It stung against the tenderness there. “Be good for me, okay?”
Wincing, I tried to keep my voice level. “I love you, too. I will be.” Another lie.
He dug his thumb further in, dragging it down my face until he came to my chin.
Lifting my head up, he looked between my eyes, the sweet, loving version of himself that he’d been feeding me disappearing all together.
His smile was gone, replaced with a cold, steely expression burning with anger.
Anger and hatred. Hatred for me. Perhaps even some disgust.
And then he let me go, making my head drop, my chin almost touching my chest. “Wait until dinner to eat anything. You can use some ice for your face, but if I see anything else missing, we’ll have to rehash the rules.”
Before I could say anything else, he was gone. The door opened, the sunlight filtering through an assault on my eyes, yet warm on my skin. I wanted to leave, but the only reason I had for leaving would be Crescent, and he wouldn’t be off work until around two.
Sighing, I stood from the floor and started my chores.
After my little stint the other day, Jude had beaten the fear of overstepping into me.
I was eight minutes late getting home, and though the living room always looked pristine, Jude knew I hadn’t vacuumed, and to top it all off, I hadn’t cooked dinner.
Infraction after infraction piled together. I knew I wasn’t allowed to leave the house. Usually, if I ran out while he was angry, he’d lock me out of the house like he had the first night I saw Crescent.
I’d rather sleep on the porch or in the backyard than go through what I went through that night.
He’d exploded, yelling and screaming, dragging me by the longer part of my hair, and hitting me.
When his fists got tired, he’d used a hardcover book and his feet.
A lot of my wounds were on my torso, making it easier to hide the extent of what happened when I met up with Cres later.
The next morning, he’d put me in the corner, forcing me on my knees and continuing the torment well into the afternoon. He was off work, so he had all the time in the world to teach me a lesson.
When he fell asleep, I’d been exhausted but in too much pain to sleep with him, so I snuck out. I hadn’t expected to find Crescent there.
I was glad he was.
I was angry he was.
I didn’t fully understand how I felt about it, but seeing a familiar face after everything was more comforting than I thought it would be.
Scrubbing the hallway floor, I thought back to the painting I kept hidden. It’d been so long since I’d thought of something to paint, I wasn’t sure if I was capable of it anymore.
Back when Jude wanted me to leave Crescent’s house and I’d tried staying with my parents, they threw the fit of the century, high and drunk off their asses. We fought for what felt like hours, and eventually they slammed the front door in my face and locked it.
So Jude swept in to save the day, offering to let me stay at his house. His parents didn’t give much of a shit and were rarely home anyway, just ghosts passing through the hallways. They weren’t a very close family. In fact, we haven’t spoken to them since we graduated high school.
The worst of Jude’s violence started the moment I’d moved in with him.
When that happened, I’d started to lose myself slowly but surely.
I’d painted the dark, sad angel soon after as some way of portraying everything I’d bottled up on the inside—like a self portrait, but for my soul rather than my face or body.
I’d wanted so desperately to leave. I’d wanted to spread my wings and fly so far away, no bad thing could ever touch me again.
But I had nowhere to go. I had no one I could run to.
Thinking about it only hurt more, so I forced my feet to stay where they were and finished cleaning the house. My stomach growled obnoxiously, sharp pains accompanying each rumble as I pulled meat from the freezer to defrost while I was gone.
I looked up at the ice in the ice maker, remembering what Jude had said before he’d left for work. His nice moments were few and far between, but I was dumb enough to fall for them every time. I looked at the clock, realizing it was almost two-thirty. I needed to leave to meet Crescent.
Would Jude notice if I didn’t ice my face? Would it help the swelling enough for it to be noticeable? If he did notice, he’d probably hit me for it. But if he didn’t notice, he’d probably hit me regardless.
A frustrated growl rumbled from my chest as I slammed the freezer door closed, making it shake with the force. I slid my shoes on, grabbed the sunglasses by the door, and walked outside to the park.
The birds laughed at me. I could hear them, perched high on the tree branches, looking down on me and laughing.
Did they know I used to be one of them? I wondered if they could see the invisible scars around my shoulder blades, raised and aching.
Always fucking aching. Always a searing, stabbing pain reminding me of what I’d lost.
I marched across the park, hanging my head so nobody would see the mess I called my face. Crescent was sitting on the bench already, his phone held to his ear as I walked closer.
“There is no way I share blood with you. That’s so fucking gross,” he laughed.
Instead of interrupting him, I sat where I always did. Beneath my favorite tree, surrounded by my favorite flowers. The daisies looked brighter today, almost kinder.
Plucking one from the ground, I twirled the stem between my thumb and forefinger. The memory of Jude’s rare kindness played in my mind as I ripped one petal off.
He loves me.
Then the way his thumb dug into the bruise he’d created.
He loves me not.
I tried not to let any tears well up, but it was hard. Knowing even the nature I’d come to love was smarter than me hurt.
“Sorry, that was Moon on the phone. I told him beets were gross, and then he proceeded to send me a picture of his mouth full of chewed-up beet.” Crescent took his usual spot, sitting on the ground beside me.
My lips twitched painfully. Moon and Crescent had always bickered back and forth, despite their love for each other. They’d die for each other, but they wouldn’t dare be nice to each other. “Sounds like you guys haven’t changed a bit.”
When I turned to look at him head-on, he froze. The rich, shining brown of his eyes searched my face, moving rapidly between each bruise. “Dude, that’s worse than yesterday.”