Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
The entire way home, my stomach had been killing me. I felt bloated and heavy, like my pants were too tight to handle how much I’d gorged myself. My brain felt sluggish and slow, every thought eluding me in a race I hadn’t known started. I was in last place, never reaching the ribbon.
Now that we were parked, I didn’t want to move. Not a muscle in my body wanted to respond to my brain, too many signals misfiring to keep up with.
Crescent started to open his door, but paused. He turned toward me, his eyebrows pulled down with concern. “What’s wrong?”
“My, uh…” I cleared my throat, trying to clear the shakiness of it. “My stomach hurts.”
“Did you eat too much?”
It was embarrassing how much pain I was in. “Definitely.”
“Okay, let’s just get you in the apartment, and I think I have something that may help.”
I closed my eyes, trying to fight through another wave of unforgiving nausea. It was a monumental battle to step out of the car, each step one closer to hurling on the asphalt. Crescent carried the bags of clothes so that I could go and lie on the couch as soon as we got inside.
Oh, the blessed couch. I fell against the cushions, resting the back of my arm on my forehead. Unfortunately, lying like this only exacerbated the full feeling in my stomach. I groaned, shifting my body in every way I could think of.
Crescent came up beside me, rubbing my arm gently. “Lie on your side, Sunshine. It’ll help. Let me get you some antacids and see if that’ll help any.”
I rolled onto my side and nodded, never opening my eyes. It’d been a long time since I’d overeaten like this. It was something I’d forgotten could happen, honestly.
After I chewed through an antacid, Crescent kneeled on the floor beside me. He stroked through my hair, never calling me out for the dramatics. I sure felt dramatic. He didn’t seem to think so, or at least he didn’t mind, because he stayed by my side until I could finally open my eyes.
The shame clouded my vision, blurring everything in front of me. Deep, golden eyes became my center point, guiding me back into whatever reality I’d been dropped into. After so many years, I’d given up hope on ever seeing it again.
Freedom.
Etched into his irises, written in shades of brown and gold, was a script so indecipherable that only my heart could understand it.
It spoke to me and the life I’d had before this one.
The life where I’d had everything and more, tinged with nothing but pure, white innocence, a yellow center the only pop of color.
Crescent was, and always had been, my guide to somewhere new.
A decade of nothing but empty, dark shadows, and yet there was a crescent moon rising in the distance, beautiful enough to paint.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
He looked up at me, the words my soul ached for dancing in his eyes. “For what?”
“Not giving up on me.”
“Scoot over.”
I looked at him, confused. “What?”
He stood up, looking down at me. “Scoot over, Sunshine. I need some room.”
“Uh, okay.” I moved backward, though there wasn’t much space for me to do so.
It took some maneuvering and a lot more scooting, but Crescent crawled onto the couch with me, gently wrapping his arms around me. He cradled my head against his shoulder, a palm resting on the back of my neck.
Were we cuddling right now?
“I want you to listen to me.” His voice sounded different when we were like this.
It rumbled straight into my ear, more vibration than sound.
I could feel the intent of his words thrumming through me, shaking me to my very core.
“I never gave up on you in the first place. It killed me to walk away back then. Do you understand that?”
I blinked, though there wasn’t really anything to look at. I could’ve closed my eyes and not seen anything different, but I didn’t. I stared into the shadows, willing something to appear. “I don’t know if I can, Cres. I hurt you so much.”
“God, you keep talking about hurting me. Yeah, dude, you fucking hurt me. Sure. But I hurt you a million times over when we were friends. Stupid jokes, accidents while playing games together—I mean, the list goes on.” When he sighed, it blew my hair with it.
His breath was warm, the conviction in his words coming out like a gentle, constant steam.
Mine were laced with poison, burning, and tainted with nothing but misfortune. “That’s different.”
His response was quick. So quick, it made me jump a little when he started talking. “How? How is it different?”
“I—”
“Don’t answer that. Just look at me.” Hands cradled each side of my face, pulling me back just enough to look up at him.
We locked gazes, a pool of infinite memories connected by our souls.
“When you left, I missed you too much to truly be angry with you. I may have been upset and, yes, hurt, but I was never actually mad. I may have thought or said some words harsher than usual, but it was all from fucking… I don’t know, despair?
Yeah, despair. I just missed you, Sunshine.
” The honey and freedom in his eyes backed away into unknown shadows as he closed them.
The tips of his eyelashes almost touched his cheeks, like the leaves of a weeping willow.
When he opened them, I couldn’t name anything I saw in them anymore.
“I may have hurt, but I wished you’d come back.
Every second of every fucking day, I wished you’d come back.
I hoped you’d come back. I thought of different ways to get you to, but I was afraid because what if you didn’t want that?
What if I broke our chain even further? You were always the other part of my soul, Elio.
Without you, I’ve just been half of one.
But I never, ever gave up on you. I never gave up on thinking about you.
“You’re on my fucking wall, for Christ’s sake.
Does that seem like giving up?” He leaned down, pressing our noses together.
We both closed our eyes, soaking it in; our souls melding together once more, like they were always meant to.
“My heart ached for you every day that we were apart, and when I saw you on that bridge? After trying to fucking kill yourself? I knew it was my chance. My chance to hold on to you and never let you go again. My Sunshine.”
Viridian green split into gold where the wings on my back pushed through my skin. Jade bled from each wound, dripping down my back as I let myself be enveloped by Crescent’s heart. I felt the warmth radiating from him, the waft of each breath, and the slight tickle from his hair caressing me.
I felt his words, and I heard his heart. My soul reached for his, just as his did mine.
There came a point where I couldn’t deny it any further. To myself, to him, or to the daisy petals that’d been witness to it all. “How did you know I was going to jump?”
A short beat of nothing, and then a quiet voice that broke my heart in two. “Because I’ve tried the same thing on that same bridge.”
I gasped without even realizing it. My body took over, ignoring my brain entirely. A hundred thousand words ran through my mind, yet none of them made any sense. None of them would come out, one thing playing in my mind over and over.
I almost lost my crescent moon?
“Wh-what do you mean?” It was weak. A sorry excuse for speaking.
He shook his head, as if it didn’t matter. As if he hadn’t just shattered my entire worldview because what the fuck. “It doesn’t matter now, Sunshine. I’m fine, obviously. It isn’t something I want to really get into while I’m holding you like this.”
“No, no, you can’t just fly by that.”
“Oh, like you did?”
“That was—”
“Don’t you dare say it was different. It wasn’t, and you know that.
You have to know that.” Our foreheads came together, a simple comfort, but all I needed were answers.
“Let’s just stop for a second. I don’t want to get into the nitty-gritty of that.
The point is—or originally was—that I didn’t give up on you, but I didn’t do enough.
I swear on my fucking life I won’t let that happen again. ”
What was this feeling inside my body? It was heavy, yet light at the same time. Terrifying, yet liberating. I pulled my arms up, wrapping them around him the best I could. We were so close, practically lying on top of one another.
His breathing kept me sane. His warmth kept me grounded. I didn’t need to fly if Crescent was here. With him here, there was nothing in the sky I could ever find that would be better than him and us. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
We stayed that way, our noses and foreheads touching like we could telepathically wrap each other up in a bubble that was all our own. My new clothes sat somewhere off to the side, forgotten in the midst of it all. There was nothing else to be said. Nothing else to be done.
We simply existed, and let time do the rest.
The chicken fried rice had definitely survived the trip home. It was good reheated, and there wasn’t such a large portion for me to accidentally gorge myself on.
Crescent was in the living room with some show playing.
I was staring at my reflection in the mirror, cataloging every bruise that was slowly fading.
The black crop top—I found out it was called—fit perfectly on me.
My blue jeans sat right on my hips, leaving a good amount of skin showing between them and the edge of the shirt.
I’d never seen myself like this, with so much exposed.
In the beginning, I’d hidden a lot of bruises with long-sleeve shirts, hoodies, and jackets that zipped up to my chin.
After a while, I’d stopped leaving the house enough for it to matter. Nobody saw me anyway. What was the point? But the clothes were normal for me by then, becoming the only things in my wardrobe.
I liked how I looked, actually. If I ignored the bruising, I could appreciate how everything fit me. There was even a hint of a smile on my lips, struggling to curl up at the way I felt.