Chapter Fifteen
Elliot
You’d think, after the perfection of last night, that I’d be in a stellar mood. That I’d be walking on air, floating around in a romantic, dreamy haze, unable to think of anything but my perfect sugar muffin Ricky.
That last part was true, at least. I couldn’t stop thinking about him, just like I hadn’t stopped thinking about him since the moment I met him. But it was worse now. More all-consuming. More desperate, more piercing. It made my whole body ache when I thought too deeply about how I felt for him.
But I was a bad person. So, so bad. So I didn’t deserve to feel good. I didn’t deserve to bask in the aftermath of the most perfect night of my life.
I’d told myself not to let Ricky touch me. I’d made myself promise. To, well, myself. It shouldn’t have been particularly hard, for fuck’s sake. But no, I just had to have his finger in my ass.
Who knew a single finger in the ass could unleash such a monstrous tidal wave of guilt and doubt and self-loathing? Me. I did now. Wasn’t I a lucky fucking duck?
I’d done so well until then. I’d worked so hard to keep us from crossing the, admittedly arbitrary, imaginary line I’d created without him knowing.
I’d even found the strength to steer us down a different and safer path when he’d been undoing my jeans while his tongue was in my mouth.
He’d wanted to touch me. Maybe even suck me off.
And I’d still, somehow, managed to resist. And then I’d failed spectacularly at the very last hurdle, because when it came down to it, I couldn’t resist him. I just couldn’t.
It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair—I hadn’t asked to be a ghoul, I hadn’t asked to be biologically wired to need to eat people—but it especially wasn’t fair to him.
He didn’t know I wasn’t human. It was wrong.
So wrong. I was a terrible person, because I was lying to the sweetest and best person in the fucking universe.
And now, enough had happened between us that he might never forgive me if he found out the truth.
There was a chance, a very good chance, that he’d feel too betrayed.
And the thought of that completely fucking devastated me.
Devastated me. If I ended up being the cause of Ricky’s distress, of his sadness, I would lock myself in my apartment and never leave again.
I’d let myself rot into my couch until the neighbors were all too scared to come up to the top floor of the building, and they spread rumors about the weird creepy hermit living upstairs.
It would be what I deserved.
Of course, there was an even better chance that it wouldn’t be hurt or sadness that Ricky felt if he found out I was a ghoul—it would be disgust. Shudderingly strong, nauseating disgust. Complete and utter revulsion.
Horror. Fear. All those things. All the bad things.
All the things that would mean he didn’t want me anymore.
I didn’t think I’d be able to handle Ricky hating me. I was pretty sure it would make me crumble. Collapse in on myself. Stop caring about anything at all. Because what would be the point if the person I cared about the most hated me?
I’d been agonizing over this all day. All fucking day. Flip-flopping back and forth on what to do.
Except I already knew, deep down, what I should do.
What the right thing to do was. It just scared the absolute shit out of me, so all day I’d been trying desperately to find workarounds.
Figure out other ways I could keep Ricky and not have him hate me or be disgusted by me, but not actually have to tell him I was a ghoul.
That he’d let a creature who ate humans kiss him and touch him and make him come.
Because that was the right thing to do, wasn’t it? For fucking fuck’s sake. I had to tell him.
Except that brought its own set of goddamn problems, because of course it did.
We didn’t tell humans we existed. Period.
None of us beings of the non-human variety did.
It was just… a thing. Did humans find out in other ways?
Yeah, sometimes. Did they start legends and folktales about us?
I mean, yeah, and some of them were actually pretty entertaining.
But they didn’t really know. A lot of them wouldn’t be able to handle knowing we actually existed.
Especially not us heinous, people-eating ghouls.
Would Ricky be able to handle it? He was a sweet, sensitive guy. He’d been super understanding and compassionate about my “medical condition.” Would he really react that differently if I told him it wasn’t actually a medical condition, but more like a… whole-other-species condition?
I was kidding myself, of course. A supposed acute allergy condition was, in no way, shape or form, anything remotely like being a goddamn monster who ate people. He was obviously going to react differently. He was obviously going to be horrified.
But the guilt had become too much. It felt like it was eating away at my insides, so I had to do it. I had to tell him. That, or put an end to anything between us right now with no explanation.
I knew if I asked another ghoul—not that I actually could—they’d tell me the second option was the right one.
Not that any other ghouls would’ve gotten themselves into this situation.
I was the “weirdo perv” for feeling this way about a human.
Other ghouls would say it was depraved. Unnatural.
They’d say the only option was to cut all ties with the human warping my brain and not be such a sick bastard in the future.
They’d say even considering exposing us to a human was despicable and dangerous.
And they’d be right. If I was really honest with myself, I knew the noble thing to do was not to expose him to something he might not be able to handle knowing, and in the process risk a lot of other things, including the business we both worked for.
The noble thing to do was to gently end this now, to let Ricky move on with the memories of his first experiences with a guy and find another human to be with.
At the end of the day, the best thing for him would be a swift and momentarily painful break now that, in a few years, he probably wouldn’t even remember the ache of.
It would just be a neutral memory to him, a brief fling, his first taste of being with a man.
It wouldn’t to me, of course. It would gut me. But I wasn’t the important one here.
Was I capable of being that noble? Noble wasn’t really a word I’d ever used about myself before, and I definitely couldn’t see anyone else using it to describe me either.
My dad and brother thought I was a total wastoid.
My mom was as supportive as she could be, but clearly wished I’d make something more of my life—join the family business, settle down with a nice ghoul girl, have some ghoul babies.
Some of my friends thought it was hilarious that I was still happy just working in a mall food court instead of taking a cushy position at my family’s funeral home.
A lot of other ghouls thought those of us who worked here were lazy and becoming too “humanized.”
But as soon as I seriously considered it—ending things with him without telling him why—my entire being physically recoiled at the notion. I just couldn’t do that to him. I couldn’t. He didn’t deserve to be hurt that way, to be left confused and wondering if he’d done something wrong.
Shit, it almost felt like I was going to burst into tears right here in the kitchen at work, with asswipe Johnny just behind me peeling potatoes. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d cried, and I did not want to do it in front of the d-bags I worked with.
It was almost the end of the day, which meant very soon, I wouldn’t be able to avoid Ricky anymore, and I’d have to make a decision. Before we’d parted ways last night, we’d made plans to send Johnny and Daphne home a little early today so we could close up together and hang out again.
I’d made those plans because I was an idiot, and because I’d still been loopy and cum-drunk and high on sugar and Ricky at the time.
Not yet letting myself fully feel the guilt that had just started to creep in while I said goodbye to Ricky in his car, fraying the edges of my unbridled happiness.
No, that’d hit me when I’d been driving myself home.
That door in my mind had burst open violently, and the monster within had come tearing out, roaring and screaming and slashing with its claws.
By the time I’d gotten home last night, I’d been shaking again, but not from pleasure anymore. Not from Ricky’s touch. From the terrifying realization that I couldn’t let things continue the way they were, with Ricky having no idea what I really was.
I glanced at the clock on the wall and swallowed thickly as dread filled my belly. Now was the time to send Johnny home. Ricky would be offering the same to Daphne right now. Because that was what we’d planned. So I needed to do it.
Johnny didn’t need telling twice. Within thirty seconds, I was alone in the kitchen.
After standing there in silence for a few minutes, my brain still spinning endlessly in torturous circles, I started cleaning up.
Slowly, methodically, moving on autopilot.
I’d been doing this so long I could complete my nightly checklist with my eyes shut.
Which meant it did nothing whatsoever to distract me from the monster thrashing and screaming in my brain, forcing me to make a decision, and soon.
Ten minutes later, I took a deep breath in the hallway and braced myself before walking into the other kitchen.
I needed to shore up my defenses, because otherwise I’d be completely hopeless again.
A mess. Willing to drop to my knees and worship at Ricky’s feet once more.
Willing to live with this gnawing, horrible guilt if it meant I just got one more day with him.