Chapter Sixteen
Ricky
Elliot lived in a small apartment on the top floor of an early twentieth century building about twenty minutes from the mall. It was bitchin’.
He’d been acting a little weird at work before we left—kind of jumpy and nervous, which was unlike him—but the moment I stepped inside his place after he unlocked the door and held it open for me, I felt myself relax. Because it was his place. Elliot’s. And he was my safe haven.
There was a living area and tiny kitchen to our right, and against the far wall, tucked into a little alcove with a sloped ceiling and a big window, was his bed. My eyes snagged on it and held for a long moment, stomach twisting into knots with breathless anticipation.
“Thirsty?” Elliot dumped his backpack by the door and kicked off his shoes, then made his way into the kitchen to open the fridge, turning on various lamps along the way.
“Um, sure.” I set down my bag and toed off my sneakers, leaving them beside his. Tugging nervously on the hem of my T-shirt, I padded over to join him.
“Beer or orange soda?” He was already pulling a big bottle of off-brand orange soda out of the fridge.
“Soda would be great.” I watched as he opened a cupboard to grab two glasses.
He still seemed tense. In fact, he seemed to be growing tenser and tenser by the second.
Which was really weird. Elliot never seemed tense.
Rubbing one socked foot over the other, I awkwardly said, “Hey, if you’re… Um, I can go—”
“No.” He shook his head and flashed me a smile over his shoulder before looking back at the counter. Over the glug and hiss of soda pouring into a glass, he added, “I just, uh, want to talk to you about something.” It sounded like his voice shook a little as he said it.
“Oh.” Nerves shot through me, a million terrible things he might want to tell me crowding my brain. He didn’t really like me. He regretted what we’d done together. I was fired. I was a terrible kisser. My cum tasted weird. “O-okay.”
He handed me my glass, then took my hand and led me over to the couch.
I perched anxiously on the edge, running my gaze over everything as I took a tiny sip of soda.
There was a game console next to the TV and a neat stack of cartridges on the shelf below.
VHS tapes lined a small bookcase by the window, mostly kung fu and other action movies, and a healthy spider plant trailed down from the top shelf.
Everything was neat and clean. The folded throw over the back of the couch smelled like him.
My gut cramped up with longing as I imagined us snuggled underneath it together, watching movies or playing video games.
Elliot drained half his glass before putting it down on the coffee table. I took another anxious sip before setting mine beside his, then rubbed my clammy palms down my thighs.
“Ricky…” Elliot exhaled sharply and twisted to face me on the couch, crossing his long legs. He kept his head lowered as he picked at the hem of his pants. “Um, I have to tell you something. About me. But… it’s really private. It’s kind of, like, a huge secret.”
“Okay.” I tried to make my tone comforting as I gave him a tiny smile when he finally looked at me, forehead creased with worry. “I promise I won’t tell anyone. I mean… you already know my biggest secret.”
He smiled and reached out to take my hand, hesitated halfway, then finally curled his fingers under mine and lifted my hand to kiss my knuckles. “I’m honored to know it. Seriously. I’m… I really, really like you, Ricky. So much.” His voice grew hoarse. Thick.
I licked my lips and squeezed his hand. “Me too.”
“Okay.” He took a deep breath, one that shook wildly as he let it back out of his lungs. He let go of my hand to grip his knees, which had begun bouncing anxiously. His voice was unsteady with nerves. “Okay, so… you know my… medical condition?”
I nodded, wondering what he could be about to tell me. Did it mean we couldn’t be together? Oh god, had my cum given him some kind of delayed allergic reaction? How freaking embarrassing and awful.
“Well, it’s not… it’s not actually a m-medical condition. Exactly. It’s… something else. It’s…” He scrubbed both shaking hands over his face, exhaled sharply, then looked me dead in the eyes.
I was shocked to see his own eyes turn slightly pink at the edges and grow a little watery. It took a long time for him to get any more words out, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly, his throat bobbing. His lower lip starting to tremble.
Then he finished what he was trying to tell me.
“I’m not human.”
I went still. It had been the absolute last thing I’d expected him to say, because of course it had. It hadn’t even been on the list of top fifty possibilities. It wasn’t a thing anyone ever expected to hear in this kind of situation. In any kind of situation.
“Huh?” I eventually said into the thick, heavy silence that had filled the apartment.
“I’m not actually human,” he rushed out, as if he thought it might be easier for us both if he said it quicker this time. “Try not to freak out. Please. It’s nothing bad.” He cringed. “Well, kinda.”
“I’m not freaking out,” I said faintly, and it was true, mainly because I was too confused.
“I’m a, um, ghoul.” He cringed again, shoulders hunching, and quickly scrubbed a hand over his eyes.
His voice was thicker when he carried on talking, and it shook harder than it had before.
“We’re not actually that different to humans, we just need—uh…
we just have… s-slightly different dietary requirements. ”
“A… ghoul?” I echoed blankly. “Like… like a… ghost?”
“Not a ghost. I’m alive. I’m just…” He shrugged self-consciously, keeping his head bent, and mumbled, “I’m what you’d consider a monster, I guess.”
“You’re not a monster,” I said automatically with a frown.
He huffed and looked up at me with a sad smile. “Technically, I am. To humans, anyway. Especially because… because of what I have to eat. To stay alive.”
“Um…” I shifted on the couch, fingers curling into the fabric of my pants. “What… what do you have to eat?”
Elliot cringed and looked away sharply. “Do you know anything about ghouls? Like, the folktales and stuff?”
“Um…” I didn’t think my brain was working fully.
Was this a prank? I didn’t think so. Elliot seemed so uncomfortable and nervous.
On the verge of tears. I knew him well enough now to know that he wasn’t cruel enough to play this kind of prank.
To make me genuinely worry about him. To feign being this upset when he really wasn’t.
Which meant… he was telling the truth. He… wasn’t human.
He wasn’t human?
“I… don’t think so,” I told him faintly.
He sighed and scrubbed his face, reaching over to grab his glass and gulp down the rest of his soda. Then he mumbled, “We have to eat people to survive.”
I stared at him in silence. He set his glass back down and licked his lips, then hunched in on himself on the couch, wrapping his arms around his knees.
“Like a zombie?” I eventually asked blankly. A grimace twisted his mouth.
“No,” he said with mild offense. “I’m not dead. Or undead. I’m a living person. I’m not, like… mindless or whatever. I’m just not human.”
“Sorry,” I blurted, heat flooding my face. Belly cramping with guilt, I reached out to take his hand, then hesitated.
Elliot looked at my hand hovering uncertainly in the air and exhaled a miserable sigh, pulling his knees tighter to his chest and tipping his forehead onto them. He suddenly looked defeated. Like he thought I was disgusted by him now.
A sharp ache pierced my chest. I hated seeing him sad. Elliot wasn’t supposed to be sad. He was always grinning and cracking jokes and laughing.
“I’m a living person.”
He was. If he wasn’t… human, that didn’t make him less of a person. He was a person sitting right in front of me, alive and breathing and… amazing. He was amazing.
He was still the same person. He was still Elliot.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled as I remained silent. “I just… I like you so much, and I didn’t want to keep lying to you. I’ve never done this with a human before, and it felt… wrong to keep it from you.”
“Elliot,” I croaked, then finally moved, shifting closer on the couch and tugging on his knees until he reluctantly lowered them. Then I launched myself into his arms, hugging him tight.
He shuddered against me, fingers clutching at my back. “Ricky…”
“Thank you for telling me your secret.” I buried my face against his neck, eyes sliding shut as I breathed in his sweet scent. “I promise I won’t ever tell anyone.”
Slowly, he pulled back and stared at me in disbelief. His eyes were wet, cheeks and forehead flushed and splotchy. “I just… I just told you I have to eat people.”
“I—I know, but… you said you have to do it to survive.” I frowned. “So how is that your fault?”
He still looked stunned. “Ricky… I have to eat people. As in humans.”
I licked my lips and sat back. “As in… alive people?”
He shook his head quickly. “No. No, I would never… That’s why I work at Broth with a Bite. It’s, um, it’s actually a restaurant for ghouls. That’s why we have the special kitchen. Because we… cater to ghouls.”
Realization thudded into the pit of my stomach. “We serve people meat at work?”
A shaky snort left him. “Yeah. You don’t,” he rushed to add. “You just serve normal food. For the human customers.”
“Oh my gosh.” I scrubbed a hand through my hair, mind racing.
When I finally figured it out, a triumphant grin stretched my mouth despite that unsettling piece of news.
I wasn’t all that smart, so I was pretty pleased with myself for putting it together.
“Oh my gosh, so the medical condition thing is just a front so you can make the food for ghouls without risking any humans accidentally eating it. That’s pretty smart, honestly. ”
Elliot was still staring at me in disbelief. “Ricky… you’re taking this, like, really well.”