Chapter 11
PERIS
Watching him walk away from me hurts less than I thought it would.
Maybe it’s because I know it’s not over. That I can find him now. Because it’s his number I’m staring at. A number he gave me without a word before walking away—yet again. Because that’s what Abel Silver does best.
He fucking runs.
And everyone else is left behind in his ruins, expected to pick up the pieces he left behind.
“Fuck!” I shout and rake my hand through my hair, tugging harshly.
There’s a beep, following by the soft snick of the door closing, and then, Gabriel’s scent fills the room, and I’m choking on it.
“Peris…”
“What.” It’s not a question.
“Are you okay?”
I huff. “Am I okay?” My voice cracks. My eyes sting. My body aches. “Am I okay? What a stupid fucking question.”
“Okay… fair enough. I just… What can I do?” he asks, and I snort and sniffle as I drop back on the bed, fingers clenched tightly around the notepad with his number, refusing to let it go, for even a moment, lest I lose this part of him, too.
“Grab me my fucking booze. That would help.”
“Peris…”
“Don’t parent me right now, Gabriel. I just need to get really drunk and forget it all for a while. Are you going to be my friend and get really drunk with me, or are you going to be my goddamn dad?”
“I don’t think you want me to be your dad—”
“That’s not the point!” I snap, and he jerks away.
“Right.” He nods and then seems to find resolve in something. “In your bag?” he asks after a moment, looking around on the floor for it.
“Yes. Thank you.” I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Sure thing, buddy.” And when he gives me it, along with my phone and my pack of cigarettes and suggest we go out onto the balcony, how can I refuse?
The night is freezing as I sit on the concrete in nothing but my shorts, but the cold is sobering, even as I work to become the exact opposite. Gabe and I pass the bottle of tequila back and forth, drink for drink, and it doesn’t take too long for the effects to start swimming.
Cigarette to my lips, I rasp, “He was really here, wasn’t he?” I pull in a drag, relishing in the burn of nicotine and poison.
Gabe’s sigh is soft. “Yeah, Peris. He was.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good thing.”
A long pause. He takes a drink and hands me the bottle. I bring it to my lips, smoke curling in the air as I wait for his answer.
“I don’t know either. I hope—for your sake—that it is. But…”
My breath stutters in my chest. Hand shaking, I chug out of the bottle before swiping the back of my hand across my lips. I drop it to the ground with a loud clink. “But what?”
“Abel hurts everyone and everything he touches. He’s like…” Gabe stops, like he’s pondering the right words for what to say next, and I feel myself holding my breath in anticipation. “He’s like a poison.”
And for some reason, that makes me laugh. Loudly. And for a really long time. Gabriel doesn’t say anything as I absolutely lose my shit, but I can’t help it. I’m numb from the cold, and yet every part of me is on fire from touching Abel again.
Because I did… I touched him.
He’s real.
He was here…
I reach for the notepad with his number and stare down at it in the shadows, seeing nothing but a blur of scribbles, but I know what’s there. A piece of him he left for me, but I don’t know why.
He could’ve left without giving me anything, and what could I have done? We’ve been apart for so long without a word, and we could have continued on, but he left his number… He wants me to use it.
But I don’t know why.
It’s not like we can be what we were… whatever that was. And I don’t want to be. He fucked me up enough, and there’s no way in hell I’m letting myself—
“Peris, you do know you’re talking out loud, right?”
“Huh?” I mutter, swooping my head to the side to catch Gabe in my peripheral.
“You’re speaking your thoughts aloud. To me… well, at least, to where I can hear them, and I don’t think you want me to.”
“Oh. Yeah,” I mutter, slurring the words slightly. “Maybe a bit more drunk than I thought.”
“Yeah. Maybe, buddy,” he chuckles and takes the bottle from me.
I protest, but he doesn’t seem to care as he sets it aside with a sharp clink on the ground.
He drops back against the wall with a deep breath.
The air that escapes his mouth plumes outward in a smokey cloud, and I copy the motion, watching my own breath do the same in the frigid air.
My skin tingles and burns, and when I move to light another cigarette, my movements are stiff, and I can barely feel what I’m doing.
“We should probably go inside. It’s fucking cold,” Gabe complains, teeth chattering, and I snort.
“Yeah, probably.” I take a drag and offer him the smoke, which he refuses. “In a minute.” And with that, I drop my head back against the wall and stare up at the night sky. At the stars I can barely make out with the light pollution.
“Well, you freeze your dick off, then, but I’m going in.” He stumbles as he gets to his feet and makes his way inside, but he also leaves the door open behind him, an obvious invitation for me to hurry my ass up, which only makes me snort again.
Turning my head back out toward the sky, I close my eyes and breathe in the crisp, frigid air, which only lasts until my cigarette burns to the filter, and then I flick it over the balcony and push to my feet, stumbling as I struggle to hold onto the notepad.
“‘Bout time. Was worried you froze out there,” Gabe says from the bed that’s unruffled from me and Abel, and I can’t help but snort loudly.
“Don’t want the other bed?” I ask, unable to help myself. His dark eyes dart toward the messy bedspread before finding mine again.
“Nah, I’m good,” he says as he pats his blanket.
I harrumph and drop down on the mattress, digging my fingers into the comforter and squeezing the downy blanket tightly.
I ache to bring it to my nose and inhale deeply to see if there’s any trace of his scent left, but I can’t do that in front of Gabe…
or at all, I think, so I drop my head back between my shoulders with a sigh.
Flashes of Abel’s smooth thighs flicker through my mind’s eye. His old scars have softened over the years, and it makes me wonder why he stopped burning himself. There’s no fresh rigidity from new ones, and it makes me wonder if he’s been okay enough to not need it anymore…
“What are you going to do with his number?” Gabe asks out of nowhere, and I startle out of my trance.
“Use it, probably. I don’t fucking know,” I tell him bluntly, crinkling the paper as I stare down at it.
In a drunken whisper, he says, “I don’t think you should.”
My fingers clamp tightly, fisting the paper. “Good thing I didn’t ask for your fucking opinion, Gabriel.”
“Peris…”
“No.”
“You’re making a mistake—”
I bark a laugh, startling myself along with Gabriel as I shoot up in the bed to glare at him with drunken eyes.
“A mistake? You think I don’t fucking know that?
You think I don’t know how utterly fucked up all of this is?
How he’s waltzed his way into my life—again, just like the first time—and is gonna fuck it all up all over again? ”
“Well, I—”
“Of course, I know this, Gabe! He fucked me up, and I’m still not okay! I’ll never be okay again, and it’s fine because at least he’s here now.” I finish my thoughts with a heaving breath. My eyes sting, surprising me, and I blink rapidly through it.
The silence settles between us, and it’s poignant, filled with so many things still left unsaid.
“Fuck, dude.”
I snort through a sniffle I don’t mean to let loose. “Yeah.” I nod as I flop back on the bed to stare up at the ceiling. “Fuck.”
“You look like shit.”
“Thank you, smartass,” I snap as the blinding sun fills the room. I groan and roll onto my stomach, flinging the blankets over my head to block it out.
“Nuh-uh, we gotta go. Bus is leaving soon.” Hands grab at my blanket and rip it off, not only blinding me once more with my already pounding head but causing a fresh wave of freezing air to waft over my bare skin.
"Ahh!" I yelp and curl inward as I scramble for purchase.
“Don’t be such a bitch. Get up.” Gabe smacks my ass before throwing the blanket in the corner.
“Ugh, fuck you,” I mumble into the sheets.
“Yeah, fuck me,” he scoffs. “Come on, up you get.” And with a groan that vibrates my bones, I push myself to my feet and manage to pull clothes over my body in a half-dazed state, not giving two shits what I look like, only hoping it’s a quick enough trip so I can go back to sleep when I get home.
“I don’t get how you can drink so much and be so hungover all the time,” Gabe says conversationally as I shove my shit into my bag, and I would roll my eyes if I knew it wouldn’t hurt.
“Yeah, me, too,” I mutter. It’s kinda fucked up if you ask me, but I don’t make the rules. I only drink until I hopefully can’t think and then deal with the consequences later.
Shoving the notepad into my hoodie pocket, I swing my duffle bag over my shoulder and make my way down to the lobby with Gabriel on my heels.
The morning is crisp and refreshing as I breathe it in, and it helps my hangover only slightly as I find my place on the bus and press my face against the cool glass. Gabe—thankfully—leaves me alone, as he finds his own spot across the aisle from me.
And that’s when I pull the paper out of my pocket and stare down at Abel’s sharp, scribbled numbers.
I trace my thumb over the indents in the paper, and a part of me aches for any part of him, the way I think I always have, but the bigger part of me hates him for what he did.
For who he created in me and who I’ve now become because of it.
This disgusting, mangled excuse of a person who can’t even stand to exist.
The ride home doesn’t take too long, and before I realize, we’re pulling up in front of the school and Gabe is nudging me awake.
“Come on. I’ll give you a lift home.”
My brows draw together as I let out a yawn and stretch my arms above my head. “Obviously. Who the fuck else is gonna do it?”