Chapter Ten #3
I say nothing, just continue washing his wounds.
I watch as the blood and the dirt slowly fade under the rag, watch his smooth skin disappear and reappear as I go.
The burn on his right arm looks like a cigarette burn but I can't be sure.
I rinse it out, avoiding touching it directly with the rough rag. We can put burn cream on it.
I’ve finished with his face and arms when Felix is done, announcing that he’s going to go grab said burn cream from downstairs.
I continue on, trying not to picture exactly how he got every single scratch or bruise.
I find a bruise darker than the others right on the smooth skin centered in between his hips.
I let out a soft, sad sigh, gently washing over it with the rag.
My fingers have spent so much time lingering here.
If I hadn’t run him off, would he have stayed home?
Could I have prevented this? Would he instead be lying on my bed, my fingers dragging over this exact spot?
God, it’s my fault he went, isn’t it? A couple of hot, stray tears fall from my eyes as I stare at the bruise. Finally, I blink. I have to continue.
As I move on, I look up and see Benjamin watching me. He came back to the present at some point.
“I haven’t touched you.” I rush out. “Felix undressed you and I’ve only touched you with this rag, not my hands.” He stares at me for a moment, expressionless.
“Okay.” His voice is shot to hell, and it clearly doesn’t feel good for him to talk. I look away, going back to cleaning his chest.
“I’m sorry.” I suddenly confess. “I’m sorry I sent you there.
That you only went today because you already felt so torn up.
” I look at his face, making sure he heard me.
He shakes his head at me and stares at the floor.
That’s fine. As long as he knows—he doesn’t have to forgive me.
When Felix gets back, I’m essentially done, so he takes over, drying Benjamin off and stating that they’ll be heading to bed so he can rest.
I study Benjamin one last time, reassuring myself that he’s going to be fine, burning the image of those sad, empty eyes into my brain. This is why—this is why we had to stop. Does he get it now? The next time I hurt him it could be much worse.
When I head into my room and shut the door, Amber is sitting at my desk.
“Hey, do you feel better?” I ask, pulling my trunks off and grabbing out some boxers to sleep in. There’s no way I’ll be leaving this room again before nightfall.
“Aaron. What’s going on with Benjamin?” I slip the boxers on and lay down, patting next to me.
“We washed his wounds and now he’s going to bed. I guess we will sort everything else out tomorrow, if there is anything else we can do.” She sighs, sitting next to me, but not laying down.
“No, what's going on with Benjamin and you?” Freezing, I stare up at her. I’m startled, confused. What does she know?
“What do you mean?” She glares.
“Don’t insult me. I heard you in there, apologizing. You did something yesterday to make him sad?”
“Oh, I—”
“Before you lie to me, listen to what else I know, Lover Boy.” My eyes widen. “I was heading back downstairs after guarding your girl toys door at the party Friday night and I ran into a guy named Trevor. He’s a junior and in a couple of Bear’s classes.”
“Okay?” I raise a brow, trying to understand what the hell she's talking about.
“He told me some assholes had been hogging the bathroom for damn near forty-five minutes, and when he finally got them to leave, a senior who looked just like you mentioned stripping a cutie, while pulling Bear out behind them. Then apparently, they took him right down the hall. Toward that very same room I was told to guard not long after.” She's staring at me expectantly and I swear my vision is going in and out. I sit up, staring at the wall across the room. I don’t even know what I could say.
Other than full admittance, I got nothing.
“Oh,” she continues. “And on my way back up here I ran into Felix who was on his way downstairs. He said he found a pretty intense bite mark on the nape of Bear’s neck, one that was probably given in the past day considering how fresh the teeth marks looked.
And then one on his shoulder that was a bit older and scabbed.
Oh, I don't know, from let’s say maybe Friday night?
” She grins. Amber knows she has me—she just wants to hear it, and I don’t know how to say it.
“Amber, please drop this.”
“When you tack on your obvious obsession with who he interacts with and how protective you are over him, all the signs really point in one direction, Aaron.” I scoff. I’ll run this into the ground just to piss her off, damnit.
“Of course I’m protective—I’ve known him for almost nine years.” she rolls her eyes.
“Yeah, sure. It has nothing to do with the mind-blowing sex?”
“Well, that’s—”
“HA!”
“Fuck! Amber!” She cackles as I drop my head into my hands. She got me with the oldest trick in the book. I hate her so much at this moment.
“Oh God, I can’t believe you fucked him.” She shakes her head, leaning back on her palms as she chuckles a bit more.
“I didn’t—Ugh. I didn’t fuck him. We just fooled around.” Amber raises a perfectly plucked brow.
“Yeah? How many times?”
“Three.” Her mouth falls open. “Well, there could be a fourth depending on what you consider fooling around.”
“You dog! When? What did you do?” Shocked, I turn to face her.
“No, I am not doing this. I’m not doing that girl thing where I sit here and give you a play-by-play of every time me and... you know who did stuff together.” She giggles, scooting in closer and grabbing my thighs like we’re sharing a super big secret. Which, in all fairness, we are.
“Tell me where and I’ll leave it at that. Promise. I won’t even ask if you put your fingers up his ass.”
“Amber!”
“I said I wouldn’t ask!” I groan. We glare at each other for a few seconds before I crack.
“Promise you won’t ask for more details if I spill?” she nods quickly. “Shower, pool house, Cameron's house, and this bed.” I rapid fire, my face definitely flushing. Then, I tack on. “Oh, the shower is the debatable location.”
“Oh. My. God.” She shakes her head at me. “Did you not fall in the shower, you psycho?”
“Huh? No, I wasn’t in there—I just watched him shower.”
“Right, right. What did he say when he caught you?” Amber casually picks at her nails and I watch her.
“Not much, just let me watch.” She’s staring at me like a fucking crazy person, and I realize she just got a whole fucking story out of me.
“You siren! I said nothing else! Stop prying and leave me alone.” I get off the bed and stomp over to my desk, grabbing a pen (one that Benjamin threw at me) and start angrily writing out what I need to study for our upcoming environmental sciences exam.
“Sorry! Sorry!” She throws her hands up in surrender. “I can’t help myself—I know you both so well. And I might be a siren, but at least I’m not a psycho.” I spin around in my chair.
“What?”
“Yeah.” She shrugs, leaning back against the headboard. “I mean, fucking someone in your family pool house? That’s sick.” I’m going to fucking kill her. First, she pushes and pushes, and now she’s mixing everything up and making me sound like a creep!
“Oh my God. Amber, I told you I didn’t fuck him. And it was like two in the morning.” She scoffs.
“Like that matters.”
“It does! I was drunk and just going to crash on a floatie when I caught him jerking off in the shower after a late-night swim. Nothing psycho about it, just coincidence.” I defend, spinning my chair and going back to my paper.
“And it’s not psycho to watch from the corner like a creep?”
“JESUS. I didn’t! I walked straight in and asked him if I could make him come. Is that psycho, Amber? Before you say yes, know I’m not against smacking you if you really deserve it.” She knows I'm lying, but she still raises a brow. God, she’s irritating.
“Not psycho.” She agrees. “That’s actually really hot.”
“What?” I ask, expressionless.
“Uh, yeah. Watching him shower? Then catching him again and jerking him off? Come on, that's grade-A amateur porn. If you ever want a third party to sit back and watch, I’m so down.” I now understand.
She has worked this entire conversation to figure out what she wants to know.
She never thought I was psycho or a pervert.
In this moment I’m so glad she’s not my enemy—how fucking terrifying.
“You’re banned from my room, leave now.” I point at the door and she laughs.
“Aaron, he might not have had the honor of experiencing your dick yet, but as someone who’s personally experienced your sweet mouth and those long fingers, um yeah. Watching him take even just that from you would be probably the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. Not like, in a weird way of course.”
“Is there any dimension where that isn’t fucking weird?”
“Yep, this one. I’d love to see it, but once it’s over, you’re still my best friend and he’s still Bear.” She shrugs. “I can separate entertainment and friendships.”
“I can’t stand you.” Amber waves me back over to her, pulling me down when I reach her. My face resting on her stomach, her legs on either side of me.
There’s a long moment of silence.
“What did you do? That made him sad?” I sigh.
“I told him we can’t be doing this. It’s not right.” I play with the hem of her tank top. “He told me to never touch him again.” My voice is small when I say it. Now that I’ve confessed to someone, it’s real. I’ll never touch him again. Someone else will.
“It’s not right? Why?”
“Well, for one Felix could hate me or him for it. Then there's the age gap—I’m eighteen now. And even if a year and a half is nothing later down the line, it’s frowned upon at this age.
He’s still sixteen until July. Plus, if something happened between us and we broke up, he’d lose his only safe space.
” I pause for a moment. “I won’t put myself in a position to hurt him.
Not if I can prevent it. It’s best to stop this before it starts, before it gets serious. ”
“Hmm.” Is all Amber says. She runs her hand through my hair, scratching my scalp. I breathe in her vanilla perfume and let my body relax. She may be a deceptive little thing, but where Benjamin has Felix, I have Amber. I need her right now.
I consider asking her to stay the night but I know she likes the comfort of her own bed, so I don’t.
“Do you think you guys will be together in the future? If things could work out?” I think about her question, though there’s no point in wasting my energy on it. I already know the answer.
“I think that between now and when that time would come, someone who can give Benjamin what he needs, who can love him better, is going to meet him and there's absolutely no way they’d give him back to me.”
Amber lets me cry until I fall into a nightmare that feels like a reprieve from the reality I fell from.