Chapter Sixteen
Benjamin
When I looked into the future, I thought May was going to be the most exciting month of senior year. Boy, was I fucking wrong. Between graduation prep, finals, applying to colleges, and trying to spend time with Drew, I am exhausted.
I briefly remember Aaron complaining at the dinner table about something similar when he was a senior, and it makes me smile.
The memories in this house will always haunt me in one way or another, whether they’re positive or not.
Like how I sit by the pool and remember how many times Felix and I have fucked around out here in the past nine years.
Or how I can’t go into Aaron’s room, or smell that clean, flowery scent, without wanting to cry—or laugh—when I shouldn’t react at all.
But that’s how memories work, making you all melancholy and whatnot.
Graduation is here, and our childhood is wrapping up.
My life is such a combination of misery and joy that I can’t tell if I’ll miss it or be glad I never have to step foot in Lancaster again if I don’t want to.
Swim season ended, and the team sent me, Drew, and the other senior members off with a little party.
Felix finished track in April, though he cried a lot when they sent him off.
Kayla spent a significant amount of time in our den patting his back.
Drew eventually called me. At the beginning of August, about three weeks after my dad attacked us at the market, he showed up at Felix’s front door asking for me.
He said he was sorry; he’d needed time. He’d never seen something like that, never experienced it, didn’t know what to do.
But he loved me and wanted to stay together—that we could deal with it. With him.
So, because I couldn’t handle the guilt, I told him about that night in Aaron’s bed. He looked at me with an expression I’d never seen him make before. I didn’t recognize him: nose scrunched, brows furrowed, lips curled. His eyes held so much disgust, so much anger. I hated myself through them.
“So he bathed you? Naked? Why didn’t Felix just do it? Or his mom?” I didn’t know how to explain it in a way that would make sense to him, so I could only tell him the facts—exactly how it happened—and hope he didn’t abandon me.
“I was screaming and volatile. I was having a manic attack. I wouldn’t let anyone near me; I wanted to kill myself. The only person who could get close enough to calm me was… was Aaron.” Drew stared at me for a moment, then huffed, a cruel smile shaping his lips.
“So, of all four people in the room, while you were upset, the only person you could turn to was the guy you used to fuck?” I was startled; his cruelty threw me off a bit.
“I wasn’t upset, Drew. I was screaming to the only people I have that I wanted to die while my blood dripped onto the floor.
It wasn’t like I stubbed my toe. And yes, out of everyone in the room, he was the one who calmed me.
” My voice was calm, but I needed him to understand it wasn’t some small incident.
He’d been there for the first half—why was he being like this?
“Right. So he stripped you naked and then what? Put you in Felix’s bed like a good boy and went to bed? I doubt it.” Drew scoffed, beginning to pace in front of me on the grass.
“No, he dressed me and laid me in his bed.” His gaze snapped to mine. Pure, unfiltered hatred.
“Then what happened, hm?” I took a deep breath and admitted to my crimes. Nothing could be worse than the life I already lived.
“I asked him to stay with me, to hold me till I fell asleep.” He was dragging his hands through his hair, laughing under his breath as he listened, eyes wild.
“Drew, I said some things that night that weren’t nice or fair to either of you.
But I said them, and I did mean them. But I did not cheat on you—unless you count sleeping in the same bed or hugging as cheating.
” My back was straight as I tried to hold on to my dignity, my composure.
I knew Felix had his window open, listening to every word.
He was about to hear some unsettling things.
“I think whatever you said is going to decide if I consider cuddling him to sleep cheating or not.” Drew sneered, glaring at me as he stopped pacing in front of me. I nodded.
“I told him I wished he had been the one to take my virginity.”
“What the fuck, Benjamin?!” I didn’t look away. I took my punishment, the anger in his eyes.
“I know. It wasn’t fair or nice to say.”
“Ha, but you—you’re saying you meant it? Great. Fucking great.” He shook his head, a hand over his mouth.
“I also said that you two are very different, and sometimes I miss the other way and don’t know what to do.” Drew just stared at me, face so angry, so hurt. After a very long pause, he asked,
“In what way are we different?”
“Drew—”
“Benjamin. You owe me this truth.” He’d started to tear up, fists shaking at his sides.
“When I’m sleeping with you, you’re so soft and gentle.
You treat me like something special and delicate, telling me how pretty I am, how much you like me.
And it’s nice. I really do like it.” Drew waited for it, knew I had more to say and hated that he needed to hear it.
“Aaron… he was very possessive. When I slept with him, even if we didn’t go all the way, he acted like he was claiming all of me, devouring me.
Owning me, making sure no one else would ever touch me again.
He’d tell me how good I was for him and no one else.
And it’s just… it felt like a different kind of love.
” I waited a long moment as he stared at me.
I knew it was fucked, but I said it, and he deserved to know.
Finally, through clenched teeth, he responded.
“Benjamin, if you think for even a moment that that toxic motherfucker loves you, then you need to spend some time reflecting.” I went to speak, to defend Aaron, but he didn’t let me, didn’t care.
“He marked you! His entire mouth is on your thigh. Forever. Do you know how hard he would have had to bite for that to stick? I won’t be the guy that fucks into you like an animal. I respect you. I actually love you.”
He turned on his heel then and started toward his car.
“So, you’re done with me?” I asked, tears falling—no anger, no judgment.
“No. Give me a day or two to stop being mad and we can move past it. And you—” He turned and looked at me; it felt like he was belittling me with his eyes, looking down on me. “You won’t interact with him again.”
Felix never said anything that night, but I heard him close his window as Drew drove away.
I sat on the front steps for a long while, considering Drew’s words, and eventually came to one conclusion: When Aaron was marking me, fucking my thighs like an animal, telling me I was his obedient slut, he was doing it with plenty of respect.
I don’t know if he ever loved me, but the way he’d run his mouth up my stomach, the way he’d look at me like he’d wanted nothing more than to completely sink into me and never leave—it wasn’t just obsession or possession.
It was there, yeah, but I also saw the longing.
God, he was always pleading to me with his eyes.
Begging me for something, but I couldn’t read what it was he wanted.
But that longing—it felt so much like love. When his hips slammed into mine, when his teeth sank into me and those eyes met mine, all I could hear was please, please, please.
Four months later Aaron came home for Christmas break.
I’d done a good job avoiding him, but holidays are inevitable.
I felt bad for Felix, who stayed caught in the middle like a child in a divorce.
Drew came over to spend the day with me since he was leaving the state the next morning for the rest of the break, and he spent most of the time trying to square up with Aaron.
Aaron looked at him like he was an annoying little kid and didn’t say anything, which just pissed Drew off more.
When I walked him out that night, he reminded me not to interact with Aaron, his anger renewed after seeing him.
We’d been doing good—almost like how we were before that day at the market.
All the while we never went back to our nicknames.
I forever stayed Benjamin, and him Drew.
The sun and the moon went off on their own, back to the sky and leaving us both behind.
Aaron confronted me that night and telling him Drew didn’t want me around him was harder than telling Drew I wished Aaron had taken my V-card. He looked fucking devastated—like he didn’t believe me at first and then was absolutely tortured.
“The next time you need someone to hold you, to make you feel protected, I sure as hell hope Drew can do that for you, because I won’t be the one to do it. Not again. Fuck, Benjamin!”
Everything inside of me froze that night, and it didn’t thaw until a few weeks later when we passed each other on one of his trips.
I was grabbing something from Felix’s room that I needed for swimming, and he was coming home with Amber.
He had smiled at me—those calculating, vibrant green eyes so soft and lovely. I was no longer frozen.
And to add fuel to the “I hate Aaron” fire that Drew is nurturing, Felix has wanted to go to the University of Arizona since Aaron got accepted.
He wants to be with his brother, and I’ll go anywhere Felix goes.
So, with his hand forced, Drew applied as well.
Felix and I have had our letters for a while, but we were waiting for Drew to get his.
Fortunately, it came last Friday, which means we get to open them after the ceremony.
Felix wants his brother there. It’s really hard to balance the Archer boys and Drew.
If we all go to UA, the next few years will be difficult.
We’re standing in front of the auditorium, Felix and Kayla going on about a show they’re watching.