Chapter 41 GABE #2
I shake my head angrily, tears falling down my face with the force.
“No. It can’t be that. I must have done something.
People don’t just do things like that for no reason.
People don’t just force people to—” I can’t even say it.
“So, what did I do? Tell me why, what did I do to make you hurt me like that?”
My breaths are coming so fast, I’m on the verge of hyperventilating.
Kyle holds a hand to his mouth, sniffling loudly as his own tears fall. “Jesus, Gabe. I’m so fucking sorry.” His nostrils flare as he takes a large inhale. “I meant what I said, it was never you. You never did a single thing to deserve any of it. Never did a single thing wrong. It was all me.”
All the fragile parts of me that I’ve been trying so hard to keep held together are on the brink of violently collapsing.
“Leave.” The word is a heartbroken sob.
He turns toward the door, glancing at me over his shoulder, but I can’t look at him. He’s torn me apart yet again.
“You deserved so much better than I ever gave you.” I barely register him leaving, but faintly hear the door closing. The sound echoes in my bones.
Then… silence and the taste of iron in my mouth from biting my cheek too hard.
I press a shaking hand to my scar, but it doesn’t stop the burning. I dig my fingers in harder, but the pain doesn’t center me. My safe space feels like it’s been split open, and I can’t catch my breath.
It was never you.
The words should be a release. Instead, they twist me up. If it wasn’t me, then what was it all for? Every word he spat, every bruise, every night I thought I’d earned it—if it was never me, then I tore myself open for nothing.
I’ve spent so long punishing myself, living in this self-made cage, for what?
Shame threatens to devour me. I let him treat me like that for so long, and then I treated myself no better.
I run to the door and flick the lock. I tear the open sign down, and it clatters to the floor. The sound vibrates against my nerves, making my chest heave.
The air smells wrong. The usual comfort isn’t there. Taunting. Sour beer. Anger. The stink of his body pressed against mine. My body swears it’s real even when I know it can’t be.
I stumble into the aisles on unsteady legs, I try to count my breaths, regain control of myself, but the smell is burning my nostrils. It’s him. He’s on my clothes, in my hair, coating my skin.
I run up the stairs, tripping halfway and hitting my shin hard. But I don’t stop.
I make it to the bathroom, just in time to empty the contents of my breakfast into the toilet.
Air is sawing in and out of my lungs by the time I’m done.
When I get up to rinse my mouth and brush my teeth, I can’t look at myself in the mirror, too terrified of what will be looking back at me.
Something wretched is bubbling up inside of me, a lethal, poisonous swell.
I grip the vanity so hard pain shoots up my arms. I slap my palm against the top, then do it again, and again and again until I explode.
My mouth opens on an anguished scream, ricocheting in the small space.
It sounds like anger, frustration, shame, disgust.
It’s mourning, grief for the person I was, for the person I can never be again, for all that was taken from me.
And all that I’ve been left with.
I turn the shower on as hot as I can stand.
I strip off everything and leave it in a pile on the floor.
When I step under the water, I hiss in pain, but I don’t retreat.
It heats my flesh, leaving it red and sensitive.
I need it. I need to strip the smell of him, the feel of him in my space, from my skin. From my mind.
I can feel myself falling deeper and deeper into the void of darkness within my mind, and I don’t know if I can drag myself back out this time. I’m terrified. I have no control over what’s happening to me. Yet again.
I thought these feelings had been leaving me lately.
But they’ve just been hiding in dark corners.
Waiting for the opportunity to attack, to finally consume me whole.
I don’t know how long I stand there, the empty feeling inside me growing until the water turns to ice, and still, I stand there.
By the time I shut the water off, I feel raw inside and out.
No amount of hot water will burn away this feeling. I feel dirty, slimy.
Disgusting.
I don’t bother with a towel, just walk into my room, leaving a trail of water and tears in my wake. I look around the space, seeing Noah everywhere. His hoodie on my chair, his charger by the desk.
When I see his copy of The Wayfarer’s Star on the nightstand, a violent and ugly sob cracks from my chest. I squeeze my eyes shut. What am I doing? Dragging someone like him into my darkness and despair.
I’m broken. Pathetic.
If the reason for everything Kyle did can’t fix me, nothing can. I’ll destroy Noah, I’ll take the sunshine from him and darken it, twist it into perpetual night.
He deserves more than I can give him.
I pull on sleep clothes and drag myself into bed. It’s still morning, but I can’t find the energy to move. Noah’s scent fills the air, the smell of him on my sheets, and it only makes me sob harder.
I lie there watching the sun rise high in the sky through the window, wishing Noah were here, and at the same time, wishing Noah would never see me like this.
I was fooling myself, thinking I could keep him, thinking I could be enough for him. All the greedy parts of me wanted that happiness he brought to my life, but I’ll never deserve it.
I can never make him as happy as he makes me; he deserves better than to take on the burden that I am.
My eyes are still staring blankly out the window when the front door opens. When I focus on the sky, I realize it’s dark.
“Hey, baby,” he calls from the hall. Upbeat and light. My stomach lurches.
I hear him set his bag down and walk toward the bedroom. I can feel his eyes on me even though my back is turned to him. “You alright?” There's so much care and concern in his voice, and I could crumble from that alone.
Almost. The words almost come out of me. I want to tell him everything that happened, tell him how bleak and empty I feel. But I can’t find my voice. Another part of me lost to the darkness.
My pillowcase is damp with my tears, and my eyelids feel swollen.
He circles the bed and looks at me, eyes searching.
I keep my gaze on his legs, but my skin tightens under his watch.
He kneels in front of me, bringing himself into my eyeline, but I slam my eyes shut.
I can’t look at him; he’ll see everything. And he’ll try to fix it, but he can’t.
Not everything broken can be fixed.
He stands, and I hear him strip his clothes off. He walks around the other side of the bed and climbs in.
I lie stiff, every muscle held tight because if I let go, I might break apart.
Noah shifts closer. His arm slips around my waist, pulling me against him.
I let him. My body burns with the lie of it.
He’s holding something that’s damaged beyond repair, and he doesn’t even know it.
My throat aches again with the urge to tell him everything, but the words stay locked.
I hide behind stillness, hoping he can’t feel the mess inside me.
“I’m here.” The words are so quiet they barely disturb the hairs at the back of my head, but they’re so heartbreakingly earnest.
“I don’t understand.” The words are torn from somewhere I can’t cage.
His nose brushes against my hair as his fingers trace my stomach. “Understand what?”
“I tried so hard to be enough,” I whisper, my heart beating erratically. “But I never was. I was always wrong.”
Maybe if I’d been less difficult.
Maybe if I hadn’t annoyed him.
Maybe if I’d been brighter, easier, quieter.
I can’t get enough air into my lungs.
“Why?” The question rips free, it won’t leave me, no matter how hard I try will it away. “Why would anyone want to hurt me like that? What did I do to deserve it?”
Noah’s hand covers mine, where it shakes against my sternum. His skin is warm, grounding, solid. But the storm inside me only howls louder.
It has to be me.
It has to be something I did.
“Gabe.” His voice is low and anchoring.
My tears blur everything. Everything feels wrong. The feeling of his hand against me feels wrong.
“You didn’t do anything to deserve it.” His thumb presses gently over my knuckles. “Nothing. His cruelty was his own. Not yours. You didn’t do anything wrong. You never could. You’re kind, sweet, thoughtful—he saw those things and twisted them. That was all him.”
I press trembling fingers to my scar, and thoughts sear me. Was I just something easy to break? Easy to manipulate and control. Am I just easy to hurt? I had to have done something wrong.
Noah’s wrong. There had to be another reason. A real reason.
Darker thoughts come for me. “What if—” My voice is a broken thing, shaking so hard it barely comes out. “What if I do something? What if I say the wrong thing, and you—” My breath hitches painfully. “I don’t even know what I did before. What if I make you hate me, too?”
Noah presses his forehead further into the back of my head. His shaky breath skates over my neck.
“There is nothing you could do to make me hate you,” he murmurs, voice fierce. “Not a word, not a mistake. Nothing. Just be Gabe. That’s all I want. All I’ll ever want.” He swallows, and I feel the tremor run through him.
A sob tears out of me, a hopeless cry, my whole body convulsing with it. Noah pulls me into him. He doesn’t speak again, just holds me through it.
Just be Gabe.
Doesn’t he realize? The Gabe he thinks he knows doesn’t exist anymore. He was taken, ripped apart, broken, and abused. The person who returned is just a shadow of that man.
Gabe is gone.
Sleep takes me at some point, mental exhaustion dragging me to a place fueled by my worst nightmares.
When I wake, the room is still dark. Noah’s arm around me feels suffocating. I get off the bed as quietly as I can. Noah’s face is slack with sleep, his chest rising and falling calmly. He looks so peaceful. Even in the fading moonlight, he looks golden.
I’m sorry I can’t be the person you deserve.
I want to reach out, smooth the hair from his forehead, and feel his skin under my palm. I want to tell him I love him, ask him to hold all my broken pieces together, ask him to never let me go. My fingers twitch with the need. I curl them into my chest instead.
Don’t touch him. Don’t stain him.
I dress silently. I just need to get out. Clear my head. Quiet my mind. Everything will be better then.
Everything will be okay once my mind is quiet.