Chapter Forty-Four
Cade
I can see it in her eyes. I can feel her pulling away like sinew stretching from my body. She thinks I’m unhinged.
And I am. God, I am.
But I’ve tasted her, breathed her, tucked her inside the black thing in my chest. It beats for her when I thought it was all but dead. She’s a part of me, the only living part, and I can’t lose her. I don’t think I would be able to walk out of these woods. I would lay in the soil till hunger had its way with me, till the snow froze me solid, and the earth took me back.
And yet, the only thing that will keep her breathing life into me is a disclosure so ugly that even the idea of saying it makes my legs give out.
“Please…” I beg as my knees hit dirt. “I can’t.”
The sob out of my throat is pathetic, and I hate myself for it. I hate it. And the hate is so unbearable that I sob again.
“What could be so bad?” My angel kneels with me, her white stockings sullied by the mud. She cups my cheeks and holds me in her pristine hands. Will she ever touch me again if I tell her?
It’s been three years, and there are still moments where I wish I could rip my skin from my body, and the inability makes me heave through the night. Some months are so bad that the sleeping pills run out before the refill is due. It’s the only thing Rutherford has prescribed that has been worth a damn. And lately, their effects have been waning. I wake up feeling like I haven’t slept at all, like I’ve been tugging at the skin on my face in the night.
“I was a sophomore,” I say through gritted teeth, as if the elapsed time will put any distance between what happened and now.
But it can’t. No amount of time will ever truly cleanse me. And once Sky knows, she will never see me as she does now. She will only see the filth. But maybe it’s better if she does. Maybe if she sees it, and her eyes no longer look at me as they do, I can be free of this torture. Because that’s what every day of knowing her has been. Every day that she has been here, I have felt like a lion tamer, dodging her maw of guilt, and questioning my plans. Maybe if she gave me the same repulsion as everyone else, then I could finally hate her like the rest. Maybe I could shed the sadist I’ve become.
I look up, and through blurry eyes, I take note of the last time she will ever look at me like this. Her stare is so pretty and full of empathy. For me. It will be what I hold on to when I press the button. Maybe I can get lost in a purgatory of her eyes. That’s the best I can hope for.
I blink away the last of my pathetic tears and clear my throat.
“I was a sophomore,” I say again. “And I was so fucking naive.”
It isn’t long before I don’t even want to look at Sky’s eyes. They’re full of pity, anticipatory horror, as I tell her about the main floor bathroom in the academic hall. Nothing good comes from a story that takes place in a bathroom. But if I’m going to tell her, there’s an unfortunate context that needs to be explained.
I should have never gone into that bathroom. It was a revolving door to every male at Hillcrest, and I should have avoided it, considering the hate I was getting. But I didn’t think it could be that bad. I didn’t know how deranged people could be yet.
I had a medical episode, for fuck’s sake. A seizure in the food hall where I had accidentally… Well, I had an accident. I thought the jokes that followed on my behalf were just jokes. So, I didn’t even blanch when I came face to face with Bentley and his posse inside the white-tiled bathroom. Their remarks had been rolling off my back for the past three weeks at that point. I got it. I was something to laugh at, and they had nothing better to do. I ignored it for the most part, thinking it would eventually die down.
Sky’s head tilts out of my peripheral, and I know she’s wondering what everyone thought was so funny, but I don’t think I can handle the kind of pity she’s sure to dole out at that bit of history, so I keep the accident to myself, and wish I had my hood to hide my face.
I steel myself with a crack of my neck and keep my gaze down on the dirt as I vaguely tell her that Bentley chided me.
Wow, look who’s decided to use a restroom for a change. Is what he actually said.
I rolled my eyes and stepped around him. I had chemistry next, and that was in the labs across the quad, and I still needed to stop by the infirmary for my new medication of antiepileptics.
I shake my head, remembering how simple my life used to be before the rot took hold.
You going to take your pants down this time? Bentley continued, garnering snickers from Connor and Henry.
It was so fucking stupid. And that’s what I tell Sky. That it was just stupid jabs. Even though, looking back, fourteen-year-old me was embarrassed. But I didn’t show it. I was a cocky little shit, and when Bentley smacked his buddies in the chest and proclaimed they were going to watch if I made it in the bowl, I smirked, thinking that if they wanted to watch another guy piss… Well, that said more about them than me.
So, I balanced my books and did what I went in there to do. It was a long, awkward stream with their eyes on my back, but I didn’t get stage fright, and was feeling pretty good about myself.
Enjoy the show? I asked when I turned around.
Bentley stepped at me then, but I didn’t get it. I thought we were just roasting each other. It wasn’t that wild to do. God knew that they and everyone else has said worse to me since my episode. It was just retaliation. Tit for tat. Like for like. That’s what it should have been, at least.
“I just didn’t know how cruel people could be,” I say and push to my feet, using Sky’s shivers as an excuse to put some distance between us.
I shake the leaves from my discarded cloak and drape it over her shoulders before stepping back. Bile is already rising in my throat, and I don’t want to be anywhere near her when the inevitable heaving starts.
Looking back, I should have shut up then. There were a lot of incidents that happened after, but this one was the catalyst, and I often wonder if maybe I had just kept my mouth shut, things could have played out differently.
Do you have a thing for me, Bentley? I said. You seem really interested in what I’m doing with my dick .
Connor and Henry howled with laughter, and like a dumbass, I continued.
It’s okay, buddy. I patted Bentley on the chest. You can come out of the closet.
Bentley shoved me so hard that my books fell, and I had to grip the counter to stop from landing on my ass.
What the fuck? I shot him an incredulous look.
You need to shut your mouth, or I’ll shut it for you.
His words were so cliche. The whole tough guy act was something my mom and I had made fun of in the movies we would watch together. But it wasn’t a movie. And I shouldn’t have laughed.
Okay, Bentley. Don’t pop a blood vessel. I said, expecting that to be the end of it.
But then his fist connected with my cheek bone, smattering the tissue beneath my skin and causing the framework of my face to shoot an ache so intense into my skull that my vision spotted.
“I had never been hit before,” I explain, pulling on my shirt. “I wasn’t ready for it.”
Sky stands and comes toward me, but I put a hand up, stopping her. She doesn’t know it gets worse.
Faintly, I could hear Connor and Henry whoop, but whatever Bentley was saying sounded like another language. My head was spinning, and I couldn’t make sense of what had just happened, what was currently still happening, as another blow hit the same spot.
I held my ground, gripping the sink in support, my legs wobbly, my vision darkening, for two more punches until I felt my knees hit the tiles. I slumped down in slow motion, still aware of their shoes circling around me. But my sight was down to a pinprick, and my ears were ringing. I knew I was going to black out, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
“I remember thinking that they would realize that they had gone too far. That they would panic and help me up. But like I said, I was fucking naive.” I say through a rage so vicious it makes my stomach contract.
My face was on the dirty floor, the tiles seeping in and out of my vision. The tether between consciousness and unconsciousness is a blurry place, so I didn’t hear the first zipper—just felt the hot liquid on my back. It wasn’t until the third zipper that the yellow began to drip and pool around me. The last thing I remember was one of their shoes shifting and splashing it onto my face.
I can still feel it on my skin, and I’m half convinced my shirt is sticking to me with their piss as I stare into the forest. I wish I could go back to that dark place of oblivion right now. It would be better than feeling Sky’s eyes burn into my back while I brace my hand against a tree and throw up.