Chapter 21 #2
The door slams shut behind me.
I hardly notice the rain slanting down, splashing my cheeks, as I stride purposefully toward the crumbling red brick building standing dormant and abandoned against a gunmetal sky.
Rocks and broken glass crunching under my heavy strides.
Not that I can hear it under the heavy rainfall, the roar in my ears, or the past whispering words from a time I’ve tried so hard to shake.
“Promise me you’ll remember I love you.”
“I’ll protect you. Just know that.”
I cut through an archway separating two sections of the building, emerging into a courtyard crawling with weeds and vines. The clock tower comes into view, its peeling teal-painted turret pointing proudly at the sky, the time frozen at a quarter past seven.
Like the other abandoned parts of town that I’ve explored over the years—the mines, old factories and industrial plants such as this…a motel just up the roads that was once a honeymoon hot spot for tourists looking to fuck it out in a heart-shaped tub…
I used to venture here a lot. I know every access point.
Every broken window. Every loose board. And given how much graffiti there is—how much garbage and destruction are inside—I know I’m far from being the only one who’s broken in over the years.
The rusted chains and bolts on the doors might as well just be decoration at this point.
Luckily, I’ve yet to ever run into anyone here.
On autopilot, I storm through the various rooms and corridors, my boots splashing along puddles that have gathered from the holes in the ceiling. A staircase. A walkway. Then, finally, my destination.
The whiskey I’d brought with me last time is right where I left it, hidden behind crates stuffed with file folders, barely touched.
A thin film of dust coats the bottle. Unscrewing the cap, I bring it to my lips, throwing back several searing gulps.
Welcoming the liquid fire burning a path down my throat, flooding my stomach with an aching sort of warmth that has saliva flooding my mouth.
I wish I could say it was from the alcohol, and only the alcohol.
And that I haven’t been fighting back nausea since the moment I realized Aston came in his pants.
The moment I realized just how fucked not just our situation is, but how fucked I am.
Not only in the head for thinking I could…
what? Rewrite history by pinning him down and forcing my cock down his throat.
But fucked in the sense that I’m screwed. Because I liked it. I enjoyed watching my cock disappear into his mouth. The feel of it, so sweltering, so tight when he instinctively hollowed his cheeks.
The way tears and drool pooled out of him as he choked, face red, nostrils flaring for air.
His garbled moans. His whimpers.
I was blinded by it—how good it felt to have him under me, at my disposal. A toy for the taking and breaking.
All I could think was, he’s mine.
Mine to hurt.
Mine to touch.
Mine to make a pretty little mess of.
It’s the least he deserves… a voice whispers now, same as earlier.
And when all was said and done, I thought just maybe…maybe that was all I needed. And then I had to go and be tempted by his lips. By his tight lithe body rubbing against mine. By the visual he planted in my head when he said too late, and looked down so bashfully at his cum-soaked pants.
He came for me. Untouched.
A ragged sound wrenches from my throat, breeching my lips in a thunderous roar.
Glass shatters against the decorated wall of the factory, the pungent scent of the whiskey I’d been drinking and just wasted by throwing across the room, filling the space and flooding my nostrils.
I’m no longer in my own body as I whip around and grab whatever else is in reach. Kicking and throwing and screaming.
I wasn’t supposed to like it.
He wasn’t supposed to like it.
And I especially wasn’t supposed to crave more…
Not from him, never from him. Not from the guy who can’t even have the fucking decency to remember what he did to me.
What he was made to do…
The voice in my head sounds suspiciously like Quentin’s from so long ago—back before he knew fucking better—and I snarl as I storm across the room, my scalding gaze locked on what looks to be a crowbar.
Grabbing it, I twirl it around, before gripping it between my hands like a bat, taking it to the nearest intact window, shattering it with a roar.
I just wanted the upper hand…
I just wanted to break him.
And instead I gave him pleasure. I made him feel good.
Stumbling to my knees, I drop the crowbar, and stare at my reddened palms. My fingers tremble. Hell, my whole body quakes.
This isn’t me.
These aren’t my hands.
This isn’t my body.
This isn’t who I am.
How is it fair? How is it fair that I have to live with it, while he just goes about his fucking life as if nothing. Happened.
My lungs fight for air, my heart pounding. Fuck, I’m so angry.
I squeeze my hands into fists, bringing them to my head.
Covering my ears. Screwing my eyes shut, I do nothing to ward off the jagged shards of memories exploding from my brain, not unlike the bottle I threw earlier.
I imagine the whiskey sluicing down the walls of my mind, streaking through the paper-thin barrier keeping the past at bay. Burning marks that will never heal.
“Just close your eyes. Pretend you’re somewhere else.”
The floor tilts. My skin crawls. Whispers fill my head. I’m dimly aware of my phone vibrating in my pocket—Quentin, likely wondering where I am—but I ignore it.
“I’ll make it feel good. It won’t hurt. I won’t hurt you. I won’t, I won’t…”
The stale echo of smoke fills my lungs. The factory flickers in and out, the present losing the battle against a fractured past.
Smoke curling up from an ashtray.
Plaid couch. Hand on my shoulder, nudging me to lay down. A crack through the ceiling. Air, cool on my—
The click of a camera.
Wetness, warmth on my—
Click.
Clickclickclick—
I should’ve known this would happen.
The second Aston dropped to his knees—the second I let him put his fingers to my hand and lips to my knuckles, resolve and spite sitting like heavy jagged weights in my gut, I knew I’d come to regret it.
And yet it didn’t stop me.
I didn’t just play with fire when I let Aston put his mouth on me.
I doused myself in gasoline and eagerly lit the match as if I was in deference to my undoing.
Self-immolation of the most ludicrous order.
All the while telling myself—after telling him—that it was for me…
this act was for me…this…this sacrifice.
This thing that disguised itself as revenge. Closure. Justice.
Reclamation of what was stolen.
He owed me…
A sob.
A plea.
Trembling, icy cold fingers, replaced by rough, large hands—
“No,” he cries. “You promised. You promised.”
Slap!
A whimper.
The world moves.
I’m on the floor now.
Clickclickclick.
There’s a hand in mine, squeezing, gripping, and I roll my head, lashes fluttering heavily.
Eyes gray-green like the plastic butterfly I found on the road. They’re all I see. I let myself get lost in them.
“Won’t let him hurt you,” he says, and it comes out slow and warbled.
He flinches.
His eyes crease.
The bones in my hand creak.
Grunts. Breaths. The quietest of whimpers, because he’s quiet as a mouse, sosososo quiet, he never cries, never yells…
So fucking blinded by my need to ruin him—punish him—I missed what should’ve been obvious. Just like I missed what was happening behind closed doors all those years ago.
It was never Aston’s power over me I had to worry about.
It was our past.
Our secrets.
Our lies…
The ones I hide behind.
Like his betrayal…a betrayal that was as much beyond his control, as what had been done to him.
He disappears.
His eyes are open, but no one’s home.
Earth to Aston…
His face slackens.
He looks peaceful.
His body jolts. Jolts again. And again and again and again.
But he’s no longer here. Just a body.
Like the fact that what happened earlier did nothing to eradicate the way my body craves him, despite what we went through as kids…despite what he had to do…despite how fucked up beyond words this entire situation is.
Like the truth, the one I never wanted to face, and thought I could shove down and outrun forever…
“You’re mine, little mouse. You’ll always be mine. And I’ll always be yours.”
Click.
Clickclickclickclickclickclick—
And I have no idea what to do with any of that.