Chapter 5 #2
Untethered, I was floating in this sick, confused place where grief and lust bled into each other until I couldn’t tell which was which anymore.
Maybe there was a hell for people like me. If there was—I’d been living in it since the day he came back. And the worst part? Some part of me never wanted to leave.
I curled in on myself like my body knew how to survive what my mind couldn’t. My journal was already open. I didn’t remember grabbing it—just that the ache in my chest needed a place to bleed.
My fingers moved without asking permission. Graphite dragging across the page like a blade across skin.
I drew his back first. The sharp slope of his spine, like something carved from stone.
Then the tension in his jaw, how it locked when he was trying not to feel too much.
And his eyes—God, his eyes—how they softened when he looked at me like I wasn’t just a broken thing he had to pretend to care about. Like I was someone.
Someone he saw.
The towel. The water beading on his skin. The weight he carried like it belonged to him, like carrying mine too didn’t even register as a burden.
Each line on the page wasn’t just art—it was a confession. It was need. It was a prayer scratched in skin and silence. It wasn’t just erotic. It was more than that. Holier than that. It was worship. Sacred. Holy. Desperate. Wrong.
And still—I couldn’t stop.
Because if I was aroused, I was broken. And if I was broken… at least that made sense. At least the pain had shape. At least the ache had a name.
I flipped the page and started writing. The words didn’t come gently. They tore out of me, crooked and raw like bone breaking through skin.
Like me.
I think I’m disappearing.
Not in a poetic way. Not in the tragic, beautiful way that makes people cry at funerals. I mean literally—molecule by molecule. Like grief is eating me from the inside, and no one sees it. Not really. Not even when I scream in silence.
My dad looks at me like I’m a failed science experiment.
Something that should’ve been stronger. Braver.
Better. Like I was supposed to be made of steel instead of skin.
Like loving Mom broke me in a way he didn’t plan for.
He didn’t even look at me at the funeral.
Like if he did, it would make her death real, and he’d have to deal with the son she left behind.
But Anthony did. My chest tightened as I remembered. He didn’t speak. He didn’t fill the silence. He just stayed. And I think that was the first time I let myself need someone. Let myself be small.
Everyone else drifted away. Avoided eye contact. Treated my grief like something contagious. But Anthony stayed.
I wondered if he only saw me because he felt guilty. Because I’m the last piece of her he can still protect. The dead woman’s kid. I didn’t want to be a burden. I didn’t want him to stay out of pity.
I wanted him to stay because he saw me. I wanted him to see me as his.
The one he’d fight for. The one he’d stay for. Because there was no one else left who wanted to fight for me.
A single tear dripped down my cheek and splashed onto the paper.
I wiped it away with the side of my hand, smearing graphite across my palm and cheek like warpaint.
Pressed the heel of my hand into my chest, trying to quiet the panic crawling up my throat.
Trying to stop it before it became something worse.
The scream I knew would never come out right.
I think about ending it.
More than I want to admit.
Not because I want to die. Not exactly. But because I don’t want to keep living like this. Like a ghost of someone who used to matter.
I’m tired.
Tired of wondering if I’m enough yet.
Tired of being the boy with hollow eyes and a father who resents the air I breathe.
Tired of carrying love in my chest like it’s a curse I’ll never shake.
I paused. Let the silence close in around me like a coffin. Stared at the words until the letters blurred. But then I saw him — not in my dreams, not like that. Just him. Anthony.
Not as a body. Not as a want. Just the small, quiet ways he existed. The crease between his brows when he’s worried. The way his hands shook when he thought I wasn’t looking. The way his voice got quiet when he talked to me like I’m something fragile and real.
And I could breathe again.
I saw his hands, and I believed—maybe, maybe—someone could hold all my broken pieces and not flinch. I didn’t want the world. I just wanted to belong to someone. And I wanted that someone to be him.
I slammed the sketchbook shut before I could rip it to shreds with the fury that lived just under my skin. My reflection caught me in the mirror.
Gaunt, pale, hazel eyes rimmed red from exhaustion and longing.
Cheekbones sharp like blades. A mouth I didn’t recognize anymore.
My dull golden-brown hair fell in uneven strands across my forehead, lifeless as the rest of me.
I looked like something left behind. A body no one claimed.
I looked like I hadn’t slept in days. Maybe I hadn’t.
“You’re disgusting,” I whispered to myself.
And part of me believed it. But the smallest most fragile part whispered back: Would he think that? Would he still sit beside me, even like this?
And for a moment—just a moment—I didn’t feel disgusting when I imagined his arms around me. Not as a body. Not as a mistake.
But as a person.
As someone he could carry.
As someone he might choose.
Just holding me. Letting me fall apart and saying, without words, “I’ve got you.” I didn’t know what it meant that the only place I felt safe anymore was in someone else’s arms—even if only in my head.
The sun had climbed high in a cloudless sky by the time I dragged myself downstairs, but everything still felt dim. Like the world had been dipped in ash—colors muted, sounds dulled, edges soft and useless.
Even though I hadn’t eaten, my stomach was knotted, a tangled mess of nausea and dread. The back of my tongue still tasted like pencil lead and shame. Like I’d swallowed something poisonous and called it desire.
The kitchen was silent, save for the low hum of the fridge and the soft creak of the old floorboards under my weight. I reached for a glass, fingers trembling.
Then I heard him. “Didn’t think you were up yet,” Anthony said.
I froze. He was in the doorway, barefoot, a chipped mug in his hand. His dark hair was still damp, curling around his temples in that disarming way that made my throat tighten. He looked soft. Kind. Too much.
I turned toward him too quickly. “I—yeah. I’m up. Didn’t sleep much.”
He tilted his head, studying me. “You okay?”
No. Not even close. “Fine.” It came out too fast, too brittle.
He didn’t believe me. I could see it in the way his brow tightened, in the way his hand flexed around the mug. “You’ve been quiet.”
The word quiet felt like a lie people told themselves so they didn’t have to say vanishing. I forced a dry laugh. “I’m always quiet.”
“Not like this.”
Fuck. I hated how much he noticed. How his voice slipped past my defenses, gentle but unrelenting. It made me want to crawl out of my skin.
He stepped closer, setting the mug down beside me. The brush of his shoulder near mine sent heat lancing through my ribcage. “You haven’t eaten.”
“You sound like my mom,” I said, and immediately regretted it. Anthony winced, and the silence that followed was razor-sharp. “No—shit. I didn’t mean it like that.”
He nodded, but the damage lingered between us, quiet and impossible to take back.
I wanted to explain. To tell him I’d written about him again last night.
That his name was etched into the margins of my grief like a safety net.
That sometimes I stared at the wall and imagined him finding my journal, reading every warped, want-heavy word.
Of him seeing every ounce of pain that bled out of me.
But instead I said, “I didn’t mean to make it weird.”
“You didn’t, El,” he said, softly. “It’s already weird. We’re all grieving. Everything’s sideways.”
He called me El again, and my whole spine went stiff.
“I didn’t think it would be this hard,” I whispered. “I thought... maybe I’d be better by now.”
Anthony picked up the mug again but didn’t drink. He held it like it was the only thing keeping his hands from shaking.
“I never stopped thinking about her… about you,” he said quietly, shaking his head. “Even after all those years. And now… I’ll never get the chance to tell her how sorry I am.”
I looked at him. Really looked. The man I’d always thought was untouchable. Indestructible—this perfect, put-together thing—was unraveling at the seams. Red-rimmed eyes. Tired. Haunted.
Somehow, it made him more beautiful. That was the worst part.
“I miss her,” I whispered.
“I know.” His voice cracked around the words. “Me too.”
It happened before I could stop it. “I wrote about you today.”
His eyes flicked to mine. A slow blink. “What?”
“I... Forget it. It’s dumb. I just—sometimes it’s easier to write than talk.”
“What did you write?”
I hesitated. He didn’t sound amused. Just curious. Gentle.
“I wrote that I feel like I’m disappearing,” I said. “And that you’re the only one who sees me.” My pulse roared in my ears as soon as I said it, like I’d stepped too close to something flammable.
The silence afterward was deafening.
Anthony put the mug down again. Slowly. Deliberately. His eyes didn’t leave mine as he swallowed audibly. “El—”
“No, it’s fine,” I rushed. “You don’t have to say anything. I just… I don’t know who I am anymore. I feel like I’m too much and not enough all at once. And I don’t know how to carry that without... breaking.”
He stepped closer, so close I could smell the coffee on his breath and the faint scent of his soap. “You’re not too much.”
My eyes burned. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” he said. “You’re hurting. You’re grieving. But you’re still here. And that matters. You matter.”
I didn’t know if I was crying or not. My whole body felt like a bruise. “Sometimes,” I murmured, “the only reason I’m still here is because...” I left the “of you” unsaid.
Something cracked in his expression. Something old and sacred and terrified. “Then I’m glad I stayed,” he answered, as if he heard what I hadn’t been brave enough to say. The words felt heavier than a promise. Lighter than a lie.
Unable to breathe, I thought maybe he’d reach for me. Maybe he’d let me fall apart against him. That he’d catch me. But he didn’t. He just reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder. Just that one simple touch made me shudder when his thick fingers dug into my skin.
But it grounded me more than anything else in the world. I leaned into it like it was the only thing tethering me to this earth. “Okay,” I whispered. “Okay.”
He let his hand linger a second longer. Then let it fall.
“If it ever gets too heavy,” he said roughly, “come to me. Don’t disappear. Please.”
The word please broke something open in me.
I nodded, my throat burning, my hands shaking.
For the first time in days, I let myself believe maybe I wouldn’t.
Not yet. But I was under no illusion that this was only the beginning of something—not just the falling, but the wanting not to.
I was like a candle in the eye of a storm.
Still burning. Still small. Still one breath away from going dark.