Chapter 8
ANTHONY
The morning light bled through the blinds in thin slats of gold-drenched gray.
It spilled across Elliot’s bare shoulder like a blessing or a curse.
I hadn’t moved in hours. Not since he peeled off my hoodie in that slow, exhausted way and collapsed back beside me, sleep tugging him under before I could speak.
I told myself this was a choice. That I was here because I wanted to be.
Because staying was what good people did when someone was hurting.
I told myself it wasn’t fear keeping me still.
That it wasn’t easier to stay than to face what would happen if I left.
I told myself a lot of things in the quiet.
Elliot lay curled against me now, one hand fisted in the hair on my chest, even unconscious he was afraid I’d disappear.
His breath ghosted warm and steady against my ribs, in a rhythm I’d memorized without meaning to.
My arm was completely numb beneath him, pins and heat threading through it, but I didn’t dare move.
If I shifted, he might wake. And if he woke…
this fragile, impossible peace between us might crack open at the seams. The thought of that tightened something in my chest—the awareness of how far in I already was, how little control I had over wanting him, over the part of me that lived for these stolen moments of his presence.
I couldn’t risk it. Not this—him. Not when Elliot was the only thing that felt real in a life built on obligation and sacrifice. He was my tether to something softer, something that reminded me I still had a heart—beating and breaking inside my chest.
My hand hovered, an inch from his back. The want was there—sharp, overpowering and insistent—but it wasn’t really about touch. It was about proof. That he was here. That he was warm. That he hadn’t vanished while I wasn’t looking.
For one breathless second, I let myself pretend he was mine. Just mine. Even if that peace was temporary, borrowed like everything else I touched but could never keep. Even if the only part of me still alive was the part wrapped around him.
He fit against me like a missing piece. Small and precious. Delicate in a way that made my chest ache but not fragile. Never that. There was steel beneath his skin, forged in grief and silence, but when he let it drop. When he softened, just for me—I came undone.
I told myself I was keeping him safe. But it was a lie.
I was addicted. Obsessed.
There was a part of me that wanted to be the one he relied on completely, the steady hand when everything else fell apart. Not because I owned him, but because he was someone who needed someone to stay—someone like me, who couldn’t walk away. It was instinctive. Protective. Dangerous.
His chest rose and fell slowly beneath the sheet, a rhythm I could sync my heart to. He was dreaming. I could tell by the way his brow furrowed, the way his mouth moved like it was chasing words he couldn’t speak aloud.
I wanted to touch him. Not for comfort or protection.
But because I needed to. My hand hovered above the small of his back, so close I could feel his heat seeping into my palm like wildfire.
I wanted to drag my fingers up the ladder of his spine, feel him shiver under me, confirm with touch what I’d already come to know: He was real.
He was here. He was everything I’d never deserved.
I wanted him with a desperation that hollowed me out from the inside. I wanted to kiss the sorrow from his lips. I wanted to break through the grief that drowned him and show him he wasn’t alone. I wanted him to cry into my mouth, to let me carry the weight of all the things he couldn’t say.
God help me—I wanted to be the one he shattered for.
His breath hitched.
Panic punched through me. I thought he’d woken. But no. He only shifted closer, one slender leg curling tighter around mine, his face nuzzling into my chest like I was something safe. Something good.
But I wasn’t. I was a lie he hadn’t figured out yet.
I closed my eyes, tried to breathe around the ache.
Tried to silence the fantasies clawing through me.
My mouth on his neck. His thighs wrapped around my hips.
The way he’d sound moaning my name through gritted teeth.
I imagined his lashes fluttering as I kissed him awake, imagined his sleepy smile, imagined the softness giving way to need.
And then shame washed over me, sharp and cold.
He wasn’t mine to want.
But he was the only thing I wanted.
I turned my face away and clenched my jaw, furious at myself—for the hunger, for the craving, for daring to look at someone so broken like he was salvation.
This wasn’t love. Not the kind that saved. It was fear masquerading as care—because the thought of losing him terrified me more than any war I’d ever fought.
He was grief personified, all sharp edges and silent suffering, wrapped in skin that still smelled like hope. And when he did smile—those rare, flickering smiles like stars breaking through cloud cover—it felt like being reborn.
I lived for those smiles. I craved them. Because when Elliot smiled, it was like watching winter crack open into spring. Hesitant. Unwilling. But full of impossible promise.
I would burn the world down to see that light in him again.
His hand twitched against my chest, fingers curling in my skin like he was anchoring himself, and it damn near destroyed me. I didn’t deserve that trust. That softness. But I held still, a statue beneath him, letting him use me like a lifeline.
My throat burned.
I wanted to tell him everything. That I was already his. That he didn’t need to ask. That he didn’t even know the hold he had on me. Instead, I whispered into the dark, “It’s not love. It’s fear in disguise. Dressed up like tenderness so I don’t have to name what this really is.”
But it was something close to love. The terrifying kind. The kind that came for you in your sleep and tore you open from the inside out. It was the kind that said, Take everything. Take me. Just don’t go.
I didn’t sleep. I didn’t move. I just let him hold onto me, let him believe I was someone who could carry the weight without buckling.
Even though tomorrow, I’d have to walk away. Even though tomorrow, I’d have to forget the way he felt curled into my chest.
But dawn didn’t wait. The sky cracked open and beside me, Elliot stirred. Tomorrow had come.
And I was already too far gone.
He shifted against me with a sound almost too quiet to be real—a sigh tugged from sleep’s slack grip.
Lashes fluttered once, twice, then lifted.
His gaze met mine, slow and dazed, mouth parted slightly, breath warm against my chest. For a second, he seemed untouched by life.
Unscarred. Like the world hadn’t torn through him with all its teeth.
Recognition hit me hard. He rolled half on top of me, one leg sliding between mine, arm flung across my waist. Cheek pressed to my throat, seeking something steady. Seeking me.
A subtle pressure followed, his hips nudging once, an achingly slow grind.
Every part of me reacted before thought could interfere—back arching, heat pooling low in my spine, a sharp bite to the inside of my cheek.
It wasn’t hunger driving him, nor conscious want.
It was instinct, a search for closeness, for a tether to something solid when the rest of the world kept falling away.
Another small roll, deeper this time, drew a soft, needy sound from my throat despite myself.
It startled me, not because it was loud, but because it wasn’t deliberate.
My hands gripped his waist—not to restrain, but to ground both of us.
The contact steadied him. It did nothing for me.
Fingers dug into the soft flesh above his hips, anchoring him, keeping the fragile line between comfort and something more from snapping.
Tension coiled up his spine like a warning, mirrored in the tight ache spreading through my chest.
“Elliot.” My voice was low. Rough. A growl meant to cut through the haze. “Stop.” The word felt like a lie in my mouth.
His eyes opened, confusion and recognition wrestling across them. The flicker that followed—the one that broke something inside me—spoke louder than any words. Need. Pure, feral need.
“Anthony…” his voice barely rose, a whisper fragile as a thread. A plea. An offering.
Hearing my name like that—not spoken, but offered—tightened something behind my eyes. “No,” I said, harsher than intended. “Don’t ask me to be that. I can’t. I won’t.”
Fingers curled against my chest, nails dragging, trembling. “I just… I didn’t mean to…” Words caught in him, incomplete.
Maybe that was worse than anything he could have said.
Hands still holding him, I felt the hammer of my own heart in response, slamming against ribs, threatening to undo me. “I know,” came out hoarse. “But this isn’t what you think it is.”
“You think I don’t know what I’m doing?” His voice carried no fire, only that same fragile ache.
He wasn’t na?ve—just exhausted from invisibility. Offering himself to someone who could see him, without any guarantee of protection.
Eyes glassy, cheeks hollowed by grief, he wasn’t asking for comfort. He was asking for proof. Proof that someone could see all the broken pieces of him and still stay. And God help me—I wanted to give it.
Thumb brushing beneath his eye, skin impossibly soft, I whispered, “You don’t want this. Not really.”
He flinched. Full lips trembled. “I do.” So quiet. So certain. So dangerous in its truth.
“You want something, Elliot. But it’s not me. It’s not this.” My voice cracked on the last word.
“Yes, it is. You’re the only one who ever—” He swallowed, stopped, held back. “You’re the only one who sees me.”
“I know,” I breathed. “And that’s why I can’t let this happen. If I take this—take you—I won’t give you back.” And the part of me that frightened me most was the part that didn’t see that as a problem.