Chapter 11 #2
I’m at the store. I realized you didn’t eat before I left. I’m grabbing a few things and I’ll be back soon, okay?
Soon. The word settled into me like something warm and dangerous.
Okay.
He was coming back. My fingers tightened around the phone. Relief hit first. Because if he mattered this much, he could hurt me this much too. Then fear, sharp and immediate—because if he could come back, he could also leave again.
The ache in my chest flared. Not the numb one. The other one. The one that wanted. The one that reached.
My gaze dropped to the blade where it lay abandoned on the floor, drops of blood splattered around it.
Soon wasn’t now. Soon still meant waiting. Waiting meant being alone inside my head. I hated that I was counting down the minutes like this. I hated that I needed something this badly. I swallowed and picked up the blade as bile surged up my throat and pressed the blade into my skin again.
Not deep. Never too deep. Just enough to pull myself back into my body. Just enough to remind myself I existed while time passed.
A quiet, shaky breath slipped out of me. This is what anchors me. The pain wasn’t the point. The return was. The way my body snapped into focus. The way the fog cleared just enough to breathe again. The way the ache became a shape instead of a void.
My phone buzzed again.
Anthony
I got that soup you like. The one with the tiny noodles.
My throat closed. He remembered an idle conversation we’d had one afternoon. But of course he did.
I stared at the words until they blurred at the edges. I didn’t text back. I didn’t want to break the thread by saying the wrong thing. I didn’t want to be too much. I didn’t want to sound like I needed him this badly.
I just waited.
Curled forward on the bed. Blade set carefully back into the tissue. The shoebox buried in the back of my closet again like a secret returning to its hiding place. And wrapped my arms around myself and rocked once, barely perceptible.
Soon.
Soon meant I could hold on.
The front door opened downstairs. A sound. Real. Solid. And jarring echoed through the house quickly followed by footsteps. My breath caught in my throat, almost choking me. I didn’t move. I couldn’t even if I tried.
I listened to him in the house the way you listened for weather you were afraid of—storms—alert, tuned, desperate for proof it was still there.
The stairs creaked one by one as he made his way up. Followed by a soft knock at my door.
“Elliot?” Anthony’s voice was low and careful. “Can I come in?”
I nodded before I realized he couldn’t see me. “Yeah,” I rasped. “Yeah.”
The door opened slowly. Like he was bracing for an attack. He stood there with a grocery bag in one hand, rain glistened in his dark hair, concern already written into his face when he saw me on the bed.
His eyes dropped to my hands. To my posture and how my sleeves covered my hands even though I rubbed my arm. To the way I was folded inward like something that hadn’t survived being unfolded.
He set the bag down immediately. Crossed the room before I could blink.
“Hey,” he said quietly. That was all. Just hey.
My chest broke open around it. Need surged through me like a wave of electricity. I stood too fast. My head swam. Vision darkened around the edges and staggered toward him.
He was already there, hands on my arms before I tipped and crashed to the ground. He caught me like he’d been expecting me to fall. I didn’t mean to collapse into him. But I did anyway.
My forehead hit his chest and I inhaled his scent like it was the only sustenance I needed. My hands fisted in his jacket like it was the only thing holding me upright.
“Daddy,” I whispered. The word shook out of me like a confession. Not wanting. Needing. If I let him go, I would disappear again.
Something in his breath changed. Not rejection this time—recognition. Concern. Care. The tightness in my shoulders eased when he wrapped his arms around me fully this time.
Firm. Steady. Containing.
I let myself go.
My knees gave out and I folded into him, weight and all, face pressed into his chest, breath coming apart in small broken sounds I hadn’t planned on making.
“I’m here,” he said into my hair as he maneuvered us until he was sitting against the headboard of my bed and I was straddling his lap. “I’ve got you.” Anything further away felt impossible.
Those words hit harder than anything else had all day. Because they weren’t a promise of forever. They were a promise of now. And now was the only thing I could survive.
I clung to him like I was afraid the world would take him if I loosened my grip. My fingers dug into his t-shirt. My body shook.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry I’m like this. I don’t… I don’t know how to be okay without you.”
He stiffened slightly at that. Not pulling away. Just… feeling it. Processing it. His hands moved—one to the back of my head, fingers threading gently into my hair, the other pressing flat between my shoulder blades like he was anchoring me to gravity.
“Elliot,” he said carefully. “You don’t have to be okay right now.”
“But I only am when you’re here,” I said before I could stop myself.
The truth fell out of me like blood. Silence stretched between us. Not empty. Heavy.
He didn’t push me away. He didn’t scold me. He just held me tighter for a second. Like he understood the danger of that sentence. Like he also understood why it existed. And why it scared him.
“Let’s just get you through this moment,” he said softly. “Okay?”
I nodded against his chest.
That was enough.
That was everything.
I didn’t want forever. I wanted this. His arms around me. This warmth invading my body. His steady breathing that my own could follow when it forgot how. I didn’t want to be whole. I wanted to be held. For now—that was the only way I knew how to stay.
We stayed like that, me curled against him longer than I meant to. Not because I needed comfort. Because I needed containment. Because when he held me like this, the edges of me stopped feeling like they were dissolving.
Anthony didn’t move right away. His grip didn’t loosen. He didn’t tell me to sit up and pull myself together. He just breathed with me. Slow. Steady. Like he was lending me a rhythm I’d forgotten to keep.
After a while, his hand moved. Not away—just down my arm. His fingers brushed my wrist.
I stilled. Held my breath. Felt the change in him before he spoke.
“Elliot,” he said quietly. Not accusing, not panicked or disgusted. Just… aware. Alert.
My stomach dropped. “What?!”
His thumb pressed gently against the inside of my wrist, just below the bone. I realized too late what he felt there. The faint sting. The heat registered a second too slow. The place I hadn't covered well enough. His stubbled jaw tightened. Not in anger. In something like fear.
I flinched. Pulled back too fast. “I’m fine,” I said automatically. The lie came out smooth. Practiced.
Anthony didn’t argue with me. That scared me more than if he had. He looked at me for a long moment. Not at my wrist. My face. Like he was trying to understand the shape of what I was saying.
The dark circles under his eyes mirrored my own. Time seemed suspended as he kept his dark eyes on mine and slowly pulled the sleeve of my henley back.
Anthony sucked in a sharp breath when he saw the blood stained gauze wrapped around my wrist. A pained sound tore its way from his lips as he unwrapped it. “Elliot—”
“I—I…”
“Shhh, baby boy. It's okay.” He brushed his lips over the red, raw skin before slipping out from underneath me. “Just let me take care of you.”
It wasn’t a question so I didn’t answer. Heat burned the back of my eyes as he left my room and padded down the landing. I heard his door creak open and a few minutes later, he came back with a first aid box of his own.
“U-up,” he rasped softly. “Let me clean this up and dress it properly for you.”
“You don’t—”
Anthony shook his head. A pained smile flickered at the corners of his lips. “Years working on and running construction sites have given me a lot of practice with first-aid.” He tried to lighten the tone, but the strain was palpable in the air. Tension lined his shoulders.
He worked in silence as he cleaned my wounds. Words formed and died on his lips. His head shook more than it stayed still, but his touch was gentle.
A warmth filled me, one I hadn’t felt before. That I hadn’t allowed myself to feel before. This was the second time he was cleaning my injuries. It somehow felt more profound this time. There was so much emotion in the words he didn’t say.
“There,” he announced when he was done and placed the first aid box on the nightstand and settled on the bed behind me. “You look exhausted, sweetheart.”
“Not real—” I started but yawned before I could finish. My body giving me up as stars danced in front of my dry eyes.
“You need to get some sleep, Elliot.”
I shook my head, ready to push up and get out of this room. The walls were starting to close in. I felt too raw and exposed to be in his presence any longer. But Anthony shocked me by climbing on my bed behind me, pulling my back into his chest and wrapping me in his embrace.
“Sleep, baby. Just for a little while. I’ll stay with you for a while…”
If he continued speaking I didn’t know because I lost the battle and my eyes slid shut. Encased in his arms. The steady rhythm of his heart echoing through my body, exhaustion pulled me under.
“Hey,” he said softly, running the back of his knuckle down my face as I slowly blinked awake. “Can I show you something?”
My teeth sunk into my bottom lip as I hesitated. Then nodded. He leaned back just enough to reach into his jacket pocket and pulled out a thin notebook. The cover was a simple pale green. It held no judgment, just empty pages.
“I saw it when I was checking out,” he said. “It made me think of you. I’d seen a few lying around the house and in your room.”
He’d noticed them? My chest tightened with an emotion I couldn't name. “It’s stupid,” I bit out, defensively.
“No,” he said gently. “It’s not.” He held it out to me. Like an offering. “For when it gets too loud. When you feel like you have to do something just to feel real.”
My throat closed. A stray tear escaped when my eyes fluttered shut.
“I’m not trying to take anything from you,” he added quickly. “I just… thought this could be another place to put it that won’t hurt you.”
It. The ache. The need. The noise. The wanting that didn’t know where to go. I took the journal with shaking hands. The cover was cool. Solid. Real. It was bare like a clean slate. It felt like blanket permission.
“Write whatever you want,” he said. “You don’t have to show me. You don’t have to make it good. You don’t have to make it make sense.” He hesitated. “Just… let it exist somewhere that isn’t inside you.”
Sleepily, I nodded and tucked the journal against my chest as I felt the reassuring weight of him disappear. I couldn’t speak, but it didn’t feel like he expected a response. He reached out and rested his hand lightly on my head, running his fingers through my hair. The gentle touch grounded me.
“You don’t have to disappear to survive this,” he said softly. “Sleep well.” A gentle brush of lips pressed against my temple in a barely there kiss.
Something in me twisted around that sentence. It wasn’t comfort or relief. Hope was too big a word. But something adjacent. He left me alone after that—wrapped in my blanket, journal tucked against my chest—and headed downstairs. Like he was leaving a light on.