Chapter 12
ANTHONY
Ithought I understood the shape of Elliot's pain.
That I knew the depths he plunged to when his depression swept him away to a darker place but clearly I was mistaken.
It was impossible to scrub the sensation of his bloodied and broken skin off my finger tips.
It was impossible to bleach the image of the ragged, weeping red lines of his skin from my mind.
I didn’t sleep that night. Even after hours of holding Elliot’s sleeping form in my arms. His body fit perfectly against mine. Too perfectly.
His back curved into my chest like it had learned the shape of me. One arm coiled around mine, light enough that I could have shifted him without waking, though I never would have. He weighed less than he used to. Not drastically. Just enough that my body noticed the absence before my mind did.
My hand rested at his waist, fingers spanning more space than they once had. Bones easier to trace. Breath fitting into mine without effort. Like he belonged there in a way that scared me.
Even though my body relaxed with his proximity. I couldn't switch my mind off.
Instead, I lay in my bed staring at the ceiling hours later, listening to the house breathe.
The quiet had changed shape since I left Elliot asleep in his room.
It wasn’t empty anymore. It was weighted.
Like something fragile had been placed in the center of it, and everything else was holding on around it.
The refrigerator clicked on and off in the kitchen. Pipes sighed somewhere in the walls. The house settled around itself, wood contracting as the night cooled. Each sound repeated, familiar enough to mark time without announcing it.
Midnight passed. Then something close to morning. I kept seeing his face when I pulled his sleeve back. Not the blood stained gauze and broken skin as much as his eyes. That split-second where he realized I’d seen him.
Not shame—not exactly. Something more exposed than that. Like he’d been caught wanting something he wasn’t allowed. Not just wanting me, but wanting through me. Wanting something solid enough to keep him here.
That kind of wanting I’d seen before. The kind that didn’t stop at desire, that curled its fingers around need and squeezed until it hurt. I was afraid of how easily I could become that for him. Afraid I already was.
I’d told him he didn’t have to disappear to survive. I wasn’t sure I believed it yet. My chest felt too tight for sleep to come. Too full of things I hadn’t said. So eventually, quietly, I got up.
The hall light was off. The house was dim and blue from the faint moonlight. Elliot’s door was closed but not locked. I stood there longer than I should have, my hand hovering an inch from the handle.
I wasn’t there to check on him. At least that’s what I told myself. I just needed to check he was still breathing.
The door opened without a sound. He was exactly where I’d left him.
Curled on his side. Hair fallen into his eyes.
The journal tucked under his arm like it was something he was afraid he might lose if he let go.
The only difference was the pen that lay discarded on top of the sheet.
Clearly I wasn’t the only one who’d been struggling to sleep.
My chest did something painful at the sight of him. I should have turned around. I didn’t. Instead I stepped in, and gently pulled the journal free from where he held it and slid it half open. He didn’t stir. His breathing stayed slow and even.
The cover was warm from his body. Warm the same way his skin had been when I held him earlier. The same quiet heat. I adjusted my grip without thinking, palm flattening over it like I could steady something fragile just by holding it still.
I took it with me back into the hall and sat on the floor in my boxer briefs with my back against the cold wall like a teenager hiding something forbidden. I told myself it was just to see if he’d used it. That was all. Just a simple innocent check. That was all. But that was a lie.
The first page was blank. The second wasn’t.
His messy script was smaller than I’d expected it to be.
Like he was afraid of taking up too much space even on paper.
Warm the same way his skin had been when I held him earlier.
The same quiet heat. I adjusted my grip without thinking, palm flattening over it like I could steady something fragile just by holding it still.
It wasn’t a story. Just a single sentence.
You shouldn't want what I want. But God, I want you to.
My breath left me in a way that hurt. It wasn’t sexual—not yet. It was worse than that. It was raw. Honest. Already addicted, I turned the page. It wasn’t a narrative either. Just fragments. Feelings laid down like someone emptying their pockets.
I want to be held without being fixed.
I want to be seen without being measured.
I want him to stay when I’m not pretty.
I want to be touched like I’m real and wanted.
My throat closed up. I had to stop for a second. Pressed my fingers into the bridge of my nose and stared at the wooden floor. This wasn’t a journal. It was a book of confessions. I kept reading anyway, ignoring the voice in the back of my head screaming at me to stop.
The writing shifted tone further. Became less fragmented. More fluid. Vivid. Like once he’d started he couldn’t stop. Like he’d been waiting for a place where nothing would leave.
He wrote about me. My presence. My body. The way I watched him from doorways when I thought he wasn’t looking. The gentle way I stroked his hair when he was half asleep. The way I said his name like he was the sun.
Then the intent sharpened on the next page. Not graphic. But it was unmistakable. He wrote about closeness. About breath. Hands lingering half a second too long.
He doesn’t realize how loud he is when he’s gentle.
How my whole body listens when he leans in.
How it hungers for his touch.
How I forget what I’m supposed to be when he looks at me like that.
I want more of him than he seems willing to give.
My chest felt too full. My body reacted before my mind did. My cock thickened against my leg. Tight heat pulled my balls closer to my body. It was dangerous. The kind of danger that didn’t ask for permission.
I forced myself to stop moving. Slowed my breathing, counting it down like a tide. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. Again. Want was one thing. Acting on it was another.
Perspiration beaded across my forehead as I continued to devour his words as they grew more graphic. So vivid I felt his phantom touch. My breaths left me in short, sharp pants. I swallowed down the saliva pooling in my mouth. Then I reached a line that undid me.
He kissed me like I was savable.
My hand curled around the page so hard it creased. My heart felt like it was splitting open in my chest.
I whispered before I could stop myself. “Please don’t want me like this.” The words fell like a prayer and a warning and a confession all at once.
The dangerous thing was… I wanted to be what he needed. Not just the desire I could feel. But the responsibility. Because now I knew. I knew how much of himself he was handing to me without ever asking if I could carry it.
I closed the journal carefully. Too carefully.
Like it was alive and breathing. Then I sat there on the floor outside his room with it in my hands, a raging hard on, trying to remember when wanting to be needed had started to feel like this.
Like standing too close to a fire. Like warmth and danger and light all in the same place.
My ass was numb from sitting there too long. That was the problem. I’d allowed too much time to pass. If I’d put the journal down immediately, if I’d gone back to bed, if I’d done the right thing quickly enough, I might have been able to pretend this wasn’t happening.
But my body had already reacted. Not in a way I wanted. Not in a way I chose. Just… in a way that told me I was human. And that was worse than being monstrous.
I pressed my palm flat against my chest like I could physically hold my heart in place. It was beating too hard. Too loud. Like it wanted something it had no right to want.
Not just sex because it has been way too long since I’d had that. But real connection. Being the one he reached for. Being the one he wrote about. Being the place his ache landed.
I hated how much that mattered to me.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I stood up and crossed back to his door. I told myself I was just going to check on him again. That was all. The door was still open from the last time I crept in.
He hadn’t moved. Still curled on his side. Still small in a way he never was when he was awake. Awake, he held himself tight. All sharp angles and restraint. Like if he let go, something vital might spill out.
Asleep, there was none of that. Just weight. Heat. A body allowed to rest without bracing for impact. The journal-shaped space under his arm empty now.
I stepped closer.
Too close.
Close enough that I could hear the small, uneven hitch in his breathing when he shifted. Close enough to see the faint crease between his brows even in sleep, like he never fully rested. Close enough that his sweet honey and lavender scent called to me.
My own breath tried to match it before I could stop myself. My shoulders tensed, muscles coiling like they were preparing to hold him again. I had to consciously still them, remind my body we weren’t doing that anymore.
It would be so easy to wake him. The thought arrived fully formed. Just my name on his lips. Just to hear his voice as it gave out to pleasure. Just to see him look at me as he came.
I imagined it—him slowly blinking awake, confused, then soft when he saw me. The way his mouth would part. The way he’d lean into me without thinking.