Chapter 14
ANTHONY
Ididn’t sleep. I lay awake counting the things about Elliot that felt too permanent for something this fragile.
The freckles across his shoulders—I counted them like stars, not because I needed the number, but because I needed something to hold my mind still. One, two, three… a faint constellation across skin that hadn’t been touched gently enough in its life.
His breathing was shallow at first. Then slower. Then deeper as he drifted into a deep sleep.
Every shift of his body registered like a warning bell inside me. His knee rested against my thigh. His hair brushed my collarbone when he exhaled.
His hand was still curled into my shirt like he hadn’t quite trusted the world to keep me here.
My body was a locked door. Every instinct leaned toward him. Every principle braced against myself.
I stared at the ceiling and counted breaths. Mine. His. Mine. His. If I moved, I’d fail. If I stayed still, I ached.
Morning came without asking. Gray light slid through the curtains. The quiet shifted. The world exhaled back into existence.
Elliot stirred. Not abruptly—just a small inhale, a faint sound at the back of his throat, like he was surfacing from deep water.
His fingers loosened. Then he tilted his head. Our eyes met. Something in him softened immediately when he saw me. Like relief had a face now.
“Hey,” he whispered.
My chest tightened. “Hey.”
He watched me the way people watched something they were afraid of losing. Not greedy, not demanding, just attentive. Like he was trying to memorize me while he still could.
Then he leaned in. It wasn’t bold. It wasn’t calculated. It was as natural as breathing. Small and hopeful and terrifying.
His mouth brushed mine—barely pressure, barely there—a question more than a kiss.
My whole body responded. Heat, instinct, want. My lips parted and my tongue swept into his mouth. Elliot groaned at the contact. Heat flamed through my body. Need for more surged through me.
My hand curled into his hair anchoring him there. Our mouths locked together in a dance as old as time.
When my actions registered I froze. Then pulled back. Just an inch. Just enough to see the depression on his face change. My grip on his hair loosened as I studied his face.
It wasn’t shattered—not yet. But something flickered. Hurt, yes. But underneath that, hunger.
“You don't know what you’re doing," I said softly.
His bright hazel eyes searched mine. “Yes. I do.”
“No,” I whispered. “You don’t.”
Elliot pushed himself up slightly on one elbow, like he needed to be closer even as I moved away.
“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted you.”
The words hit somewhere below my ribs. I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “You don’t know what this will cost.”
His mouth trembled. His eyes glistened as he blinked hard. When he spoke, it was with a deadly calm. “Then let me pay it. I’ve already lost everything else.”
The room went still around us. Not quiet. Like it held its breath. Like the air itself was waiting to see what I’d do. I reached out to cup his face before I realized what I was doing and stopped myself halfway.
My hand hovered between us. That small, aborted motion felt like a failure in itself.
“Elliot,” I breathed, pain threaded through his name. “Wanting someone when you’re bleeding isn't the same as choosing them.”
“I’m always bleeding.”
His words cut me. The fact his voice didn’t break when he spoke made it so much worse. Like it was a fact, not a reason.
“You’re the only thing that makes it stop.”
Something in me cracked at that. Not enough to fall apart. But enough to feel it in my bones.
“I won’t be your anesthetic,” I said quietly. “And I won't be your punishment.”
His eyes filled, deep pools of pain, but he didn’t cry. He nodded once. Too fast. Too sharp. Lip trembling. Like he was swallowing something he didn’t know how to chew.
“I know,” he croaked.
But he didn’t believe it. I could see it in the way his shoulder tightened. In the way he pulled back into himself. In the way he leaned away but kept watching me like he was waiting for me to change my mind.
He shifted just enough that the warm air between us thinned. The absence hurt more than the closeness ever had.
I sat there with my hands clenched in my lap, feeling the shape of everything I wasn’t letting happen. I could see what could have been when I closed my eyes to hold back tears of my own.
Restraint wasn’t noble.
It was violent.
It was standing inside a fire and calling it safety. It was loving someone when they cracked open and choosing not to crawl inside the break with them. It was choosing their stability over your relief.
It hurt like hell.
Elliot turned away first. Not dramatically. Not angrily. Just… carefully. Like he was handling something sharp inside himself.
He slid off the bed and stood with his back to me, arms folded loosely across his chest like he was trying to hold himself together in one piece.
“I should go shower,” he said quietly. It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even really a statement. It was a withdrawal.
The bed felt larger without him in it. Colder.
I watched him take three steps toward the bathroom door before I moved. “Elliot.” He paused. But didn’t turn. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He nodded once. Still didn’t look at me. “I know.”
That was worse than if he’d argued. That was forgiveness without relief.
He left. The door clicked shut behind him with a sound that felt much louder than it was. The shower flicked on, the sound of the spray pounding against the tiles echoed in my head.
Sitting on the edge of the bed I stared at the place where he’d been. The dent in the mattress. The faint warmth from his body still there. The ghost of him. The ache in my chest grew.
I pressed my hands flat against my thighs and felt the shake finally reach them. I had promised him I wouldn’t leave. And I had.
Not physically.
But emotionally?
I had stepped back into a place he couldn’t follow. I had done the one thing he was most afraid of. I had made space. And space, to someone like Elliot, felt exactly like abandonment.
The guilt came in waves pulling me under like a riptide. They weren’t loud. Just relentless.
I had hurt him. Again. After promising I wouldn’t. After watching him break apart and trusting me with the pieces.
My elbows dropped to my knees as I leaned forward, hands dangling between them. That's when the second wave hit.
David. My friend. His father. The man who had looked at me, hollow and broken, abandoned his child and asked me to look after him.
Not to control him. Not to save him. Just be there. And here I was. Wanting him. Wanting the son of my best friend. Wanting the person I was supposed to protect. Wanting him in a way that felt too large to be harmless.
This was too deep to be simple. Too real to be ignored. My chest tightened. And then the last, quietest guilt:
That something pure had tried to happen between us. And I had been the one to stop it. Not because it was false. Not because it was ugly. But because it was dangerous. It was fragile. Because it was happening inside grief and trauma and dependency and need. Because timing was everything.
Even when the feeling was real. Especially then.
I dragged a hand down my face and exhaled slowly.
My hands still ached with everything I wasn't letting them do. I stayed there longer than I should have. A part of me waited for Elliot to come out and demand that I take back everything I’d said.
If he had? I’d have broken and fallen to my knees.
And begged him to give me another chance.
When it was clear he wasn’t going to do that. I stood and straightened the bed. Smoothed out the blanket. Erased the evidence that we’d been there. Together. Like I was trying to make it hurt less by pretending it hadn’t happened.
It didn’t work.
Nothing did.
Days turned into weeks. and I tried to behave like nothing had changed between us. That was the biggest mistake I could have made.
I made us coffee in the mornings. I made his lunch before I left for work.
I cleaned the house even when it was already spotless, scrubbing at surfaces that didn’t need it just to keep my hands busy.
I’d find myself standing at the kitchen sink, staring out the window, losing time.
Like I was waiting for something to happen out there instead of behind me.
I told myself I was giving him space. Time to heal. That this was healthy. Responsible.
The kind of distance a man like me was supposed to keep.
It felt a lot like cowardice.
Elliot didn’t talk much anymore. Not really. Just the bare minimum—morning, thanks, I’ll be back later. Polite. Careful. Like every word was measured to make sure it didn’t linger too long between us.
What he did do was disappear into his phone.
It was always in his hand now. Thumbs moving fast. Screen lighting up his face at all hours. Sometimes I’d catch the corner of a smile before he noticed me watching and turned away. Other times he’d laugh—soft, surprised—like someone had said something just for him.
Not me.
I didn’t ask who he was talking to. I didn’t have the right. So I watched instead.
Cars started pulling up outside that weren’t mine. I’d hear them before I saw them—the crunch of tires on gravel, the low thrum of unfamiliar engines. Elliot would grab his jacket, phone already in his hand, and pause just long enough to say, “I’m heading out.”
No details. No explanations.
I stood at the window more than once and watched him jog down the steps, watched someone lean across a passenger seat to shove the door open for him. Heard laughter drift back through the open window before the car pulled away.
Too young. Too easy. Too loud. I told myself it was good. That this was what I wanted—for him to have people. Friends. A life that didn’t revolve around grief or the quiet tension of this house. People who could touch him freely. Joke without restraint. Want him without hesitation.