Chapter 15
ELLIOT
The thought of him didn’t come softly. It came the way pain does—without permission, without warning, without any regard for whether I could hold it. It was already there when I noticed it. Sitting behind my eyes. In my throat. In the spaces between my ribs.
Anthony. Not his face. Not his body. His presence. The way the room felt different when he stood in it. The way my breath adjusted around him.
The way my nervous system had quietly decided he was a place I could rest—and now refused to accept anything else. He’d taken it all from me that morning when he pushed me away with a finality so brutal it cleaved me open.
I lay on my bed staring at the faint crack in the ceiling paint, counting it like it might save me. One. Two. Three.
My hands were clenched so tightly the bones ached. My skin felt too tight. Too loud. Every nerve buzzing like it was waiting for something that never came.
I didn’t want him. That word was too clean. I ached for him. Like something inside me was hollowed out in his shape. Like my body had carved a space it could only fill with him.
It felt less like desire and more like hunger. The kind that makes you lightheaded. The kind that makes you dizzy and stupid and willing to do things you swore you wouldn’t.
The kind that doesn’t ask what it costs. Whatever it was, I'd sacrifice it without a second thought.
I pressed my forearm across my eyes like I could block it out. It didn’t help. Nothing did. Because the worst part wasn’t the wanting. It was how right it felt. How inevitable. How my body reacted like it had finally found the thing it had been built for.
That terrified me. That was what made me feel wrong. Broken. Like something essential in me had been miswired.
I curled onto my side and pressed my face into the pillow. The fabric was cool. It smelled faintly like laundry soap and dust and me. I whispered his name once. Just once. It felt like a sin and a prayer at the same time.
The journal he’d given me to stop myself cutting, lay open, my eyes were drawn toward the words by a magnetic force.
My head rolled back on my shoulders exposing the column of my throat to him. Warm lips brushed a line of open-mouthed kisses down my throat. The tip of his tongue licked along my pulse.
His large hands slowly popped open the button of my jeans and pulled the zipper down. The sound was the only thing I could hear above our laboured breaths.
“You going to let me taste you, baby boy?”
A full body shudder rolled through me as he pulled my pants and purple boxer briefs down releasing my cock.
“Yes,” I moaned as his teeth scraped over my Adam's apple and I lifted my hips so he could pull the remaining clothes off my body.
“So fucking beautiful,” he breathed and licked a path down my chest. Tongue circling my nipples before he sucked them into his mouth.
My aching cock throbbed as he wrapped his hand around it. The rough skin of his palm dragged over my heated skin. His thumb circled my slit, teasing and toying with the bead of precum there.
I blinked wide-eyed up at him as he brought it to his mouth and sucked it clean. A whimper pushed past my lips, hips flexing desperate to know what that sensation felt like on my dick.
“Please…please, Daddy. Suck me.”
Anthony chuckled. “Oh Sweetheart. I promise I will.”
He brushed a salty kiss to my lips before repositioning himself between my legs. My heart thundered in my chest. Finally, finally I’d know what it felt like to be with him. Not just a stolen kiss that made him push me away guilt ridden later. But—
He stole the thought from my head as the wet heat of his mouth wrapped around the head of my dick. His tongue teasing that sensitive bit underneath. It was like heaven and hell all at once.
“Oh fuuuuck.” I bit my lip as waves of pleasure washed over me.
Anthony licked a path down to my balls and back again before he swallowed me whole.
My hand worked its way underneath my sweats and wrapped around my aching length.
I knew it was wrong to write about him like that, but it was the only way I got to be with him.
He’d shut me out of his life. He was still here but not like before.
His absence was like a cancer growing stronger every day.
This and my thoughts were all I had. So I explored every deviant dream. Every lustful desire that grew inside my head.
I stroked myself slowly savouring the touch and worked my fist up from the base to the tip and back down again. With my free hand I pushed my sweats down till they sat under my ass and pulled my hoodie up until it was tucked just beneath my chin.
My body came alive as I spat into my hand before wrapping it back around my shaft making it feel silky smooth. Images of Anthony on his knees looking up at me with lust filled eyes flashed through my mind.
My thumb wiped over my head on the next stroke adding precum to the mix as I started to fuck my hand like it was the only thing keeping me here. I could feel the heat radiating off his body as his hands worked up my chest and tweaked my nipples.
My balls drew up tight, heavy and full. I could feel my heartbeat throbbing in my length as blood pooled into my shaft. My release barreled toward me.
Short, sharp pants left my mouth. My hips flexed as my rhythm started to falter. Sweat beaded in my hairline and down the back of my neck. My orgasm was almost upon me, but something was holding it back.
I shifted enough so I could lift my knees and spread my legs. The fingers of my free hand crept past my balls and teased the sensitive skin of my entrance. Oh how I wished it was Anthony’s finger pushing through that first ring of muscle.
“Daddy!” I cried as my vision went white. My cock pulsed in my hand as thick ropes of cum splashed over my chest.
Empty, I collapsed back onto my bed. Spent. Body basking in the afterglow. My fingers trailed through the cum on my chest, scooping it up. I brought them to my mouth and sucked them clean. And wondered if his cum would taste salty or sweet.
A few moments was all I was allowed before it all faded into darkness again. Shame hit me. Hard. Immediate. Like a wave slamming into my chest. Like something ugly blooming under my skin.
I felt disgusting. Exposed. Like I’d been caught doing something unforgivable even though I was alone. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. The words fell out of me without direction.
“I’m sorry, Mom.” My throat tightened around her name. “I can’t stop wanting what hurts.”
I lay there for a long time after that, breathing into the hollow in my chest. Feeling the weight of myself.
Feeling too much. Feeling wrong for feeling anything at all.
Once I was cleaned up, the walls started to close in around me.
The only thing I could do was run. I righted my clothes, threw my journals into my bag and left.
The house felt like it was watching me. Like the walls knew. Like I had failed at something I hadn’t even been given a chance to choose.
So I left. Barefoot. The back deck was cold wood and splinters under my feet as I crossed it. The night air was sharp and wet and smelled like salt. But it did nothing to dampen the feeling crawling over my skin.
The ocean was loud enough to drown out my thoughts. That was why I went. Not to be comforted. But to be erased.
The sand was cold and damp where I collapsed near the shoreline. I curled in on myself, knees to chest, arms wrapped tight around my ribs like I was trying to hold my organs in place.
The wind tugged at my hoodie. The waves crashed and retreated. Crashed. Retreated. Like breathing. Like a heart. Like the world was reminding me I was small.
I stared out at the dark water until my eyes burned. Until my chest felt too tight to take a breath. That's when I reached into my bag and pulled out the penknife I’d acquired the other day.
Was it wrong for me to use it to silence the noise? To make the world stop spinning out of control around me? Definitely. But would that stop me? No. I flicked it open, pushed back my sleeve and catalogued the raised red scabs that ran from wrist to elbow.
There were so many now it was hard to find a fresh piece of skin. But I managed, and as the blade cut through that first layer of skin it was like the world had been switched off. The volume muted. My lungs finally filled with oxygen and I was finally able to breathe.
But like most things that free feeling didn’t last. The static that drowned out the chaos was only fleeting. It wasn’t long before the grief and self-loathing crept back in. A dark cloud swallowing me whole.
Tears burned as they filled my eyes, but I couldn’t blink them away fast enough. That's when I imagined her there. My mom.
Not as she was when she died—blood stained and broken. But as she was when she laughed. Whole. Standing just beyond the waterline. Watching me with that quiet sadness she always had when she couldn’t fix something.
“I didn’t mean for it to be like this,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean to want him.” My voice sounded thin against the ocean. Insignificant. “I didn’t mean to fail you.”
Empathy shone in her eyes. She wasn’t judging me.
She never did. Hours passed as I waited for her to answer.
Nothing but the wind and the water to hear my pain as I purged everything I couldn’t say to him.
Every na?ve hope I’d had of a future. Every dream he smashed with his quiet words. His cold rejection.
I cried myself hoarse until I was just an empty shell waiting to be swept out by the coming tides. To be washed away like I’d never existed. That was when I felt something behind me. Not footsteps. Not a sound. Just the unmistakable awareness of someone else being there.
My spine went hot. My breath caught. I knew who it was without turning. The pull in my chest told me. I didn’t look. I couldn’t. Because if I did, I would reach. And if I reached, I wouldn’t stop.