Chapter 27 – “Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby” - Cigarettes After Sex
VICE
“NOTHING’S GONNA HURT YOU BABY” - CIGARETTES AFTER SEX
“Augustus,” I whisper, clutching his head against my chest to quell his trembling limbs. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
Sitting back against the headboard, I sway gently in my bed, holding him to me.
I woke to the sound of him screaming, the second night terror he’s had since I moved in. It’s normally his bedroom I fall asleep in at night. His bed is bigger, and he has a television and a bathtub. Plus, I like the way the sheets always smell like him.
Tonight, we fell asleep in mine, though.
He brought me upstairs after we stared at the stars and spoke of Zach, being more open about our grief and our fear than either of us have been before.
I never found the courage to speak to him directly, but it kind of felt like he was part of our conversation, and after we finished, I felt settled in a way I haven’t experienced before during bouts of grief.
There are many, many things I want to say to Zach, and I hope someday I’ll find the courage to voice them, but I think those moments are better left between the two of us alone.
As cathartic as it was, the whole evening exhausted me. I know August hadn’t intended to stay here; he merely wanted to help me up the stairs and into bed, but I found myself unable to let him go. I’ve done it too many times before. I can’t find the will to push him away anymore.
I’m not sure if the change in sleeping location is what caused the night terror, if it was our conversation from earlier, or all just a coincidence. All I care about now is calming him.
I brush my fingers through his hair, his screaming has finally stopped. His heart still beats wildly against my stomach, and the breath leaving his lips is rapid and distressed.
“I’m right here, baby,” I whisper, watching him wince with closed eyes, as if whatever is raging in his mind is causing him immense pain. “I’m here,” I say again, brushing my thumb over his brow. “I’m here.”
He finally begins to settle, snaking an arm over my thighs and gripping me tightly, as if my skin is his anchor to reality—my heartbeat his guide home. As his breathing evens out, I continue stroking his face, brushing my hands through his hair, letting him slip back into a more peaceful rest.
I don’t know how much time has passed, my eyes drooping and my head lulling against the back of the headboard when I hear him whisper, “Elena?”
I startle, snapping my gaze down to find his beautiful face tilted toward mine, green eyes bright in the darkness of my room. “Hi.” I smile. “You had a night terror.”
“I’m sorry,” he groans, stretching his limbs and rolling over so that I can move back down the bed. We both lie on our sides, facing the other.
“Don’t apologize,” I whisper. “Do you want to go to your room?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “But if you want me to leave, I can. I’m sorry.”
That pulls a breathless laugh from me. “I’m sorry, let me rephrase that. I’ll be sleeping where you are tonight. Do you want to stay here, or do you think you’d sleep better if we were in your bed?”
His lips twitch. “We can stay here.”
He takes a ragged inhale, sighing heavily as he turns onto his back and stretches out his arm, a silent request. I shuffle next to him, placing my head on his chest and molding my body against his like I was made for it.
He twirls a strand of my hair around his finger. We don’t speak, but I won’t allow myself to fall back asleep until he does, so I trace the patchwork tattoos over his chest, barely able to make out the art in the darkness. “Do you ever remember them?” I ask. “Your night terrors?”
“No.” He sighs. “But I know what they contain.”
“What’s that?” I whisper against his skin, unsure if I want to know the answer.
“Him. It’s always him. But sometimes I think it’s you too.”
Part of me wants to beg him for details, but another part doesn’t want to cause him any additional distress, and truthfully, I don’t want to know the depths of the damage I’ve caused. How thoroughly I obliterated his trust and broke his soul, when I’m the person who’s always supposed to mend it.
I kiss his collarbone, over the violets he has tattooed against it.
“You know…I started writing poems again. It’s been years, and it’s brought back this strange sense of déjà vu. I don’t have my old notebooks anymore, but it’s like I can feel my old self resurfacing through new words…or something.”
“Give me an example.”
I contemplate for a minute, tracing his skin quietly. “I used to think love was only black and white. It was either something you had, or you didn’t. You either fought to stay, or you got up and left. You were all in, or completely out. No other options. I’ve been reminded of that lately, but now…”
“Now you feel like you’re living in the gray area?” he muses.
“No.” I shake my head, lips brushing over his skin.
“Now I feel like love is an entire spectrum of color. It’s light and it’s dark, full of multitude.
It’s something you have to choose, something you must fight for, but it’s also unpredictable and unexpected.
Felt through every sense, yet intangible.
Frustratingly complicated and delightedly simple. ”
Green eyes study me in the darkness. He lifts a hand, cupping my face, running a thumb over my lip like he wants my words imprinted on his skin.
“I feel like love is ultraviolet,” I whisper. “A color I never saw before you.”
He studies my face for a long moment, caressing my skin but saying nothing. Finally, he nods, full lips forming the boyish smile that feels like home to me. “I ultraviolet you too, Little Vice.”
I frown, lightly slapping his chest for making light of my revelation, but truthfully, I know exactly what he’s doing.
I didn’t realize it myself. I often don’t see my own nuances the way he can, but I now understand exactly what I was trying to say.
I can’t handle the words themselves, despite the fact that we’ve each said them a million times to the other.
They mean something different now—it feels different now.
I can’t say them, and I don’t know if I can hear them either, but as always, he reads the pages of my soul that are written in a language unknown by all others.
“Go to bed.” I laugh into his chest, and he joins in, the sound like kindling to my soul’s flame. It was his laugh I missed most in those years apart, that I’ve longed for desperately since finding each other again.
“I’m trying, but my high maintenance bedmate won’t stop pondering life and shit.”
“You’re annoying.” I nip at his pec. “Am I really high maintenance?”
“Yes.” He grips my hair at the nape of my neck, pulling my head up. “And if you keep biting me like that I’m going to shove my cock down your throat and give you something to choke on.”
“Is that supposed to be a threat? Because I’m an enthusiastically willing participant.”
His eyes roll back, and he loosens his grip, head falling onto the pillow as he murmurs, “My chaos.”
“Is it bad that I’m high maintenance?”
A rough laugh pierces the darkness. “Not for me, Little Vice.”
“I don’t like being taken care of. It makes me feel weak,” I admit quietly. “You’re the only person I’ve let take care of me before, but sometimes I think I’m a burden. I don’t want to think I’m something that needs to be maintained.”
“Okay.” He turns his head toward me. “I won’t use that phrase anymore, then. But you’re certainly not a burden. I want to be the rock you lean on. The shoulder you cry on. The chest you sleep on.”
“I want to be your rock too,” I say on a breath. “But sometimes I don’t think I do a very good job.”
He nods in understanding before staring back at the ceiling.
“When you left me, it broke me, but since you’ve returned home, it often feels as if you’re all that can put me back together.
You’re doing a good job, Elena.” He brushes his hand over the top of my head, urging me back to his chest. “You’ve been shouldering your own pain for years.
Nobody was leaning on you, and you were refusing to lean on anyone else too.
It takes time to learn that again. I’ve always had our support system around me. ”
“Yeah, well…that was my own doing.” I sigh, deciding to finally voice a thought that’s been stirring in my mind for weeks. “Augustus, what happened with your parents?”
“They moved to Palm Springs after…everything.”
“Right.” I nod. “But Everett told me they didn’t allow you to be involved with the Foundation, and I rarely hear you speak of them. Earlier you mentioned something about the way they treat you now.”
He swallows audibly. “My dad blames me. He hasn’t spoken to me directly in years.
Since the day it happened, I think. And my mom…
” He huffs. “She doesn’t exactly defend me.
I couldn’t handle the way he looked at me, the way he so clearly wishes that the roles were reversed.
I had to distance myself. It was getting so bad, and I…
” He cuts himself off, shaking his head.
“It ate at me for a long time, but therapy has helped me wade through a lot of that. I distanced myself from my friends and from your parents for a while, too, since letting them all back in… It’s filled that gap.
I talk to my mom as often as I can stomach it. I’m okay. Now, anyway.”
“None of it’s okay.” I bite back the fury in my tone, willing calmness, though I’m seething at the thought of their treatment toward him. “What do you mean now?”
“I used to struggle with the isolation a lot more. Before you came home, before I started going to therapy. The abandonment of my parents was a heavy weight—especially in terms of my father and the way he’s treated me.
” He presses his lips against my head. “Having you back has replaced a lot of the void they left, but…” He sighs, wiping a hand down his face.
“I’ve had some difficult moments in the past few years.
Ones where I’ve thought about…” He trails off, and my stomach leaps into my throat at the understanding.
I push up onto my knees, crawling over him and taking his face between my hands. My heart pounds in my ears, throat seizing with pure fear as my skin goes numb.
“Do not ever think about that, August. Please.” I drop my forehead to his, feeling like I’ll fucking die without the warmth of his exhale against my face, the confirmation he’s breathing.
“I won’t pretend to understand what your parents have put you through, but I cannot live in a world where you do not exist. Do you understand?
Don’t ever do that to me. Don’t ever think that again. ”
“I can’t help it,” he whispers, brushing his hand up my spine in a reassuring caress. “The thoughts just happen sometimes…but I’ve never had an urge to act on them, and it’s been months since I’ve struggled with it, anyway. I’m okay, Elena. I promise.”
“Then you tell me about them, okay? You come to me, and I’ll remind you how much I…” I swallow, hesitating. “How much I need you. How much better life, and the entire world is, because of you. How loved you are.”
He nods, smiling softly as he presses against my back, forcing me back to his chest again.
I lie back down, settling into his side as his fingertips glide over my shoulders as mine trace lazy patterns across his chest. “I hate your parents.”
“Sometimes, I do too.” He sighs, kissing the top of my head. “But they already lost one son, so I’m trying to be sympathetic to the pain they hold too.”
I can’t offer much more of a response than a resigned humph.
All I can think about is how badly I want to burn their fucking house down.
He deserves so much better than them. To blame him for a tragic accident that he had to witness firsthand, to not defend your own son against the vile accusations of your husband—it’s disgusting.
I can tell he’s worked hard to come to terms with the sickening reality of the situation, so I swallow back all the venom I want to spew in the direction of his worthless parents. I don’t want to make him feel worse.
“Is that the painting you got from Penelope?” he asks, a clear attempt at changing the subject.
I lift my head, following his gaze to the canvas hung up across my room.
It’s hard to see, but through the dim moonlight filtering through my curtains, I can just make out the white orb at the center of the painting, the dark blue of the horizon cutting it in half, the smattering of stars, and the white of the waves crashing against the shore.
A beach at night. That’s what she painted for me.
“What does it say?” His eyes narrow, but I know the scroll is far too small to make out from this distance, especially in the dark.
In the bottom right corner of the canvas, just above her signature, three lines are written:
Just as stars illuminate their night
Just as the moon leads its tides
Beauty is found within darkness
“That’s beautiful,” he whispers when I finish reading. “Did she make that up herself?”
“Not sure. Maybe.” I shrug. “When we met, we got to talking about how different we are from our friends and siblings. How everyone around us is like a ray of fucking sunshine, and we can’t relate to that.
She told me she felt more like the moon or the stars, but it was something she learned to love about herself.
I told her I felt like the darkness between them.
” I sigh. “At the time, I saw myself as a void of just…nothing. I guess this was her reminder that I’m not. ”
“You know, the middle of the night is my favorite time of day.” He runs his knuckles up and down my back, eliciting sparks across my skin.
“I’ve never wanted you to be bright. I found the most peace I’ve ever known when I’m sinking into your darkness.
Your darkness between stars feels like home to me. ”
“I think you are the stars,” I whisper. “They feel like home to me too.”