Chapter 44
LACHLAN
Isak and I lie in his bed in the dark, kissing. Simply kissing.
Well, I’m also playing with his ass. I fucking love his ass.
I just had the best sex of my life, in the full light, with Isak seeing my scars.
To be fair, the only times I’ve had sex before were with women, and it was difficult for me to even stay hard. With Isak, that’s most definitely not an issue. I’m so gone for this guy. I almost shouted that I loved him.
I still can’t believe I showed him my scars. Even when I’ve been to the doctor, I’ve made excuses about why I couldn’t drop my pants or why I had Band-Aids on. No one else has seen as much of me as he has.
We made a mess, so we cleaned up and took another shower. He put our clothes in the dryer, and I borrowed a pair of his black athletic shorts, and he’s wearing briefs with smiley faces on them. They make me laugh. His dick is poking out the bottom on the left.
I’m hard again, my cock trapped in the elastic waistband of these shorts, but his mom got home, so we aren’t going for another round.
I do have serious lust coursing through my veins, but it’s tempered with something besides not wanting an audience.
I want to be gentle with him. I want him to be absolutely sure that he’s mine.
I urge him to turn around so I’m the big spoon and he’s the little one. I’m prepared for him to fight me on it, but he doesn’t. Instead, he curls up and sighs happily, playing with my fingers.
I feel like an empty beach, all the crap washed away. Like the storm raged, but it’s now clean and new. And even though the idea terrifies me, I’ll go see a therapist like I said I would. He’s right. I need to stop cutting myself.
For now, I focus on how good it is, being here with him. How he feels in my arms. His weight is comforting. Like an old hoodie or something. He just fits right.
I chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” Isak murmurs, running a hand up and down my forearm where it’s wrapped around his chest.
“You’re my sweatshirt,” I mumble into his hair.
“What?”
“You’re like a comfortable thing I want to put on. Not in a weird way.”
“I dunno. That does sound kind of weird.” He yawns. “But I’ll allow it.”
I snort. “Also, I want to say something about how I’m feeling.”
“And how is that?”
“I really, really like you.”
Isak stiffens. “I like you, too,” he whispers.
“It seems both like I know you so well and that I’m just barely starting to get to know you. I want to know it all, every single thing—everything you think or have discovered or feel. It’s all interesting.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to get to the bottom and realize there’s nothing there,” he blurts. “That what the haters said about me sophomore year was right: I’m nothing.”
My heart squeezes. I guess this relationship is two-way after all. I thought I was the only one who was opening up, but he’s doing it, too.
“If anyone knows anything about hiding from other people, it’s me,” I tell him. “But I believe that, deep down inside, you are as amazing as you appear. Isak, baby, you dress a little standoffish, but you’re actually a softie.”
“Don’t tell anyone,” he whispers.
I kiss his neck. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“I feel like everything is safe with you. Like I could go on and on about all the things I’m afraid of telling anyone else, and you wouldn’t judge me.”
“I might judge you for your taste in sandwiches. My taste is clearly better.”
He laughs. “We can agree to disagree on that one. But if that’s it—” He falls silent.
“What?” I prompt.
“Oh, nothing.”
I raise an eyebrow and make a “continue” motion with my hand.
Isak clears his throat. “I was imagining us being old and walking on the beach hand in hand. All cute.”
“I’d love that.” I suck on his ear, and he lets out a delicious moan. “We could walk on the coast here, or go around the world. Hawaii, Greece, Australia, the Bahamas. Let’s make it our goal that we’re going to grow old together and do that.”
“Aren’t we a little young to set that kind of goal?”
He has a point. I think for a moment. “What if we go for a walk on the beach every year and … check in?”
“Deal.” He snuggles into me. “I’m having a hard time processing the idea that being in a relationship doesn’t have to mean getting hurt.”
Isak is quiet for a minute, and then he says, “Lach, you’re an elephant who was raised chained to a stake. Every year, you grew, but you stayed chained. Now you’re so much stronger than that stake—except you don’t know it, because you were trained to believe you’re less than you are.”
I’m quiet a long, long moment. He’s fucking right. “Possibly, yeah.” I kiss his neck. “So I’m an elephant?”
“Either that or some kind of succubus puppy.”
I snort. “What?”
“Sometimes I think of you that way. You bat your pretty puppy dog eyes and seduce me.”
“Pretty sure you mean incubus, Isak. And in any case, I think you have that the wrong way around. The puppy eyes and seducing, that’s you.”
“Whatever, no-longer-baby elephant.”
“Okay, incubus puppy.”
Somehow, between classes, rehearsals, and spending time with Isak, it’s almost April, and the musical is opening in a few weeks.
I’ve managed to accomplish my goal: spending as much time as possible away from home.
I barely see my family, and I haven’t felt the need to check my countdown app, even though the date I leave for college is steadily approaching.
I might even say that I’ve been genuinely happy for an extended period, for the first time since the accident.
Vince corners me before school one day. “Hey, where have you been? The weight room is open again, but we haven’t seen you there.”
“Rehearsals for the spring musical. They’re brutal.” I shrug. “But it’s pretty fun.” It’s more than “pretty” fun, but my instinct not to tell people any more than I need to about my life is still in place.
His intelligent eyes scan me, searching. “No time for the weight room?”
I shake my head. “We had to sign a contract and everything to be in the musical. It’s a big commitment. They said it when we started, but I didn’t realize how much they meant it until things started ramping up.”
“Okay, cool. Well, we miss you. It’s like you replaced us with a whole new group of friends.”
I’m not sure what to say. I’ve always wanted tons of friends around me. Lately, though, I’ve been satisfied with spending most of my time with one.
“Nah,” I finally say, clapping Vince on the shoulder. “You’ll always be my friend.”
He presses his lips together and nods. “Will you have time for Gabe’s party, at least?”
“When is it?”
“Two weeks from Saturday. His parents are gonna be out of town.”
I could go after rehearsal. “Can I bring Isak?” I blurt before I think better of it.
Vince gives me a once-over. “Uh, sure. Bring whoever you want. I don’t think Gabe will care. The more the merrier.”
I smile and escape before I fully process what I just did.
I should’ve known something was up when my entire family sat down for dinner together. I hoped it was because Grandma had made her best casserole, but apparently I was way off.
Once everyone’s finished and Mom and I have cleared the plates, Grandma says, “Ivy and I have an announcement.” Ivy’s shoulders are squared, face resolute.
My scalp prickles. What is going on?
“Grandma, Quinton, and I are moving out,” Ivy says in a rush.
“What? Where?” Mom asks. This announcement seems to have woken her from her usual lethargy. Her eyes are still dull, though, and her skin is sallow.
“Closer to Jared,” Ivy says. He lives about a half hour north.
I squeeze my eyes shut. My first thought is, lucky them. And the next one is, what’s going to happen when they move out? Will things quiet down without Ivy here to set Norm off? Or am I going to be the target more often?
I swallow against a wave of nausea.
No. This is good. Quinton is so little. He can’t defend himself, can’t understand why things are the way they are. Getting him away from my uncle is a good thing.
“I … I think it’s best for everyone if we all get some breathing room.” Grandma looks meaningfully at my uncle, and he glares at her.
“Okay,” I say, my voice thick. “When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow,” Grandma says.
It’s obvious that while I’ve been busy at school, Ivy and Grandma have worked this all out.
I open my mouth to ask to come with them, but what would that solve? I need to finish high school to go to college, which is my only way of getting out of here for good. So, like usual, I swallow down my comments and nod. “Okay,” I repeat. “Do you need any help?”
Grandma shakes her head. “We have movers coming.”
Land around here is ridiculously expensive.
Grandma and Uncle Norm inherited this place from their parents, and Mom’s lived here her entire life.
Even when she married Dad, he moved in—supposedly while they were saving up to get their, our, own place, but that never happened.
I can’t imagine that Grandma has enough cash to buy another house, but apparently she can afford to rent somewhere.
Uncle Norm seems partially angry and partially relieved. “Tell everyone it’s best for the boy if he’s near the father,” he grunts.
Of course he only cares about the story. His image.
“Can I be excused?” I ask. “If there’s nothing more to discuss?”
“Sure,” Mom says, back to being spaced-out.
I hightail it over to Isak’s house. “Hey,” I say when he answers the door. I didn’t see his mom’s car. She’s probably working late again.
“Hey,” he says, closing the door behind me and kissing me. Then he catches the look on my face. “What’s going on?”
“My sister and Grandma are moving out with Q.”
Isak raises his eyebrows. “Seriously?” He tugs me to the couch.
“Yeah.” I glance around the cozy mismatched furniture that somehow still manages to look great. I feel more at home here than I ever have in the house I grew up in.
“How do you feel about that?”
“I’m glad that they’re getting Quinton out. He doesn’t need to grow up like this, with Norm yelling at everyone all the time.”
“Uh-huh. And how do you feel about staying with your mom and your uncle?”
“Like I’m being abandoned,” I blurt.
“Yeah, babe.” He pulls me to his chest, and I lie against him. His heartbeat thuds under my ear. “I get that.”
“It also gives me a little hope, I guess—like, it’s possible to get out of there. That feels dangerous. I’ve never been able to really believe that things could get better.”
Isak nuzzles me. “Babe.”
We sit for a moment, his arms around me as I lean on him for comfort.
Speaking of things changing … “I made an appointment,” I say.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, with a therapist. It’s next week.” I cough. “I’m doing it because I want to be better for myself, but also for our relationship. I want to be able to give you my best self.”
“Proud of you,” Isak says, his eyes soft. “And I said it before, but you can move in with us. You don’t have to stay there.”
I’m quiet. The more he brings it up, the more tempting it is.
Still, I have to say no. Up to now, I’ve been so busy with the show that I don’t think Uncle Norm has realized where I’m spending the free time I do have.
But if he knew how close Isak and I have gotten, I’m sure he’d have something to say about it, and he might make trouble—not only for me, but also for the Hammonds.
I shake my head sadly.
“Offer is open,” Isak says lightly. “And I’m never abandoning you. Just so you know.” He huffs. “Talk is cheap, but I intend to deliver. We’ll be walking on the beach, hand in hand, in no time.”
Despite everything, I smile against his chest. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“So let’s get you through the rest of school.”
“Deal.” I tilt my face up and kiss him. “I do want to spend as much time with you as I possibly can, though.” As much as I can get away with.
“I made some plans for us,” Isak says. “For a date.”
I blink at him. “You did?”
He nods. His cheeks redden. “I, um, thought that you needed a break from thinking.”
He’s right.
On Sunday, after I’m done with work, Isak takes me to a paintball park way the hell out of town.
The place is off a small highway in an undeveloped area of the county. Someone has set up shipping containers, stand-alone concrete walls, and other places to hide, then fenced the whole thing in. Along with a bunch of other players, we’re issued gear and told how to use it.
I grin at Isak. “Have you done this before?”
“Nope. I’ve played first-person shooter video games, but not anything like this.”
“Me, neither.”
“Keep your masks on at all times,” the ref says. “Don’t shoot anyone when they are closer than twenty feet. Don’t shoot anyone who signals they are out of play. Do not shoot the ref.”
We chuckle.
The ref finishes telling us the rules, and then, at our allotted time, we all enter the arena.
“I feel like I’m in the Hunger Games,” I mutter to Isak. “Given how there are so many young kids.”
“They look like pros. I bet they’re the ones we need to watch out for.”
“Game on,” the ref says, and we scatter, running to find defensible positions.
Oh, shit. This feels oddly real. Not that I’ve been in a real war zone, thank goodness. Still, I feel like I’m being hunted down.
Heart racing, I scramble with Isak to hide behind a concrete wall, pretty sure that we’re surrounded.
The entire time we’re playing, adrenaline pumps through my body.
Being able to let out my aggression in a fake way—whooping in triumph when I score a hit and being wild about something that’s entirely made up—drains away all my tension.
I feel a little goofy “fighting” against kids, but I quickly confirm that they’re better at this than I am.
It’s satisfying.
The paintballs hurt, I learn, but I feel calm in a way I haven’t in a long time.
When our time is up, Isak and I take off our gear and change back into our normal clothes. Once we’re back in the car, he gives me a quick kiss. “You good?” he asks.
“So good. You were right. I needed that.”
“Hey, my mom asked if you wanted to come over for dinner,” Isak says. “Since she knows about us, I figure it’s a place where you can chill.”
“Sounds good to me.”