Chapter 22 - Aleksey #2
I grimaced. Hearing my mother use ‘love’ to describe what Karter and I had made me uncomfortable. I shifted on the grate and stared at my sneakers. But I couldn’t bring myself to deny it.
Mama did not let the silence stand.
“Love is not just burning yourself down for someone,” she continued, refusing to let the subject drop. “It is believing you are worth staying in the fight.”
“I made the call.”
Mama shook her head. “No, you decided for him. Then you packed up and ran.”
“I took the fall.”
“You took the exit.”
Mama didn’t raise her voice. Her tone stayed low and steady and absolutely sure, and that made it worse.
“Getting your face split open does not make you brave, Lekha. It just means you know how to bleed.” She leaned forward, forcing me to meet her eyes. “But letting someone actually care about you? That scares you to death.”
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
“You think sacrificing your future is noble. It is not. It is hiding.” She pulled her sweater tighter and leaned back against the brick. “I don’t know why you do not believe you deserve a good life. But you found a way to wreck it before anyone else could.”
Staring at the rusted metal beneath my shoes, every excuse I had rehearsed all week died right there on the fire escape. Getting punched in a bar made sense—I knew how to take a hit.
But Karter standing in that attic, looking at me like I was the only thing that mattered? I didn’t walk away to save him. I just ran.
Mama shifted on the grate. Reaching over, she lightly grasped the back of my neck, her thumb brushing over my hairline.
“That boy wanted to fight for you,” she said quietly, tilting her head as she held my gaze. “Are you going to let him do it alone?”
With a tired smile, she stood up and climbed back through the window, leaving me in the cold. The iron railing dug into my spine, but I stared past the streetlights.
After a few minutes, I stood and followed her inside. Heading straight to my bedroom, I shut the door and dropped onto my bed. The room sat in total darkness, offering nothing, and my body ached from the long shift. Still, sleep refused to come.
Instead, my mind once again went to Karter. I pulled out my phone and opened the sports app again. The team photo loaded. There he was, standing rigid in the midst of the celebration. I zoomed in on his face until the pixels blurred the image.
Scrolling past the news, I moved to my hidden photo album.
A picture waited there. It was of Karter on my bed back at the Ice House, textbooks open between us.
We actually studied that night, but I kept staring at his mouth while he explained stats.
He noticed and grabbed my phone, snapping a photo of himself with a smirk.
‘If you love staring at me so much, you should set me as your lock screen.’
Remembering his playful grin pulled other thoughts forward in my mind. Karter’s lips, and the way they felt wrapped around my cock, wet and tight.
I shifted on the bed, my hand sliding into my boxers, my fingers curling around my growing erection. Seconds later, I started stroking myself, slow at first, chasing the memory.
An image came to mind of Karter underneath me in the back seat of his car, his body stretched out while I pushed in deep. He gasped as I fucked him, while his hips lifted to meet mine, pulling me closer like he couldn’t get enough.
His eyes had locked on me, heated and steady, even as I started thrusting harder, the car rocking with us. With his hair stuck to his forehead from sweat, he’d made these low moans, half-broken, that said he was right there with me, taking it all and wanting more.
Back in the present, my breaths came out in short gasps as I stroked my cock faster, the slide of skin warming my belly, sharper with each stroke.
Thoughts of pinning Karter beneath me like that, feeling his ass tighten around me with every move, his legs spread for me as I pounded into him.
It all rushed back.
His body had trembled under me, while I drove into him again and again.
Then the memory switched on me.
Gone was the car’s back seat, replaced by images of the attic of the Ice House. My own voice echoed back, calling Karter a distraction, a mistake. Words I’d said while I stood in my room, duffel bag in hand.
Everything dropped hard in the present. My stomach twisted up, and my hand felt wrong now, too rough and cold. The heat drained out fast, leaving nothing but disgust.
Shame gripped me tight, but I kept my hand moving. Finishing would clear my head, let me draw in a full breath.
The rhythm on my cock turned rough and uneven as the high kept slipping away.
I gripped harder and picked up speed, desperate for friction to drown out the guilt.
My other hand, meanwhile, twisted into the bedsheet as the buildup of my orgasm coiled low in my groin, all wrong but unstoppable.
That is until a deep throb finally ripped through me.
My back arched off the mattress, every muscle locking tight. “Karter,” his name slipped from my lips as I climaxed, spilling hot cum inside my boxers.
A single tear slipped down the side of my face as my body began to relax into the mattress, my breathing beginning to slow. Calling Karter a mistake hadn’t made it true. It only made the empty space on the mattress beside me feel ten times colder.