My fingers squeezed around my temples, massaging them. Nodding, I found his gaze once more. His eyes sparkled under the moonlight—what I knew to be a gentle forest, flooded with tears of anguish. “Take my phone number. If something happens, you can call or text me, and I’ll come running.”
“That won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“He checks my phone. I literally only have his contact saved, and the only messages I have are between me and him, or random spam. The spam texts alone are enough to set him off most times.” He sighed and pulled a blade of grass from the ground, picking it apart with his fingers. “I know I fuck up a lot, but it’s like everything is an excuse to hit me now.”
I tried to control the anger rising from my gut, but aharsh curse still left me. “Hold on, I have an idea. I’m gonna grab something from my car real quick.”
The world was eerily quiet as I jogged to my car, the sound of my shoes hitting the asphalt deafening. I searched around in the center console before grabbing the notepad and pen I knew were there. After writing on a piece of paper, I tore it off and made my way back over to Elio, who hadn’t moved even an inch.
“Here.” I handed it to him, fully expecting the confused look on his face.
Groceries
4×2 2+2 12÷2 3+2 4×2 3+3 4+2 3+2 8÷2 4+4
“The fuck is this?” He turned the paper upside down, then tilted it, as if he could figure it out from a different angle.
“My number. If spam texts set him off, I don’t want to know what would happen if he found a paper with a phone number written on it. I mean, I could write it plainly if you want, but this seemed safer.”
Elio folded it neatly, placing it in his pants pocket. “No, I…yeah, that makes sense. Thanks.”
Nodding, I turned my head toward the sky. “Call me if there’s an emergency, okay? I wanna try to meet here as often as possible, just to make sure you’re alright. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, I can try to do that.”
“Good.”
“Yeah.”
Silence hung between us, as thick as the humid air. If he wouldn’t let me help him tonight, I’d make sure to be therewhen he did. My parents taught me not to ignore fate or gut feelings. Fate brought Elio back to me, and my gut told me this was the right choice.
My phone still had seven percent battery left. “Are you on TikTok much?”
“Nah, why?”
A smile tugged at my lips as I opened the app, swiping to my favorites. “Dude, you’re missing out. Look at this cat, bro.”
I’d use the last seven percent of my phone battery to make him smile. I’d doanythingto make him smile, if only to see a glimpse of the Elio I knew still existed.
The Elio I wanted to save, no matter what it took.
The Elio who deserved the world, and so much more.
The Elio I loved so deeply, it had once broken my heart, cracking it into so many pieces that the remaining shards in my chest still spelled his name all these years later.
Chapter Six
Fuck me,everything hurt. My face felt swollen like a balloon, but I refused to look in the mirror to check if that was true or not. A couple of my ribs ached when I took a deep breath, so I was resigned to practicing the art of shallow, quick breathing without inducing a panic attack.
The paper Crescent had given me burned a hole in my sweatpants pocket. I’d folded it until it was too stiff to fold again, and shoved it deep down in my pocket. These were the same sweats I’d worn yesterday, but I’d yet to have a chance to shower. The most Jude let me do was clean my face with soap and water while he watched, making sure that I left at least one drop of dried blood as a reminder. A reminder of what, I was never sure. I guess a reminder of the mistakes I constantly made, like a visual justification for how he treated me.
Last night had been the first time I’d ever admitted whatJude did to me. Of course, it had to be to the one person I’d tried to hide it from the most.
Saying it out loud, albeit in the most embarrassing manner with my sobbing, was almost freeing. Almost. For a moment there, I thought I’d felt a twitch between my shoulder blades. A particularly feather-like twitch, with promises of flight and joy.
But it wilted away, just like the rest of them, the moment Crescent’s phone died and we’d realized how late it was.
