“I mean, I’m still with him, aren’t I?”
“No, you aren’t.”
The bandage on my arm made a ripping sound as it tore away from itself. Loud and unsettling, revealing blood-tinged gauze beneath it that I didn’t remember being placed. Had Jude scratched me there?
I felt the tear in my heart. Or, at least, the hole my heart should’ve been in. It’d been so long since I’d used it, I wasn’t sure it existed anymore. My chest felt empty—hollow—where I used to carry so much love in it.
For my mom and dad. For Crescent, Moon, and Star. For Mr. and Mrs. Miller. For Jude.
If there was still life inside of me, it paused the moment Crescent said what he did. He wasn’t looking at me, instead focusing on the gauze stuck to my skin. “What do you mean, I’m not?”
“You’re not with him anymore.” So fucking nonchalant. As if he wasn’t signing my death certificate—and his.
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Jude could kill me if he wanted to. I’d already come so close to losing my life at the hands of the man I used to love. The man I still love. The man I craved love from, no matter how awful he’d treated me.
Isn’t that funny? How desperately we as humans need love. The struggle between enough and not enough, just because of a basic, psychological need within us? I often wondered why. Why did I give so much of a fuck about someone enjoying my company enough that their heart would do a little pitter-patter in their chests, and they suddenly wouldn't want to let me go?
I didn’t think Jude had felt that in a long, long time. Not for me, at least.
“Elio.”
I looked up, staring into Crescent’s eyes as he looked between mine. Left, then right. Left, then right. “You can’t decide that for me.”
“Then why did you have Sarah call me?” Something ran over my skin. It was Crescent, cleaning each of my wounds carefully as we talked.
I hardly had the capacity to wince at the most sensitive areas. “You said if I needed anything?—”
“That I’d help. That if you called or texted me, I’d come running. And I did. I have.”
I tried to pull my arm away from him, jerking it enough to force his gaze back to me. “You never said you’d intervene like this. Do you understand how fucking dangerous this is? And the fact that I never said I wanted this.”
His eyebrows knitted together, the lines on his face deepening into a scowl. “Dangerous or not, I’m not scared of Jude. Even if I were, I wouldn’t care. I want to help you, not hurt you further by throwing you back into that mess.” Gauze wrapped around my arm, Crescent lowering his gaze to watch his fingers as he placed fresh bandages over it. “End of discussion, Elio. You can’t go back. You can’t keep getting hurt. You realize that’s all that would come out of going to him, right?”
“Better a fuckup like me than someone like you.”
I’d never seen Crescent look so angry before. He whipped his head up, his hair forcefully thrown to the side as he stared at me, a glow emanating from his eyes. “Are you fucking listening to me, Elio?”
I didn’t say a word.
“Are you?” Fear disguised as anger followed each word, a stern command laced viciously in each syllable.
I nodded.
“I know you’ve just spent the last nine or so years with a fucker so insecure and so evil that he had to put you in a place lower than hell, but I refuse, fuckingrefuse,to let you think that way about yourself. Irefuseto let him dictate how you view yourself, Elio. You are not a fuckup. And if you are, then shit, what the fuck am I? Huh?” He let out a long, slow breath. I watched his chest fall, only to rise when he inhaled just as deep. “Just stay here for a while, okay? We’ll worry about the rest later. This isn’t mehavingto help you. I want to. More than fucking anything, I just wanna help you, man.”
My nose started to pulse, the pain there coming to life. It had a heartbeat, twinging in time with the blood running through my veins. It made my eyes water, little pricks of despair poking straight through my eyelids. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
I tried to sniffle, but it burned too much. I nodded instead, averting my gaze. “Okay.”
Crescent still hadhis earbuds in. I wondered when he’d take them out, but it didn’t seem to affect our communication. There was a light tapping at the door, a gentle knock looking for an invitation.
Our waitress from the day at the diner, who was also the woman I’d seen just before blacking out last night, strode into the living room with a plastic bag in hand. Her name was Sarah, I’d learned. She looked kind, albeit wary. The moment she saw me on the couch, she smiled. A big, fakesmile—one that hid all of the things she refused to say out loud. I knew that smile. I’d learned it years ago.
“Thanks for bringing these.” Crescent grabbed the bag from her outstretched hand, rummaging through it immediately.
Sarah nodded, wringing her hands together anxiously. She picked at her fingers, pulling at pieces of skin there. “Yeah, of course. Uh, how are you feeling, Elio?”
