I turned, not meeting his eyes as I grabbed them from him, immediately pulling my jeans off to replace them. They were soft, like the crop top. Enough to remind me of the gentle skin on the back of his hands—soft, smooth, and warm. Not suffocating, though. Never suffocating.
Once secure around my waist, I looked back up just in time to see him staring at me. His lips were parted, his top teeth peeking out from between them. It took a moment for him to register, but when he did, he looked away quickly and pulled his hair down. I loved watching the strands fall into place.
They always seemed to know where to go, settling uniformly on each side of his chest. Sometimes, he’d push them behind his ears, making them fall against his back. I liked this better, though.
We crawled into our respective spots in silence. The lights were turned down low, shrouding us in friendly darkness. Not the kind where monsters hid, stalking their unaware prey. The kind that felt like summers spent together in the backyard, lying out on yoga mats looking up at the stars.
Even without a twinkle overhead, we knew the moon was up there somewhere. It was watching over us, a guardian neither of us understood.
Just before I closed my eyes, I felt a hand pat my shoulder. My muscles tightened, a burst of adrenaline rushing through me in preparation to run. To run away. To run through the door, out into the world, and right back to the park.
“It’s just me,” Crescent whispered. Slowly, his fingertips smoothed down my arm, catching my attention. When he reached my elbow, he moved. He wrapped his arm around my midsection, holding me gently as if I’d break. As if I were fragile.
As if he cared.
My back was pressed against the front of his chest, the warmth comforting me. His breath tickled the nape of my neck, and I struggled to keep a shiver at bay.
He sighed from behind me, a deep, contented sigh that took my heart right out of my chest and squeezed it. Crescent Miller, my crescent moon, had me in his arms, and I knew with certainty that he’d never let me go.
We fell asleep that way, two contradictories forming an equal. Two halves, finding their whole, just the way it always should’ve been.
Chapter Nineteen
Openingmy eyes felt like a chore. It felt impossible. I was awake, listening to the idle sounds of Elio’s gentle breathing and the quietwhooshof the air conditioning kicking on. My fingers twitched against Elio’s skin, reaching out for something stable to hold on to. My toes wiggled underneath the blankets, readying themselves for the day ahead.
The day ahead, which I wasn’t sure I could force myself to prepare for. My stomach growled, my heart ached, the sun was rising—everything was falling into place like a normal day, but I didn’t want to open my eyes.
Seeing nothing was easier than seeing everything. A weight had settled into my bones overnight, making itself a home for the indefinite future. I never knew when it would end. I never knew when it would begin. I’d have hunches, and sometimes they’d be right. Other times, itcame out of nowhere or didn’t come at all when I thought it would.
The deep, confusing denial of existence. A dreading, draining feeling sitting on top of my chest, settling so heavily I was never sure if I could handle it.
Fucking depression. A leech of all joy. A sick, twisted tendril ready to dig beneath the surface of my skin and tear everything I knew and loved out.
My alarm went off again. I’d been lying in bed for fifteen minutes, awake but unseeing. It was loud in my ears, my earbuds forcing the sound deep into my eardrums. I reached around, finding my screen and tapping all over it until the noise stopped. Just as it did, a text chime went off in my ears.
Groaning, I forced my eyes into a squint just to peer at my phone screen.
Moon
Found a good therapist where you are. We’re all here for you, but if you don’t want us to be, at least look into her.
Christina Higginson
Sacred Heights Therapy and Counseling
The sun hadn’t even come up yet. I barely had the energy to get out of bed, much less deal with Moon’s antics. I was fine. I’d gone through this before; I could do it again. I didn’t need any intervention. I’d graduated from therapy for a reason.
At least, that’s what I kept telling myself as I peeled my body away from Elio’s, praying for the willpower to get up.
Sleep clung to my skin, its claws digging into me with a viselike grip as I meandered my way through getting ready and leaving. There was a numbness deep in my skin,penetrating every molecule. So numb, I could hardly feel my shirt as I put it on. It was a mixed cotton blend, soft and breathable, yet I felt nothing. Not scratchy, not itchy, not tugging anywhere, just… nothing.
How odd it was to feel an emotion so deeply that I could no longer feel anything else.
The drive to work hadn’t even bothered me. Despite the considerably louder yelling in my ear or the fact that I couldn’t hear any of my music anymore, it didn’t seem to faze me. I let the voices rant and rave, some of it nonsensical, some of it about their shitty opinions of me.
Or my own shitty opinions, maybe? I’d been in such a thick, hazy fog when my old therapist explained the hallucinations to me. Why I never asked for him to explain it again, I wasn’t sure. Maybe I didn’t want to know.
My episodes had become so few and far between, I started to think it didn’t matter whether I understood or not. Of course, I had to have one while going through all this shit with Elio. Being there for him, going through this with him, was so important to me, and yet here I was—going off the deep end, apparently.
