I rubbed my hand up and down his arm, doing my best to soothe him. I wasn’t sure how to do it when I felt so fucked up. I wasn’t sure if I was making any sense or if I was being helpful in any way. Probably not. How could I be helpful when I couldn’t help myself?
Elio sighed, shaky and uncertain. “I took my bandages off to change them. I’m almost to the point where I don’t need them anymore. Something about that fucked me up, I guess.” I felt him shrug in my arms. “I don’t know. When I got scared, I started to think, like… what if I just went back, you know?”
My eyes unfocused, and everything in sight went blurry. The sentence found its way down to my gut, souring it immediately. My heart didn’t pound against the confines of its cage because it had stopped entirely. Stone-cold had never seemed like such a good descriptor until then. I felt my veins dry up and my muscles freeze. There was no fight, nor was there any flight—I was just frozen, my body anticipating adrenaline, yet never getting it.
After what felt like an eternity, I finally whispered something close to a response. “What?”
He didn’t say anything for just as long. Maybe he was feeling the same thing. “Like…” He trailed off, pausing for another moment. “Wouldn’t it be easier? Than dealing with all of this terror, day in and day out? Not to mention him possibly finding us, or you, and the repercussions that would have. It’s so much, Cres. Too much.”
I was shaking my head before he’d even finished. My arm wrapped around him tighter, pulling him closer to me, holding him in place so he couldn’t do that. So he couldn’t run from me and back to Jude. “No, that doesn’t make sense. That wouldn’t be easier. What are you talking about, El?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know.” His muscles twitched as he started to pull away.
“No, wait.” I kept the pressure of my arm the same, trying to keep from making him feel trapped. I didn’t let go either, though. When he stopped moving, I tugged him the slightest bit closer, testing to see if he’d let me.
Thank god he did. I pulled him a little more, moving so his back could lie flat against the mattress. Shuffling a bit on my side, I leaned over him—just enough to look at his face. It was still dark, but I could see him better now than when I’d first walked in.
Placing a hand on his cheek, I looked down at him. I didn’t know what I was going to say yet. I couldn’t think that far ahead. Not when the voices started to come back, and I could’ve sworn there was some sort of figure standing to the side in the corner. I wanted to look at it. Maybe if it knew that I knew it existed, it would go away. Fighting the urge took more energy than I thought I had, but I did it anyway. I couldn’t look away from Elio. My Sunshine.
Without any music playing, it was harder to distract myself from the voices. So much fucking harder. There was a mixture of deep and high ones, some of them louder than the rest, some so soft I could only just hear them. None of their words made any sense, too jumbled and chaotic to sift through.
I closed my eyes for a second, willing all of them to gothe fuck away. Just long enough for me to make some sort of point. Any point.Anything.When I opened them, all I could see was Elio, looking up at me.
Taking a deep breath, I tried my fucking hardest to say something that made sense. “There is a life you don’t know about yet. It has happiness, contentment, and pure fucking joy. And all of those things? All of those happy, easy moments? You deserve them. You just can’t see it yet. It comes with time, and therapy, and a lot of hard fucking work, but you can get there. So, no, going back wouldn’t be easier. There is nothing easy about letting yourself be hurt.”
My thumb stroked over his cheek, swiping away a stray tear. He hardly blinked, staring at me in what looked to be awe. “I remember being happy.”
“Yeah?”
“The last time I remember being happy was with you.”
A suspicious shadow ran from one side of the room to the other, just out of my peripheral vision. I wanted to get up and wrap my hands around its neck for trying to distract me. I didn’t want to be distracted. Not when Elio had just said something so fucking profound. “I’ll try to help you feel that again, Sunshine. I promise.”
He reached up slowly, cradling the side of my face like I was doing to him. I leaned into his palm, savoring it. “You will?”
“Of course. But I think maybe we need more help with it than I can give.”
“Like how?”
“Like…” I thought back to this morning, the text message I still hadn’t replied to. “Like therapy. I think I know of someone who could help.”
“Okay.”
I watched his face, cataloging every microexpression I could. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
The moment he said it, I flopped back onto my side and scooped him up, pulling him against my chest. I didn’t have the energy to do anything else. I couldn’t make myself say anything more. My head was too full, too loud, with a million things trying to ruin me.
Fucking depression. A leech of all joy, happiness, and contentment. A sharp-pointed tendril, waiting and ready to carve me open and take everything close to my heart.
God, I just hoped it didn’t take my Sunshine, too.
Chapter Twenty
Two Years Ago
His couch felt morelike a mountain of shame than somewhere comfortable to sit and spill all of my heartache. Instead of relieving it, the material felt like it was harboring and exacerbating it. The longer I sat, the worse it got.
