He spun around and glared. “Yes, that! Why is there a plug in my ass?”
I rubbed my hand over my beard for a second, contemplating the best way to explain it to him. “I got it for you because you beg me to stay buried inside you after I’ve filled you with my cum.” His cheeks flushed, tongue tracing the shape of his bottom lip. “And how you don’t want me to pull out because you feel empty.”
The hazel of his eyes had been swallowed by pools of darkness. “I do,” he said too quietly. “But that doesn't explain why I have one in now.” He tried to sound put out, but the heat in his expression said otherwise.
“When I slipped it in last night you begged to keep it in. Said you wanted to wake up full of me…”
“Huh. Right. Go make coffee. We’ll discuss this more in a bit.” With that he turned around to continue getting dressed.
By now the water was boiling so I quickly made up the flasks and waited for him to join me.
A couple of minutes later he slipped out barefoot into the cool sand, wrapped in our blankets. I placed one hand on his lower back and guided him down the beach.
We walked to the shoreline together, fingers laced like it was the most natural thing in the world. The sky was bleeding pink and gold on the horizon. The water was calm—glassy—reflecting the light like it was trying to capture the sky in all its glory.
Elliot sat between my legs, back to my chest, his head tipped back against my shoulder. My blanket covered arms were wrapped around him keeping him close.
We sat there, lost in the moment, and when the sun finally crested the water, it was warm and unapologetically alive. For the first time in years, I didn't feel like I was bracing for a loss. I felt like I was standing at the starting line of forever. With him. And there was nowhere else I’d rather be.
CHAPTER 29
ELLIOT
My scars were still there. Some silvered, thin as whispers across my ribs and thighs. Some faded into pale constellations along my wrists and collarbone. Some still tender if I pressed too hard or forgot myself and moved too fast. Some I could trace in the mirror and not flinch. Others I avoided altogether.
The physical ones were easier now. They obeyed time and started to fade. The others lived under my skin. They showed up when a stranger stood too close behind me in line. When a voice raised too suddenly. When I woke from a nightmare where I was drowning again, lungs burning, arms heavy, the world closing in.
Fewer of them were fresh now. Fewer of them burned, but they still haunted me, maybe, always would. That felt like progress. Healing was hard. It was a journey that would never end.
I lived alone in my small apartment three blocks from the surf shop, above a bakery that smelled like cinnamon and sugar every morning. The scent drifted up through my open windows and settled into the fabric of my life like a kindness. The walls were pale blue. I’d chosen the color myself, standing in the hardware store for twenty minutes with a paint chip in my hand,terrified I’d pick wrong. I’d thought about calling Anthony and asking his advice, but this decision was part of my journey.
The floors creaked when I crossed the living room. The couch was second-hand, lumpy and too soft. My kettle whistled like it was dying. The windows faced the ocean if I leaned out far enough to the left and ignored the power lines.
I leaned anyway because this place was mine. It wasn’t borrowed, or hidden inside someone else’s space waiting to be taken away. For the first time ever, I had something that was really, truly mine.
When I signed the lease, with hands shaking so badly the pen almost slipped out of my grip, I’d cried afterward in my car. Not because I was scared—though I was—but because I hadn’t known wanting something so normal could feel so radical.
Food had become part of my life, not a way to punish myself. I ate regularly, not always well, but consistently. Toast in the morning. Soup or a sandwich at lunch. Actual dinners that didn’t come from a drive-thru. I still forgot sometimes. Went too long without noticing hunger until my hands trembled. But Anthony was always there to check in with me. He’d become my rock in so many ways I’d never expected.
The sound of my laughter still surprised me sometimes. One time I dropped a carton of eggs in the grocery store aisle and it felt like the walls were about to close in on me for being inadequate. But when I looked up and saw Anthony hiding his smile behind his hand, my chest loosened and a laugh burst out of me.
The fact joy didn’t feel like stealing anymore was something I was still wrapping my head around.
Sometimes I still woke up heart racing, mouth full of panic, fingers clawing at my sheets. Sometimes I’d lay there afterward staring at the ceiling, cataloguing everything I could hear, feel and name to convince myself I was alive and safe.
Other times Anthony would wrap me in his arms, pulling me closer. I’d rest my head on his chest and listen to the steady rhythm of his heart until I remembered how to breathe on my own. Then we’d talk through what had woken me. Take away the power my mind had over me. He’d ground me in the moment, not with his body but his presence. His heart. And the love he had for me still didn’t seem real.
Other times I slept through the night and woke up tangled in legs instead of terror. Those mornings felt like a beautiful miracle where I’d pinch myself to make sure they were real.
My journal sat open on the small kitchen table, pages dog-eared and ink-heavy. I’d filled three notebooks since our reunion at the lighthouse. Three whole lives’ worth of words. My writing had shifted away from survival documentation and errant thoughts into something like a voice.
I explored my wants and dreams. Explored choices and my own agency over my life. At first, I’d only written what had hurt—let my emotions and pain bleed access the pages. Those hurt to read as much as they had to write, but it was cathartic to see how much I’d healed since then.
Now I write what I noticed. The way the ocean changed colors depending on the hour. The way Anthony’s thumb brushed the inside of my wrist when he thought I wasn’t watching. The way my own reflection didn’t look like a ghost anymore.
I was applying for a national writing contest. That alone made my hands shake and my heart feel like it was trying to escape my ribs. The email draft had been open for two days.
The essay was about grief. About shame. About learning that wanting to die had never been the same thing as wanting to stop existing. About the night I realized I didn’t want to disappear—I just wanted the pain to end. It was about the lighthouse. About waiting. About learning that love didn’t have to feel like a cliff.
