Pathetic too.
I moved my body so that I was directly under the water spray. Though I despised the way water felt when it hit my face, I believed that I deserved to feel shitty. I deserved to feel uncomfortable and a breath away from sanity and insanity. James never let me sit under the spray of the shower to punish myself.
James.
With the back of my left hand, I wiped my eyes and blinked a few times. I was trying to get away from Sebastian’s torture board and return to the now. The water pelted my face and reminded me of my near drowning experiences. Had I really almost drowned? No, but it was a terrifying feeling of not having been able to get enough air and suffocating. It tricked the body so that it thought you were drowning, and then it panicked. It struggled and freaked out. The blood pressure would go sky high and the pulse would race. As the physical panic settled, then the mental panic would set in. James had explained it to me.
James.
I sniffled and wiped the water from my eyes so I could find a fucking place on my leg and get some damn relief. To help control my breathing and keep me still, I parted my lips and stuck my tongue out to rest against the corner of my mouth. I tasted salty tears, and I realized that there were tears mixed with the water I had rubbed away from my eyes. James had told me there was nothing wrong or shameful about crying.
James.
Shaking him from my mind and running my hand through my soaked hair one more time, I finally was ready. I pressed on the pin to expose it from the metal safety end and bent it back and away from the hinge. My heart pounded hard in my chest as I pressed the pointed end into my flesh. Carefully, I moved the pin back and forth and waited for the relief to come. When I didn’t feel the instant relief that I had expected, I grew angry, worried, and afraid.
What the fuck was wrong?
Out of frustration, I dragged the pin along my thigh toward the bend of my leg. A new six or seven inch scratch had been freshly laid on my skin. I repeated the motion of dragging the point of the pin along the scratch. In the pin’s angry path, I cut over old scars. I was layering a new wound on top of old ones. Blood had begun surfacing at the ends of the new, dramatic wound I made. I dragged the pin along the path again and waited.
Nothing.
“What the fuck is wrong?” I mumbled.
I stared at the wound in confusion. I used to feel relief. Was I already too fucked up over the James thing that I couldn’t get relief from anything?
I wasn’t a quitter.
Desperate to make sure that I could at least feel relief, I mirrored the long scratch on the top of my right thigh. I wasn’t gentle and relaxed as I felt the beginning of the euphoria that I had been seeking. I figured it out. The top of my thigh wasn’t as scarred as the inside of my thigh was. Just to be sure, I continued dragging the pin along the new wound.
For a brief few moments, I was in heaven. I felt good, or at least okay. I was careful to not let my head or face get under the direct spray of water because I didn’t want to potentially fuck up this feeling. My heart still pounded, but I felt my pulse was beginning to settle down.
Eventually, I stood and washed myself off. When I got out of the shower, I pressed some tissues against the cuts to absorb the blood that still came to the surface. I didn’t want to sleep in the clothes that I rode around on the bus all day in, so I got into bed naked. I still wasn’t one hundred percent okay in sleeping in the dark. I might never be.
Unable to sleep, I stared at the ceiling and thought about James. Could I have been happy with him? Definitely. But there was that alarming revelation that he was a mind fucker. He could’ve had me eating out of his hands just as Eli had. James, though … there was something about James. Not only did he calm me and take care of me, but he was the yin to my yang. He excited me and made me feel as though my needs were okay. He touched me and played with me in ways that made me crave the next step.
Before long, I had my hand wrapped around my semi-hard dick and tried to stroke it like James would. James used enough pressure that drove me to the edge, then he’d back off. He’d have me begging for a release, and I’d whimper and whine until I got it. He called me his naughty pup, and after I’d come, he’d stroke me or rub on me until I fell asleep. I loved being with him and having his attention.
“Fuck,” I panted out as I blew my load onto my stomach and chest.
As my breathing began to return to normal, I grabbed one of the extra pillows and pulled it close to my right side. I snatched another pillow from the other side of the bed and rolled onto my left side with it. I sighed and wondered what James was doing.
Was he angry? Was he upset? Was he happy I was gone?
His hands had always calmed me. Even on the first night I had arrived at the hospital when he put my socks on. He was the first person that I truly trusted. I had fallen for and trusted Eli too, but James was different. I thought he was, at least until today.
Though, maybe I jumped the gun.
Either way, this was a good wake-up call for me. It had been very easy for me to fall for James. But I needed to learn that I couldn’t rely on anyone but myself.
“Ohana, James,” I mumbled and closed my eyes.
3
James
After combing the neighborhood,I realized that I couldn’t find Brandon on my own. With a heavy ache in my stomach, I still looked everywhere as I walked back to my house. The first thing I did when I got back home was turn on the porch light and the patio light in the back. If Brandon came back on his own, the light would welcome him.
I grabbed the cell phone Brandon had left behind and stared at the screen. I sighed when I saw that the battery was down to two percent. I carried it to the charging pad and then I picked up my phone. My initial reaction was to call my friend, Russell, but there’d be time for that later. Right now, I needed help rather than a friendly ear. My pup was missing, and it would be dark soon.
