2020
Aaron
He looks beautiful—he always does. I hear my own heartbeat as he smiles, soft and gentle to the world around him. Smooth skin—big eyes, golden hair, cheeks so pretty with his little dimples. Benjamin is grabbing himself a coffee on campus. I wait outside.
He laughs at whatever the barista says but it’s small—it’s fake. I would know. I know everything about him. Every inch of his soul—of his body. But he’s getting better. I can see it.
He’s graceful as ever as he walks toward me, two coffees in hand. I watch as he gets closer and closer, taking in the button nose and the sharp line of his jaw. His full lips.
“Here ya go.” Across the patio space is Felix and he takes the cup Benjamin offers.
“Thank youuu.” He sings. They begin to discuss class-related material and I continue to watch.
My Button. So close—so out of reach. I lower the cap I’m wearing, sink further into my seat. My laptop screen locked minutes ago. Benjamin’s eyes wander around the courtyard but I can’t read them from here—can’t tell what he’s thinking.
Does he ever think of me? Does he miss me the way I long for him? For the sound of his voice—the smell of his skin? I ache for him. My skin burns—knowing redemption is so close yet so unobtainable. He hates me. Or as close to it as one can get when they’re so intertwined.
His long fingers tap a beat onto the table. I stop breathing when his eyes move in my direction. He does not see me.
Benjamin is so beautiful, just as he always is. Every cell, every ounce of my blood is reaching out for him—yearning for him theway a god should when their disciple has lost faith. Gone astray—fell victim to sin.Come home to me. I’m screaming but he doesn’t hear me. He can’t—not over the sound of what he heard in that bathroom. He can’t see me through the pain and the betrayal.
I’m not a liar, Benjamin. I have always—and will forever—want you next to me.I belong to you.
Benjamin stands, follows Felix in the direction of what I assume is their next class. This time, I don’t follow.
Like a bird locked in a cage I watch him leave me—rooted to the ground. I cannot follow. I cannot touch or speak or be seen. A ghost of the God he used to trust. I failed again. I had him in my palm where he’s always belonged—and now he’s slipped through my fingers.
Benjamin—please forgive me. Please miss me as desperately as I miss you. I belong to you.
Chapter Twenty Six
July 2020
Aaron
Yeah—we’ve been practicing like crazy. Luckily, we all knew our instruments prior to forming the band.” I’m holding my phone between my shoulder and ear as I make breakfast—listening to my baby brother as he chats my ear off. “Well—I’ve been trying to teach Bear the guitar for years, you know that. So thank God he ended up being a singer and we didn’t have to spend weeks trying to teach him the basics.” Smiling softly at his snarky tone, I flip my omelet.
“Mhm—good thing. And you guys are already performing?” Felix yells at someone on the other end.
“Hey! Bear—put that down or I’m punching you! Fuck—he’s like a toddler.” I laugh around the pain in my chest, plating my food and sitting at the table. Putting the phone on speaker I rest it next to me. “But yeah. We’ve been practicing since February and we’re a cover band, so we don’t write any music or anything. Plus—with Cammie as our drummer everyone puts in 100%. She’s fucking scary.”
“Yes, yes, she is. Well—I hope you guys have fun.” It’s silent for a moment.
“You won’t come?”
I don’t know how to explain it to him. That Benjamin doesn’t want to see me—that he hates me and thinks I’m a liar all because Connor Maccy wanted to perv up the bathroom. But fuck—it must have soundedbad. I mean, I shit-talked Connor right there, and in description he and Benjamin are very, very similar. God—he’d looked like I ripped his heart out that morning that I confronted him.
He was so small in that moment—so fucking broken and his eyes, his eyes told me that I was the one to break him. If I could go back to last October, I’d punch Connor Maccy in the mouth. I’d whisper sweet nothings in Benjamin’s ear all night, forever. I’d spend every day for the rest of my life pushing so deeply into him—connecting us in every way humanly possible, spirit and body. But I can’t go back and back then I didn’t know. I wasn’t aware of the nuclear bomb I was dropping.
When I heard about him and Drew, I was so pissed. First, he ditches me at a café with Felix and then he gets back with his ex? I mean—we weren’t together or anything, but I thought….
It doesn’t matter now. The point is—I was pissed. But then I hunted him down and he was… sobroken.
How can I show up now? I won’t ruin this for him—not after everything he’s been through. Not when he’s using this as an outlet to heal fromthat night. I refuse. Even if I am innocent this time.
I may have sat through a few days of his half-lucid comedown—but that had everything to do with loving him and nothing to do with forgiveness.
Once he was back at the dorm I left him alone again. Just as he asked. And since he and Fe have moved into their apartment, I only come by when he’s not around. Can he smell me when he comes home? Sometimes I sit on his bed and breathe in the citrus—stare at all of his things. Fuck. I love him.
