The world around me stills. All the swirling and the static of the alcohol—the anger from Aaron trying to leave, the desire to fuck him—poof. All gone. Everything is gone. I’m nothing—there is nothing.
Chapter Twenty Nine
July 2020
Benjamin
What?” My voice is so soft—so quiet. He’s crying quietly again, letting go of my wrists as he sits on top of my hips, peering down at me.You love me.
“We both know it. The same way that you know I loveyou.”
“Stop.” I’m trying to push him off of me but he won’t budge.
“No. You have to listen.”
“No—I don’t. I don’t believe you—I don’t want your love, even if it were true. Leave me alone.” He’s an immovable force, dead weight. My world is flipping upside down.
“I’ve loved you since I was seventeen.”
“Stop it, Aaron.” My voice is a warning.
“It’s killed me every day. Seeing you with Drew—not being able to touch you. Turning you away.”
“Aaron.”
He has to stop. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“I was so scared I’d hurt you or ruin the only home you had. I know now it was stupid but by the time I realized it—that I could have just told you—it was too late.”
“Shut up! Shut up! Fuck!” I’m punching him in the chest as hard as I can and he’s wheezing but doesn’t stop me—doesn’t yell at me.
“After I got back to my dorm after that Christmas—the one where Drew came to the house—I tried to experiment with a guy to see if I could get over you. It didn’t work.”
“I’m fucking begging you, Aaron.”
“I didn’t realize it at the moment, but I picked up some guy who looked so much like you. Like I couldn’t stop looking for you even then. But it sucked, it wasn’t the same.” I’m sobbing, I’m not evenfighting him anymore. “That day in the bathroom at Brews—he cornered me, trying to get me to see him again. I tried to hurt his feelings and get him to go away but it took quite a bit of shit-talking.That’swhat you heard. I was never talking about you. Never.”
I have my face covered with my hands—trying to understand him, trying not to listen. My brain knows I can’t trust a single thing he’s saying—but my heart—fuck, it wants to.
“Please look at me.Please.” He’s pleading. I can hear that he’s still crying. I let him pull my hands away. “You know it, Benjamin. You’re telling me you’ve never seen it on my face? Felt it while I was fucking you? While I held you through every breakdown?”
I think of a thought I had so long ago—when Drew tried to convince me that Aaron didn’t love me.
But that longing—it felt so much like love. When his hips slammed into mine, when his teeth sank into me and those eyes met mine, all I could hear was please, please, please.
Maybe…
“Fuck, yes—yes, I feel it. We’re connected, Button. We can’t live without each other now.”
Every time he saved me—showed up where he shouldn’t have been, the jealousy—the claiming. The night I told him I wished he’d have taken my virginity…
“You look angry. You look like something has been taken from you—when it was supposed to be yours. Someone's stolen from you.”
“They have…. In my own house…. It was supposed to be mine—supposed to be me…. But we both know that if I’d taken that from you, I never would have let you walk away from me. Even if you wanted to.”
I look up at Aaron now as he sits on my lap—crying silently, those calculating green eyes begging me to believe him—to love him back.
“But I… Aaron—I’m no good. I’ll ruin you.” He’s shaking his head, angry through his tears.
