“Until I’m no longer in front of you, I will hold you whenever you need me to.” He says, kissing the top of my head before resting his chin there. I feel this peace—this contentment. I feel a need to tell him things, to hear his voice comfort me. I need someone to talk to about it all, and the only other person who knows is… well… him.
“I won’t let Drew call me baby.” Aaron’s arms tighten.
“Why?” His voice is weary—almost afraid.
“Because I’d just think of you.” Aaron grips my hair and pulls my head back, looking me in the eyes. “So much is different and I have no one to talk to about it. I don’t have a family to go to, and I can’t talk to Felix about, well, his brother.” He’s searching me. My face, my eyes, my fucking soul. So intensely—so intimately.
“You can tell me.” He finally says. I swallow loudly, suddenly nervous. The hand that had gripped and pulled my hair now rubs at my scalp.
“He’s… very sweet to me. Which is nice, but it’s weird. I keep thinking to myself, ‘this is good—in the long run he’s going to make a really good husband’. But I turn seventeen soon—why doesthe future matter that much?” Aaron nods, still looking down into my eyes. I keep my arms wrapped around his waist. “It’s not that I’m unhappy, because I’m not. There’s a lot of great things about Drew and we balance each other very well.” My mouth opens to speak again, but this next part—I can’t bring myself to say it. It feels like a betrayal saying it to Aaron.
“But?” Aaron asks, catching the conflict. I close my eyes. “You’re allowed to talk, Button. It’s not screwing him over if there's something you want totalkabout. Get it off your chest.” I open my eyes again—let his eyes comfort me, open me up.
“When he looks at me, whether it’s normally or when we’re…uh…having sex, he looks at me like I’m this precious thing to him. And he tells me how pretty I am.” Aaron looks like he wants to throw up, but nods and listens anyway. “It’s nice—I’m not saying I hate it or anything. But…he wants to treasure me. And you—you wanted todevourme. To make sure no one else ever got the chance to touch me.” Aaron's eyes widen as I talk—breath catching.
I can feel him move his hips back a bit and try not to smile. Doesn’t take much for this guy, huh?
“And you don’t like the difference?” He asks.
“It’s not that. A small part of me likes that he’s gentle and slow. He touches me like he loves me. But another part of me,” I sigh. “The biggest part feels most loved when I’m being possessed.”
“God, Button.” Aaron says, closing his eyes.
“I’m sorry. I just… I want him to want me so badly that he’d kill someone for touching me—I want him to not leave me when my dad shows up. I want every part of me to feel full when I’m sleeping with him.” He rests his forehead on mine.
“What can I do? How can I fix it?”
“You can’t. You’re leaving next month, and I’ll be here. Whether or not Drew stays with me is up in the air, but either way it doesn’t change that you’re leaving and I’m still Benjamin and you’re still Aaron.” He nods against me.
It doesn’t matter what I feel—Aaron won’t accept a relationship with me, not when he thinks it’ll hurt me. Even if I woke up one day and decided I didn’t want to be with Drew anymore, I couldn’t be with Aaron either.
It’s quiet for a long time, and at first I think he’s sleeping, but I try calling out to him anyway.
“Aaron?” It’s just a whisper—just in case.
“Yeah?” I let go of a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
“Can I say something super selfish that’s really not fair or kind to you or Drew? I promise then I’ll go back to being good Benjamin who suffers all the time.” Aaron chuckles.
“You can always tell me anything.”
“I wish it would have been you.” He pulls back from me suddenly. Propped up on his forearm, leaning half over me as I move to lie on my back. I look up at him. He’s staring at me so intensely—so desperately. “My first time. I wish it would have been with you.”
His hand cups my jaw and I can no longer read every emotion in his eyes. But what I can see most prominently is hunger, anger, possessiveness, jealousy. Someone has taken something that was supposed to be his. I am his most prized possession and someone else having me is killing him. And God, I want to be wanted that badly.
“It wassupposedto be me. I’m sorry it wasn’t.” He’s working his jaw—teeth clenched. I can’t help the small laugh that escapes me, which just makes him narrow his eyes.
“Want to know what I see when I look at you?”
“What do you see, Benjamin?” I laugh again, reaching a hand up and placing it over his that’s still placed on my jaw.
“You look angry. You look like something has been taken from you—when it was supposed to be yours. Someone's stolen from you.” He doesn’t smile—doesn’t laugh. Just stares right back at me.
“They have.” He drops his hand to my sweats, his palm laid over that spot he loves so much. He’s trembling. “In my own house.” He mutters. Guilt crashes over me. At the time I didn’tthink about it like that—I didn’t see what it meant, how deep the pain would burrow itself. Losing my virginity to another man in his house. Athisgraduation party. Fuck. I was so, so stupid.
“I’m so sorry, Aaron.” He shakes his head, then kisses my forehead—so slowly.
“It was supposed to be mine—supposed to be me.” He sighs. “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 shudder against him, loving how that sounds—how my skin burns.
