“I won’t.”I would.“I love you, bro.”
“I love you too. Call Cres about your new boyfriend, or else he’ll be pissed if he hears it from me and not you.”
If he was anything like me—which I knew he was—that statement was very much so true.
I let Elio hang up since my phone was still on the other side of the table and picked my newest piece up, sliding the top hook along the edge of the window. The sun captured it immediately, making the space in front of it glow red and orange.
A splat of bloodshed, seemingly never-ending, stared back at me, waiting to be absorbed or swiped away. There were smaller drops of blood dripping down from it, sparkling at the bottom. The same image that’d haunted me for months on end was right there in front of me, making something beautiful.
It was almost cathartic.Almost.It didn’t curb the craving for my own, but it sure helped the visual of Jude and Sarah’s that wouldn’t fucking leave my mind.
My skinand I seemed to always be in the most toxic of dances, twirling around each other, both armed with knives as we decided who would cut first. Would my skin protect itself from me, or would I overpower it, slicing through its defenses for my own personal, wicked gain?
I trailed my fingers over my upper thigh, tracing the bumpy ridges left behind from the past few times I’d won the fight. Or maybe I’d lost, and my mind was too fucked up to think of it any other way.
When I was a teenager, I thought the world would change. If the world changed—whenthe world changed—the people in it would change too, right? That only made sense. And if the people in it changed, then I would change too, and when the world, the people, and I had all changed, I’d stop. That was what I told myself. I’d no longer have a reason to bleed my emotions out rather than feeling them.
But the world only got more evil. And I never changed. Not really.
I’d turned all of my energy toward being the best big brother possible, clinging onto the idea that if I was worth something to other people, it meant the value in my existence would mean more. I was able to stop cutting for a long time, no longer suffering in silence, but silencing my suffering. Until everything went down at Crescent and Elio’s apartment, turning me from a loving, doting big brother with an entirely too boring life to anunaware sack of shit murderer. I guess two things could exist at once.
My skin gave way far too easily. I was barely putting any pressure on the blade, my soul so desperate for relief it couldn’t wait to pour out in the form of deep crimson water, dirty after years of corruption by my own hands.
The first swipe was never enough, and I never knew how many would be. I stared at it for a second, watching the blood bead at the top, turning darker as more came up. One turned to two, to three, to ten, and suddenly, I wasn’t sure Icouldstop. The wiring from my brain to my hand wasn’t working, and I knew I was getting dangerously close to the art I’d so desperately wanted to preserve.
Blood was tickling my skin as it slowly started to drip down the side of my thigh. It trailed the natural curve, some of them falling down the bend of my knee. I wasn’t ready to look at the mess on the floor. The blade was caked in blood, the tips of my fingers covered in it as I kept going and kept going and kept?—
Right above my knee, I had a tattooed bouquet of all my siblings’ birth flowers. It was one of my very few color tattoos, along with being one of my oldest, the colors faded with age. First, a beautiful daffodil for Crescent. Next, a Marigold for Star. And finally, a daisy for Elio, with a violet for me right beside it, all bunched together with a faded purple and black ribbon with stars dotted inside of it to symbolize the sky we were all named after. I wanted to keep all of them with me, no matter what happened or where I was. It was the most prized tattoo I had on my body. Every little scrape I got on it, I’d baby until it completely healed over, barely breathing until I knew it hadn’t permanently skewed the color.
I’d been so careful with this one fucking tattoo until this moment. Now, there was a cut straight across the tops of every single flower except for mine. Each one of their flowers had atleast one petal marred with the hatred I had for myself. Hatred I’d never wanted to spread to them, but now had.
I stared as the blood started to seep through, its color much more vibrant than the faded ink. My hand shook as I set the blade on the sink counter and hovered my palm over the mess I’d created on my skin. Shaking my head, I grabbed some toilet paper and dabbed over the wounds, letting it soak up some of the blood before standing and turning the shower on. I could feel it trickling down my leg, leaving an itchy path as it traveled.
Reaching down, I curled my hand into a fist, preparing to scratch. I stopped just before I let my nails scrape over the fresh, bloody cuts, listening as the water pelted down onto the shower floor over and over. It echoed, bouncing off the walls and returning to me. The blood looked almost…pretty against my skin the way it was. I swiped my hand through it, letting it streak against my thigh, over top the rest of the art tattooed into my skin. They peeked through, but just barely.
I was fascinated enough that I did it again, this time not picking my hand up until every part I could reach was masked with blood. Pulling my hand away, I investigated how the red had found a home in the lines of my palms, like water running through sand, making pathways as it went.
More of a mess than I had been when I started, I used my clean hand to pull the shower curtain away and shimmied into the water’s spray. The smell hit me immediately—blood mixing with water, which somehow always made the metallic scent more intense. Looking down, I watched as red surrounded my feet, swirling down the drain. It reminded me of the stained glass I’d made earlier, the diluted blood looking more like it had swirls of orange in it.
The flowers had been ruined, ostracizing me further from the only people I could honestly say I loved in the entire world. If I couldn’t protect myself, couldn’t protect my siblings, and thiswas how I treated those I loved, then how would that translate to loving another person? To loving Emerson? The thought hit me like a fucking ton of bricks, punching me straight in the chest.
Placing my palms on the wall in front of me, I damn near drowned myself in the water, gasping through the cage that’d suddenly tightened tenfold around my heart and lungs.
I’d told him. I fucking told him. I told him I wasn’t fuckingcapableof loving or being loved. He didn’t read between the lines, did he? That, ultimately, having my heart would mean being in a cage, too. A cold, dark, suffocating cage that I still hadn’t figured out how to get out of. Everything I touched, everyone I knew—it all burned at some point. My hands were made to ruin. My soul was born to spread rot and decay. I was damned from the beginning, and no amount of bloodshed would ever be enough to get rid of it.
Emerson was everything good, and light, and pure. He was everything I wasn’t. His hands created beauty and built safety for others to fall back on. I was red and dark, and festering with corruption. My hands were wet, dripping in failure. I didn’t deserve his light, just as he didn’t deserve my darkness. He’d done so much for Harrison. Tried so fucking hard to be there for him. And what had I done for my siblings? Nothing. Nothing, and that was the whole fucking point. I let Elio leave with that scumbag. I let Crescent suffer alone. I’d pushed Star so far away that she barely even wanted to talk to me. There was nothing—nothinggood that would come from him sharing his heart with me. I’d taint it, cage it, and leave nothing but a scorched path around it.
I had to stop. I had to remove myself from their lives. All I’d ever wanted was to protect them. So I would.
Even if it meant being alone, so the damage couldn’t spread.
Chapter Nineteen
Moon wasn’t answeringhis phone, which was weird. When our schedules didn’t align, we usually texted as often as we could. Neither Crescent nor Elio had heard from him, either, which was even weirder. At first, I thought maybe he was having a really off day, and that work might’ve been busy for him. Then, I convinced myself he’d simply gone to bed really early because he was exhausted. But as a new day came through, and he still wasn’t answering, my gut started telling me differently.
Something wasn’t right.
It was past five-thirty on a Thursday, meaning, in theory, he should be off work. I’d decided that if he wasn’t going to answer anyone, I’d simply show up at his apartment for some proof of life.
