There’s pressure, but not the soft touch I’m expecting. Hands shove at my chest, and I hit the ground before I know what’s happened. Gravel bites into my palms and the backs of my thighs.
Shouting. Laughter. Words that burn worse than the scrapes on my body being thrown at me from all angles. They’re loudest from him. Slurs. Hate. Ridicule.
I hear Will before I see him. His deep voice cuts through the noise. His sharp, furious threats being thrown to the crowd surrounding me. I believe he could probably take them all on, but his fist only hits one of them. A sickening thud echoes against the metal bleachers above us, and then I’m not the only one on the ground. Trace glares at me, but I don’t understand what I did wrong.
The world tilts, and I’m lifted off the ground. Will doesn’t set me down, only cradles me against his chest as he carries me out of there like some kind of damsel in distress.
“I can walk,” I say, but my voice is broken and small. I hate how small I feel. Hate how everyone is looking at me. This isn’t the kind of attention I want.
Will ignores my weak protest and carries me across the field through a crowd of students jogging around the track, like I should have been. He’s not wearing a uniform. He’s not even in this class. Why is he here? How did he know?
He finally sets me down in the locker room. It’s empty, class only started twenty minutes ago. He finds a first-aid kit and wets some paper towels before kneeling in front of me. He’s gentle as he dabs at the scrapes on my palms to clean out the gravel, disinfecting them and bandaging the spots that are still bleeding. Then he makes me stand and turn around so he can do the same for the back of my legs.
He thinks I’m crying because I’m hurt. I let him believe that. It’s easier than explaining that none of it stings as much as the shame. But he sees through me like he always does.
Will stands and turns me to face him. My face is hot, eyes stinging, throat tight with the humiliation of not being able to hold it all back. He wraps his arms around me and holds me to his chest like I’m something fragile. He always holds me like I might break.
“It was supposed to be my first kiss,” I admit with my face pressed into his chest to muffle the words, hoping he can’t actually hear or understand them.
“Ari,” he says softly. I don’t look up. I’d rather hide here for the rest of high school.
But he doesn’t let me. Instead, he cups my cheek and tilts my face up. I can’t bring myself to meet his gaze until his thumb gently swipes below my eye to wipe away a tear.
When his lips press against mine, it’s a barely there caress, soft and gentle. Careful, as always. There’s no tongue or anything like that, just warmth and pressure and the promise that there’s nothing wrong with me. And I’m not alone.
I know it doesn’t mean anything, but it still feels special. It feels safe. He’s my safe space, always has been.
I know it doesn’t mean anything, but for a moment, I let myself pretend it does.
Reality rouses me slowly, awareness returning in pieces as the dream fades away.
The spot on my cheek where Will’s hand was feels cold, a lingering pressure like he was actually there and just moved away. My eyes open slowly, lashes sticking together, and I wince at how bright it is.
It takes a few moments of blinking to register where I am, or why I feel so empty. Then the weight of the present settles in, and I turn to see the vacant space next to me. I exhale through my nose, disappointed in a way that is embarrassingly old.
I frequently dream of the past, but somehow this sweet memory hurts me more than the nightmares. Maybe because the majority of the time, when I wake up from a nightmare, Will is here with me. Not just beside me, but wrapped around me,so all I know when I come back to earth is him. His weight, his warmth, his scent.
But he’s not here. He’s not here because I pushed him away. Again.
Because I was clingy and needy and he always provides.
Because I take even when I know it’s not something he can give.
This time I actually tricked myself into believing he really wanted me, too. For just a moment. Before the high wore off and I saw the shift in his eyes. Before I woke up without him next to me and a certainty that he’s not home.
Not that this is home. We’ve been staying at this rental for over six weeks. We wanted to be nearby when one of our best friends was struggling. It took a lot for Jesse to decide to check himself into rehab.
He tried to sober himself up and move on without everything Francis had been giving him to cope, but he kept falling into a bottle or finding different things to swallow or snort to help slow the world down and smooth out the edges. He said he has too much noise going on to hear the music, that even his own hair growing feels like a tangible thing, that he doesn’t fit into his own skin.
The doctors talk a lot about overstimulation. About anxiety. About finding a baseline without drugs. Jesse nods and listens and agrees to whatever they suggest, but I can tell he’s terrified of needing anything ever again. He doesn’t even want to take an ibuprofen if he can help it.
For now, it’s a lot of downtime and therapy. Facing the why of things and learning new coping strategies to process the extrasensory input. He’s doing better. He’s just quieter than I’ve ever seen him. Subdued.
Everything is.
It’s like all of us have paused in time, afraid to move forward and refusing to go back, suspended, waiting for the next thing. Part of it is because the glue that holds us all together is struggling. Part of it is because we don’t know what to do with ourselves without tour dates and promo spots, a different hotel every week, sometimes every night. The last five years have been a rush of traveling place to place, putting on a show or partying every night. Even the few days off we’ve had here and there have been filled with some kind of action to fill the time.
Now we’re just… stagnant.
