Page 35 of Deviant Need

He shifts, rolling off me and onto his back, taking me with him so I’m half-draped across him. His arm stays wrapped around me, loose now, and his breathing starts to even out.

I need to say something. Need to ask what this means, if he knows what he just did, if he feels even a fraction of what I’m feeling right now. The words pile up in my throat, fighting to get out.

“Mik,” I whisper.

Nothing.

His breathing has gone deep and steady, his chest rising and falling in the slow rhythm of sleep. He’s out completely, probably doesn’t even know he just kissed me, doesn’t understand what this means. If he even remembers this when he wakes up, he’s going to think I assaulted him or something, that I used him while he was high.

Something twists inside me.

I’ve wanted this for so long. Imagined it a thousand different ways, built it up in my head until it became this impossible thing I’d never have. And I finally got it. He finally kissed me again and touched me the way I’ve been dreaming about for eight years.

And he’ll wake up tomorrow and have no idea he gave me the one thing I’ve been desperate for since I was fifteen years old. Won’t know that I’ve been in love with him for eight years, that every time he touches me casually it feels like torture.

This moment meant everything to me.

To him it was probably just a fucked-up impulse from someone too tired and strung out to know what he was doing. A mistake he made while half-asleep and coming down from whatever cocktail of drugs is still in his system.

Carefully, I untangle myself from his arms, moving slowly so I don’t wake him. He makes a soft sound in his sleep but doesn’t stir, just shifts onto his side and curls into the space where I was and buries his face in my pillow.

Standing beside the bed, I stare at him in the darkness.

My throat burns, and my eyes sting with tears I refuse to let fall. My nails dig into my palms hard enough to leave crescent marks, using the pain to ground myself.

I can’t keep doing this.

I’ve wanted this for so long, and I finally got it.

And it meant nothing.

I’ll have to pretend it never happened. Have to sit across from him at breakfast and act normal while the memory of his tongue in my mouth burns through my brain. Have to watch him go about his day completely unchanged while I’m falling apart inside.

I’ll have to pretend my heart isn’t breaking.

I turn away from the bed before I can talk myself out of leaving and walk to the door on unsteady legs, each step feeling like I’m ripping something vital out of my heart and leaving it behind with him.

At the doorway, I look back one more time before I close the door quietly behind me and lean against it, pressing my palms against my eyes until I see stars. My entire body feels like it’s been hollowed out, scraped raw, and left empty.

My eyes fill with tears… I’m crying over something I never really had in the first place. Mourning a relationship that only existed in my head.

Chapter 8

Daniil – Fifteen years old

Ifeel like a freak. Something’s seriously wrong with me—has to be. Mikhail’s out on another date, and I’m stuck at home doing nothing, trying to distract myself with these stupid comic books, but my brain won’t shut up long enough to read a single page. The words blur together, and I keep rereading the same panels without absorbing anything.

It’s not that he’s on a date. That’s fine. People go on dates.

It’s that I’ve never wanted to do anything like that. Everyone at school has started sniffing around girls, and I still haven’t kissed anyone or even wanted to. My brothers won’t shut up about it either and constantly joke that I’m going to die a virgin if I don’t figure out my issues soon.

But that’s not what’s making my stomach twist right now.

What’s making my stomach twist is knowing he’s sitting across from some girl at a restaurant, probably smiling at her the way he smiles at me.

The sick feeling started the second he told me about the date this morning, and it hasn’t gone away. It’s gotten worse, settling heavy and wrong in my gut every time I check my phone to see if he’s texted.

I don’t understand why I care this much. He’s gone on dates before, and it never bothered me like this. But this is different, and I can’t figure out why.