Chapter 50: tissue.
Elena
The reflection in my mirror stares back at me as the woman I saw in my memory today. The woman who I heard. Her touch that I felt. The sacrifice that she made to save my life.
I remembered my mother. And as spooky as it is that I look just like her, it makes me feel special. I'm her very own doppelganger.
Maybe tonight I'll sleep well. Without nightmares, without tears, without thoughts. I won't wake up panicking or rushing to the toilet, I won't be throwing up, and hopefully, the headaches will stop. One night of peace amidst a chaos of conundrum.
I attempt to untie the knot of my red dress behind my neck. Because of the entanglement and the lesser space in the bathroom, I walk out to my room still fiddling with the knot.
I switch the bathroom lights off with my elbow as I let the door close behind me. My room is dull, dark, and quiet. The biting breeze gives an archetype of the outside weather. I'm about to yank the knot cut because of irritation when I see a figure sitting on the window seat inside my room.
I'm about to shriek but his striding to me with a finger sealing his lips cautions me not to do what I was seconds away from doing. His whiskey eyes look hooded in my dim-lit room.
I take more than a tick to cognize the ferocity of the situation. He's in my room and he's asking me to shut up. Why am I even listening?
Outrage flocks my wits when rumination of his actions hits. The classroom, the locker room, the party. "Leave. Or I will scream for my brother."
He deepens his finger on his sealed lips. He gestures to his ear and then to my room door. I heed the caution and lower my voice. I see him spying on the lock bolt on the room door. I should but I don't find the need to unlock it.
"What do you want?" I whisper before I check the almost closed window through which he probably entered.
He doesn't talk, he gapes. Now that I'm less paranoid and less angry, I take in the redness in his eyes, the distinct smell of alcohol, exhaustion, and confusion. His face resembles the reaction I got when I told him I loved him.
I believe I'm delusional when I see his eyes hoarding tears. One tear falls, and then another before he closes his eyes. I've never seen him cry. I don't want to see him cry. It's too painful to watch.
"I-I--" he opens his eyes but he hangs his head low. "I-I'm sorry." He wipes away the tears on the sleeve of his hoodie. "I'm sorry for h-hurting you."
Pretending to put up an annoyed face, I cross my arms against my chest. "What do you want, Justin?"
"I don't know," he mutters still looking down.
Mixed signals. Bad news. "All the more reason for you to leave."
When his hand hoists up to his hair, I assume he's going to brush it but he takes me by surpise when he clutches a fistful of his own hair and begins to tug on it. "It hurts, Elena. Everything fucking hurts. Every part of me is bleeding."
My heart yearns to comfort him. But with everything that he's done in the past two weeks, especially today, he's made me numb. "Then go do your thing. Hang with your boys, get drunk, party with chicks, who was it? Candice Kesseler, right? Go back to the party, she'll welcome you with open arms, do a thing or two with her and you'll be fine."
His eyes lift up to me letting out heartbreaking tears. Such a beautiful face with such tragic tears. The power his gaze holds is unexplainable. His eyes touch me better than his hands. They talk, converse, and narrate a whole monologue of everything he's feeling.
"I don't want to go there." His words are like a child's tantrum.
"Go wherever you want. I don't care. I just don't want you here." I look away because my heart beats in debates contrary to the words I spoke.
His eyes puddle further. "Don't say that." He whispers shaking his head. "Don't stop caring for me. I'm a dick. I'm an asshole. And I know I disgust you and you hate me but don't stop caring."
I will lose my mind trying to understand his.
He blues the whole day doing everything he can to make me hate him but at sundown, he gets drunk and shows up in my room asking me to care for him and hate him at the same time.
I cannot deal with this today. I don't have the energy for it. I drop my arms, "Justin, please leave. I'm exhausted and saturated. I can't handle your mood swings."
I begin to walk to the window but he blocks my path. His eyes are scared. They're begging for forgiveness and I don't know what else. But I know it's not just forgiveness. He gulps when I roll my eyes and look away from him.
His eyes fill with tears. He's so clueless, I almost see a part of him trying to force himself out of my room and a part of him keeping him rooted to my floor. "I-I feel lonely. And I'm scared. I'm scared I'll do something bad to stop the pain."
My eyes widen with a grimace while I purse my lips. "Are you trying to manipulate me?"
He closes his eyes and looks up in denial. He shakes his head as more tears just drop down his eyes. "I don't want to be alone. I'm not in control and the pain is too fucking much." He holds his forehead. "I came here to ask for forgiveness but I'm getting drifted away. I should leave but I fucking can't. I--" he sighs.
Whatever he's trying to convey is going down the drain because not only me, I don't think he's understanding what he's saying either. Thanks to the alcohol stinking off of him.
I glance at my room door. "What do you want--"
He falls onto his knees in front of me. "Help me." His head is bowing, his eyes are closed, and his face exhibits nothing but pain. "Stop the hurting I can't take it." His head shakes. "It hurts, Elena. Make it stop. Just make it s-stop--" a sob breaks out. "I'm s-scared. It's dark and I'm scared. I don't want to be alone, I'm scared--"
I see his shoulders slump down as he sobs in front of me. So heartless, yet so full of feelings. He puts on such a strong front but the way he's crumbling tells me that this pain has been in store for a really long time.
He covers his face behind his palms, hiding it more from me. Tears of my own chafe my sight. His vindictive behavior aside, I still see his innocence beseeching a way out of the downcastness.
I touch his wrist. Both our bodies shiver. I fight it and pull his hands away from his tear-stained face. He tries to look away, to conceal the emotions that are coming to play.
My thumb brushes across his cheeks as I wipe the trail of his tears. He sighs, tilting his cheeks and pushing them further inside my palms. I take a step closer and hold his face completely. I brush my fingers to the back of his neck, to his hair, to his neck, his jaw, and his cheekbones.
"Can I hug you?" He sweeps his lashes up to look at me.
I give him consent as a tear leaks from my eye. He sits up on his knees and wraps both his hands around my waist. I massage his hair as he hugs me, tighter by the second. My hands brush against his shoulders and his back before I grab his hair gently. He grunts as he stands up.
His hands immediately grab my face. He studies every part of my face with a hunger that told me he couldn't do it before. His fingers deepen into my skin as he tucks away strands of my hair that fall across my face.
"You were so rude to me," I whisper.
Remorse fills his face when my eyes cloud with tears. I thought I was done for the day. I thought I didn't have to cry anymore. I'd cried enough. But somehow, my body reacts perfectly in store with a new stream of tears readily pouring out of my eyes.
"In the locker room, I was scared too. I was terrified. You said such awful things and you left me there. All alone."
The clenching of his jaw tells me how much leash even his drunk mind has on him. The regret is seen but I know he'd never apologize for it.
"I'm not as kind as you, remember?" He pulls my face until his lips brush on my forehead. Not just my eyes, my entire body melts into him. "On a scale of 1 to 10, how much did today suck?"
My forehead hits his chest but I feel his hands on my cheek. "Hmm, I cared about your drunk ass in the morning and you crushed my concern and threw it in the bin. I threw up in school after an anxiety attack and panicked that I might be pregnant. I took three pregnancy tests, scared to the core and simultaneously hearing the shit you were giving me for no reason. I told you that I am in love with you, to which, you responded by showing the picture of the girl you were going on a date with. I cried until evening and got drunk at a party. I let Ashton Grant, the son of the father who stripped my mother's dignity, take me into a room and used him as a key to get memories of the night my mother and I were assaulted back into my head. And after narrating all of this to my father, both my brother and he are drunk and passed out downstairs while I'm left with nothing but reminders of everyone who betrayed me and left me." I pull my head away from his chest. "Today sucked beyond numbers but I keep thinking of seven for some reason."
My eyes finally dry up. I'm so numb, that I can't feel anything anymore. He tucks the strands of my hair behind my ears. "My day sucked too. Beyond numbers." He whispers. "Do you remember that time when you asked if we could forget the world for one night?"
I close my eyes. "You're drunk."
"I have a good capacity for liquor." He defends himself. "Can we forget the world for another night?"
"And then what? You go back to treating me like shit and I go back to being the girl you numbered?" I shrug. My words sting him.
He presses his lips together. "I won't treat you like shit."
I laugh. "Wow, thanks, Justin. How kind of you." I eye the window and when I don't see his car outside, I know he's taken precaution. "You should leave." I walk to the window seat but before I can hurl the window up, I feel his hands swathe my waist and hug me from behind.
I hear him suck a breath before his lips collide with my neck. I expel air with a grunt as my head hits his hard chest. Just as my eyes plunge shut, one of his hands clasps my neck. I rend with a gasp as I clutch his hand around my neck. "Justin," I warn.
His fingers don't tighten. He's holding my neck like a delicate feather. "I know you trust me." I gulp when his thumb caresses in concentric circles on my throbbing pulse. "Deep down, both of us know it pains me to hurt you."
He turns me around and his nose rams onto mine. My lips part as I clutch the collar of his hoodie and tug it down. "Spencer told me you've never kissed her. Or any of them."
He licks his lips as he nods. "True. You're the first girl I've kissed in the last three and a half years."
His forehead touches mine. "What about Candice?"
He palms the back of my neck and steadies our foreheads without either of us heaving. "Stop asking me questions that you already know answers to."
I wrap my hand around his shoulders. "Do you fuck your apologies too?"
He looks offended and raged. "You're exploiting your power."
"You taught me that." I challenge him.
He groans, pressing his eyes shut. "Can I kiss you?"
I scoff a chuckle. "You're asking for consent?"
"I'm aware that you can slap pretty hard."
My lips curl as I toe up. "I kiss pretty hard too." I suck on his bottom lip and grate my teeth on it.
I pull back to glance at his frustrated and enticed face. "Oddly, I've had a first-hand experience of them both." He says before leaning down and taking my lips in his mouth.
Gently, softly, but deeply. Both of us groan and in the next second, everything becomes rough, hard, and intense.
I wrest his hoodie off his head and throw it on the floor before I push him on my bed. I straddle his lap and get on top of him. His hands brush against my thigh when I resume kissing him. The higher his hand goes, the deeper I kiss.
He pulls away to take a breath. "This dress is a fucking tease."
I smile against his lips. "It served its purpose then." I dive my tongue inside his mouth. His tongue greets me with a groan.
His hands graze against my spine to the knot behind my neck. What I was struggling to remove, he unties it in seconds. My dress falls down my chest but he immediately wraps his hand around my back and hugs me until every part of my skin is touching his.
He unhooks my bra effortlessly. I grab his hair and yank it as I separate our kiss. "I want you to fuck me the way you fucked the other girls."
His eyes turn pale. "I'm not--"
"Yes, you are. I want to know the difference." I pinch his cheeks and tighten my clasp on his hair at the same time. "The difference between sex and fuck. The difference between Justin Castor who numbers girls and Justin Castor who was with me. Show me."
He takes both his hands off me and rests them on the bed as his support. His eyes do a weighing out of pros and cons before he finally caves in.
"The bed is going to be noisy. Get on the floor." The switch in his voice makes me obey. My dress, my bra, and my underwear all drop to the floor once I get off his lap. "On your fours."
I hear him unzipping his pants. I keep my sight on the wall in front of me. I hear the tearing of a condom wrapper and then his presence on the floor right behind me.
"No sounds, no touching me, no talking, and no looking." He grabs my hair. I snuffle in real pain. "Do you understand?"
What a weird set of rules. I have nothing else left to do.
"Yes," I whisper.
"This is how I fuck." Without warning, he pounds inside me. I lurch ahead, trying to cinch a hold on the floor but the shooting pain, merciless slams, and the slow registering of the shock turn my mind completely shut.
I jam my eyes shut when everything near, around, and inside my core burns. My hands give out as my face falls to the ground. I feel his hands wrap my hair in a tight coil around his palms before he shoves my face into the ground.
Tears titillate my eyes. Nothing about this seems romantic or fun. This is punishment in all garbles. Slow gasps and slower gulps make me hate whatever he's doing. The lack of foreplay enflames shooting pain instead of the pleasure that I'd experienced last time.
I lose track of the number of times Justin slammed into me. I feel my hair lugged backward until I'm sitting up with his chest rocking against my back. He slows the slams and massages my hair. Both his hands wrap around my waist.
"And this is how I am with you." One of his hands dips down in between my legs. He cups my core in his palms and presses against it before his fingers do their magic.
My hands fall onto his thigh when the pad of his thumb circles my clit. His other hand grazes up my waist until he's crowing my breast. He pinches the peak of my breast lightly. I gasp as I hit the back of my head on his chest and dig my nails into his thighs.
"J-Justin," I whisper as quietly as possible.
"Yes, Firefly?" He sucks the curve of my neck until my face turns to him and he ends up kissing my lips so deep, that I forget everything.
I hold the back of his neck as he rocks back and forth, hitting one point that makes my eyes roll, body tremble, and finally thaw into his arms.
He pulls out from me, takes away the condom, and stands up. "Hands behind your back." His voice becomes stern again. I do as he says. Sitting on my heels, I realize what he's about to make me do when he grips the whole of my hair in his fist as he comes in front of me.
He forces his manhood into my mouth before I protest. My eyes close shut when his clutch on my hair tightens and he pushes his knob deep inside my throat, holds it for a brief moment, and tugs my hair to pull me out.
I count him repeat it once, then twice, thrice, ten times, and when I'm about to gag, he completely pulls away to release. I realize my face is moist with not just sweat but also tears and drool.
He raises my chin as soon as he cleans up. "This is how whores are fucked." He whispers before I feel his thumb wiping my lips. The back of his hand swabs my face until I'm tidy.
I don't like how he treated me. No one could like this. I feel like a toy. Used. Played. And trashed.
He kneels in front of me, mirroring my position. I feel his hands ironing the messed-up tresses of my hair. "And because you're a queen, you shouldn't be treated like that."
He pulls me on top of him as he sits on the ground. He puts on a new condom before his back hits the floor and I'm sitting on top of him, straddling his strong body. He takes my hand and keeps it on his chest—a sign of giving control. A sign of sharing dominance.
I slowly sit on his shaft, burying it deep inside me. Both of us groan in whispers. His eyes close when I grind on him as gently as possible. Both his hands approach my waist but I pin them on the floor beside his head as I roughen the grind.
His head rolls back the deeper I grind. My fingers slowly move from around his wrist to his fingers until they intertwine and ignite flames between our skin.
I sit back up as I ride him. He leaves my hand and grips my thigh to steady, slow, or stop me, but I don't. I clasp his neck, feeling his beating pulse under my confident hands. "Firefly," he shakes his head in sheer pleasure.
My hands slip to the back of his neck and I pull him up until he's sitting. I wrap my legs around him before I lean to him and kiss his lips. He envelops his hands around my back, continuing to kiss me just as hard as I'm kissing him.
I pull away and hold his face with enough strength to make him look at me. "I love you," I repeat my words. His eyes close but I stern my hold to get his attention again. "I am in love with you, Justin Castor." I kiss his forehead. "You're never going to be alone. You'll always have me, you'll always be strong, and you'll always fight your battles. No matter what."
A weak tear falls from his eyes and I instantly wipe it. The back of my hand caresses his cheeks. He watches me for a long time. I let him. I comb his hair with my fingers, trace the features of his face, and wrap my hands around his shoulders as I gaze back at him.
In one swift motion, he flips us over. My back touches the ground and he drops to my side. He pulls the duvet off my bed and it falls on top of us. He takes off the condom before he turns me to himself and pulls me into his chest.
His hands fondle every part of my skin. He kneads some places that make me relax, he cuddles me in some places, and he leaves butterfly kisses all over my face and my neck.
He doesn't say it but his actions speak so much. Only someone who reciprocates the feeling that I feel for him can translate love into actions. A part of me believes he probably feels more for me than I feel for him. But the mere fact that he's never expressed it makes me doubt everything.
"You picked up my thank you note," I drone when he's kissing my cheek.
He doesn't answer anything. His knuckles trace my cheekbone. He cuddles me closer as he lifts up my leg and wraps it on his waist. The tip of his cock brushes against my clit. The feel of him without any layers of condom is so tempting, that I nudge closer until I graft half of his pecker inside me.
He grunts as I bite my lower lip. His hands squeeze my ass until he's deeper inside me. He leans down to my ear. "There is a slight chance that I might really make you pregnant now, so I suggest you pull away."
We don't rock. We don't move. But we don't pull away either. I feel him parked inside me. "What if you got me pregnant? Tell me what you would really do."
He nudges his nose to mine. "I already told you."
I shake my head. "You lied. Tell me the truth."
He's not surprised I figured it out. The knowing smile that he gives out tells me my guess was right. He gulps, "It would be your choice, Firefly. I'd do anything you asked me to."
"Anything?" I cock my eyebrow. He nods. A smirk spreads across his face and he instantly looks away, turning pink. "What?" I demand mirroring his smile.
He licks his lips when he looks back at me. "A part of me hoped for you to be pregnant." My smile fades. "That's a surety for being around you without having to find excuses."
I can see my heart crumbling into pieces. I roll away from him and stand up. I take out an oversized shirt and put it on my head and slip on new panties as he sits up looking extremely confused.
I grab his clothes and throw them on his lap. "Leave, please."
I turn around showing him my back and crossing my arms against my chest in an attempt to hold my heart as it breaks. When I feel his hands on my arm, I jerk and take steps away from him.
"What happened?" He turns me around fully dressed. Worry replaces confusion when he sees my tear-stained face. His jaw hardens. "What happened?" He asks in a rougher whisper.
"You want me to get knocked up so you could be around me but you won't just admit to your feelings because what? You're too scared? You're ashamed you'd disappoint my brother?" I shake my head at him.
His hands drop from my arms and he takes a step back, closing his eyes. He looks to the window. "I'll leave."
Of course, he'll want to bail. I chuckle as more tears river down my eyes. "Yes, run away. Betray me again, lie to yourself again, and vanish from issues because that's all you can do."
His head snaps at me. "I am not betraying you. I never promised you anything to break it."
I can't believe this. I point to the floor. "What the hell was that? Promises need not be only through words, Justin. Weren't you the one who told me if there's love there's no need of saying it?"
He exhales looking away again. I'm playing his words back on him and he's getting frustrated because he can't counter that.
"I don't love you." He sizzles. Just when I think he can't break my heart more than he already has, he surprises me.
Lie. I can read it off his face so well. But how could someone fight something so intense? I could never think of hating him, let alone say it. Either he's too strong or he doesn't really love me. The latter is imaginably possible.
"My brother is the reason, isn't it?" I ask in a low and defeated voice.
He closes the gap between us. "I respect Dylan more than anyone in this damn world. If not for him, I'd have never been here. He saved my life when I had given up every last bit of hope. Hurting him would kill me. I would never do anything he doesn't approve of. Even if I have to sacrifice my life for it. I will never hurt him."
"But you can hurt me instead?" I bob my head at the realization. My eyes find him. "What if I call Dylan now? What if I tell him how much you disrespected him by slamming into me in all those positions--"
Justin's jaw visible hardens and his eyes turn into alarming warning sirens. "You wouldn't." His lips curl. "You love me too much to hurt me. You're kind as fuck heart will never be able to do something that you know will tear me apart."
What a game you played, Mr. Castor.
He knows me too damn well. "So you took my emotions for a ride again? You used my vulnerability for you to serve your selfish needs? Is that what this was? One night to forget the world because you know I'd never manipulate you?"
Deny it. Tell me I'm wrong. Please.
He backs away, feeling the jolt of guilt as angry tears drip from my eyes to the floor. "I shouldn't have come--"
"You couldn't go to your other girls because they'd exploit your weakness. You couldn't use them the way you used me, again, because they're stronger. Smarter. And they learn from their mistakes. But me?" I shake my head with a sad smile. "I fell for it. Again. You got me, with all the sad, helpless, sobbing act, you got to me."
Tell me I'm wrong, Justin.
I take steps toward him and he backs to the window. The more I stare, the more I see what this boy is capable of doing. He can do anything to get things his way. There are no limits. He can go to any extent to get what he wants.
He doesn't tell me I'm wrong.
I'm such an idiot.
I bite my lip. "Even Edgar Francis West didn't use me as much as you have."
"Summer, don't--"
"Don't what?" My whisper breaks as sobs erupt. "What am I to you, Justin?"
I wait. I wait for him to answer something. He blankly stares at me before he looks away. He has no answer. I am that meaningless to him. He can't even put a name on what I mean to him. To think he reciprocates whatever I feel for him was downright dumb of me.
I sigh. "Thanks, I guess. I'm rethinking every decision I've ever made, every person I've ever trusted, and every instinct that I've followed because I don't think I trust myself now. Thanks to your manipulative monstrous ways of proving a point, I agree with you, there's no light in this world. And not a speck of hope for you."
I lean beside him and open the window higher. I nudge him into the dark night with my eyes.
He can get anyone he wants in his life. How could I believe he's lonely?
Everything was a trap. Everything was a lie. Everything was a game.
"I'm sure you can find another girl's bed and body to crash for the night. I'm done being your tissue." I gulp, angrily.
He waits for two seconds before he crawls out of my window, down the pipe to the top of the garage. He doesn't use the ladder, he jumps to the ground and walks out of my driveway into the black night.
I close my window shut and drape the curtains close. I plop on the window seat and cry. I cry because a part of me still wishes he's safe. I hate that I want to pick up my phone and call him back. I hate that I want to hug him, kiss him, hold him, after everything he's made me feel.
I pick up my phone and dial Nate. One last time.
Switched off.
I send him a voice message. A last and final one. I sob before I talk. "I'm done with you. It's been five months and you haven't bothered to even find out if I'm alive. I get it. You're dealing with shit and you need space. I'm dealing with shit too, Nate. And I don't need space, I need my best friend because I don't know how else to deal with this. Everyone is selfish. I feel pathetic to be the only one who cares. You come to me only for your needs. So be it. I don't want to be there when you need me either. I don't need you or anyone else. Don't bother contacting me. We're fucking done."
I cursed. Shit.
I send the message and block him in every place. I wipe my tears with the back of my hand. I clean the room that's tinted with his memories now. I put on my sweatpants, a jacket, and my shoes. I grab the keys to my mother's Harley and run down the stairs with my phone in my hands.
I barge into my father's room with both Dylan and himself passed out on the bed. I hit the lights until the room is bright and both of them crunch their eyes before covering their faces.
"Elena, turn the lights off," Dylan yells.
"I'm leaving. I thought you both should know." I slam the door before either of them reacts.
I walk out the main door, hurl on my mother's bike, roar it to life and drive the hell out of this town.
. . .