Healing is a slow, painful process.
For the following week, I discover how weak I actually am. Even when Dad, Elsa, and Xander say otherwise.
I’m weak, because I still hide whenever Mum is in sight. I’m weak, because I’m scared of eating, and whenever I do, I vomit it right back up.
I’m weak, because I’m starting to think I’m a burden to everyone, even when my therapist has been trying to purge those thoughts.
Then in the midst of weakness, like now, he comes in.
Xander.
My knight, even if it’s in a different way than when we were children. He used to carry me on his back, and now, he pulls me to his side as if I’ve always belonged there.
After I return to school, he’s there every step on the way. Without saying any words, he announces to RES’s student body that I’m now his and if anyone breathes in my direction, let alone says anything, they better start preparing their funerals.
He holds my hand and kisses me in the halls as if we’ve been doing it for eternity.
He whispers things into my ears, like how much he misses me, even though I’m right there.
I’ve become so used to his presence, as if we were never separated, as if we’re picking up right where we left off seven years ago. Maybe that’s why whenever he disappears, the fog begins to slowly creep in through the cracks.
Today, I met Silver in the library, and although we didn’t speak, it brought back memories of the times where I hated myself and envied her body.
Through the years, I’ve always wondered why she grew up to be so beautiful while I became a potato. And sometimes, like now, those thoughts return with a vengeance. That’s why I’m hiding in the back garden.
Elsa’s been watching me eat my food and has been following me to the bathroom to make sure I don’t stick my finger down my throat.
Since that infamous night, I haven’t done it, but I can’t help feeling the involuntary need to puke. The doctors say it’s psychological.
Eating disorder.
Mental disorder.
Life disorder.
All I want is some solitude to collect myself and go back in there.
I’m not even three minutes in before Xan’s silhouette appears from between the trees. His blond hair is styled back and his Elites’ jacket forms to his bulging muscles. I wonder if there will ever be a day where I’ll look at him and not think he’s blindingly beautiful.
He slides beside me, and I can’t help the smile that breaks out on my lips. I might have wanted solitude, but not from him – never from him.
I let my head drop on his strong bicep. “I thought you guys had a meeting with the team manager?”
“We’re done. Or I’m done, anyway.”
“Are you still suspended?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters.” I lift my head and sniff him, and the waft of alcohol hits me, even though mint comes from his breath. “You’ve been drinking.”
“Define drinking.” He grins, but even that doesn’t charm him into my heart.
“You have a problem, Xan. You need to stop.”
“It’s all under control.”
I reach into his jacket and retrieve the small bottle of Absolut Vodka he usually keeps there. “How are you keeping it under control? You’re like an old alcoholic man.”
He inhales, then tries to snatch it away. I throw it ahead letting it smash to pieces against the asphalt.
“Why the fuck did you do that?” he snaps.
“Because you need to stop.”
“You’re starting to sound like Dad.”
“Well, maybe you should listen to him. Can’t you see that you’re poisoning yourself?”
“No, just like you’re not seeing how you’re starving yourself.”
I pull away from him.
“Fuck.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You’re right, I didn’t see how I was starving myself. I didn’t see how I was slowly hitting rock bottom both emotionally and mentally, but I do now. And the reason I’m not eating is because I don’t want to vomit. It pushes me back to those times and I hate those times. I told Calvin and Elsa about it, though. I also asked the doctor if there are any food supplements I can use. I’m trying, Xan. I just want you to try, too. Don’t throw your life away because of some grudge against Lewis.”
He strokes my cheek and I lean into his hand, briefly closing my eyes. “It’s not only because of Dad.”
I glance at him. “Then what?”
“You know that moment when you think your life has no purpose, and it’s kind of numb? Alcohol and fighting make me feel.”
“Just like cutting made me feel. There was so much pain and sometimes, I couldn’t breathe, and that’s when the cutting and the pills began. They made me feel something other than that pain. They were a pain I could control, a pain that could purge it all out with the blood. The physical cut was more tolerable than the thousand emotional and mental scars I walked with every day. But you know what?”
His finger never leaves my face. “What?”
“When I almost died, I realised how temporary those feelings are. The guilt is way more permanent and long. Besides, I want real feelings, not forced ones through addictions. Don’t you?”
He thins his lips into a line but says nothing.
“What’s more important? Me or alcohol?”
He scoffs. “The alcohol started because of you, Green. I mean, it was my choice, but you’re the reason.”
“Then I’m ending it.”
He smirks. “You’re ending it?”
“Absolutely. Watch me.”
“Meh, I don’t think I can.”
“Why not?”
“Climb on my lap so I can watch you clearly.”
I hit his shoulder. “You’re awful.”
“Come here, Green.” He taps his lap and he doesn’t have to say it twice.
I crawl on top of him so my legs are on either side of his strong thighs and my arms are wrapped around his neck.
“You know, with this position, I can see your underwear.” His lips tilt upward. “Green. Seriously?”
“I thought you’d appreciate it.”
“Oh, I fucking do.” He brushes his lips against mine, then quickly pulls back.
“Tease.”
“You know why I tease you?”
“No.”
“Because you still have an adorable-as-fuck pout.”
“Hey, I’m not a kid anymore.”
“Thank fuck for that.” He thrusts his pelvis and his bulge nestles against my knickers.
He groans in his throat as my thighs shake. God, I think I’m broken. One touch from him and I’m already soaked. Shouldn’t I have gotten more self-control by now?
He grabs my hip with a large hand and claims my mouth with his. My body melts into his hard one as he thrusts his tongue inside and kisses me deep and slow.
From the outside looking in, I must appear so tiny against his body, almost nothing.
“Wait.” I pull away, my head slightly dizzy. “We’re at school.”
“So?” He rubs his cock against my underwear, and I whimper as he gets harder with the contact. “Remember the time I cornered you here at the first day of school this year? You were wearing that short as fuck skirt and Silver spilt coffee on you.”
“How could I forget? You told me to not dress like that.” And it was the first time he got so close in years.
“That’s because I wanted to take you right then and there.” He rotates against me. “You were killing me, Green.”
My throat dries, but I managed to say, “Xan…we’ll be suspended.”
“Not if we’re not caught.”
“But…” I trail off when he dry-humps me.
Oh, God.
“Besides, it’d be worth it.”
“Xan –” My words die out as he claims my lips again.
He rubs his cock against me over and over and I moan in his mouth, being found be damned.
A part of me wants someone to see us, to witness this moment in time, because I want to commemorate it.
I want to paint it on one of those blank canvases and keep it for life.
Xander releases my hip and snakes a hand under my skirt. I tighten, then tremble when he pushes my knickers aside and thrusts a finger inside me.
“Fuck, you’re soaked,” he groans against my lips.
“For you,” I whisper back.
“You’re killing me, Green.”
“And you’re owning me, Xan.”
“Only me?”
“Only you,” I breathe out.
His finger picks up speed and he adds another, filling me and triggering that hazy phase. It’s a phase where everything disappears – no noises, no smells, no sights – at least, not from the outside world.
All I feel is his touch, all I see is his deep ocean eyes, all I hear are his breaths.
Just him. Xan. Once my best friend, then my tormentor, and now, my everything.
“Can you hear the sound of your arousal, Green?” He bites on my lower lip.
My cheeks heat as that sloppy sound heightens the more his fingers come in and go out of me.
“It’s a symphony made only for me,” he murmurs. “You are made only for me.”
I clench around his digits and tremble as the orgasm sweeps over me, then submerges me in its clutches.
How could his words set me on fire without any matches or gasoline?
“You’re so exotic when you come. I want to eat you up.” He kisses my cheek, my forehead, and my nose and finishes with a brush of his lips to mine.
“I can’t believe we did that at school.” I wince, even though I’m still delirious from the orgasm.
He pulls out of me and it feels heartbreakingly empty. I don’t focus on it, though, because Xan brings his fingers up and licks them one by one, without breaking eye contact.
The same fingers that were inside me.
Holy shit.
He’s licking me off him. Why the hell am I so turned on by that?
He places his other thumb in front of my lips, and I don’t hesitate as I lick it, matching his rhythm with mine. The taste of his skin explodes in my mouth, and it’s the best food I’ve had in a long time.
Xander’s lips pull in a smirk around his fingers, his dimples creasing his cheeks. “Mmm. I think I found an alternative to alcohol.”
“Please share.” The masculine voice coming from our right startles us both.
Cole appears out of freaking nowhere, carrying a book. On the Genealogy of Morality by Friedrich Nietzsche.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Captain?” Xander sounds impatient.
“I’m supposed to ask you that. I was reading in peace until you two decided to interrupt it.”
Oh, no.
No, no, no.
Please tell me Cole didn’t hear all that. I hide my face in Xander’s shoulder. I won’t be able to look at Cole in the eyes for a lifetime.
“Control your voyeurism tendencies, Nash.” Xan seems completely unaffected, unlike my self-melting state.
“Technically, I saw nothing, so no voyeurism there.” A pause. “I’m thinking you’re developing some exhibitionism tendencies, though.”
“Which is none of your business.”
“You’re right. I lost interest after the truth set you free.”
I squeeze Xander’s shoulder so he’ll urge him to leave. I can’t show my face if he’s over there.
Xan chuckles, then says with utter sarcasm, “But that’ll never be the case for you, Captain.”
There’s a long silence, and I wish I could see the expression on Cole’s face, but I’d rather die than do that right now.
“Come to practice,” he says in a cool tone before his voice disappears altogether.
“Is he gone?” I whisper without looking up.
Xander keeps a hand around my head. “You should stay like this a bit more, just to make sure.”
I smile, my fingers digging into his jacket. When we were kids, he’d always invent games to make me hug him or him hug me. He said it tuned out the outside world chaos.
Seven years later, he still has that habit of manipulating his way into my arms.
“You still love hugs, Xan?”
“Only from you, Green.”
