Page 31 of Beneath Cherry Blossom Memories

My thoughts are a million grenades, all detonating simultaneously while I hide in my bunk. Like always, Eli used his body to make me forget the real problems pushing us further apart. I don’t know what is wrong with me or why I didn’t go jack off. Nothing feels better. And now there’s another casualty just waiting to discover they’re dead. He said he didn’t care about Leon—that he didn’t matter.

Do I?

I’m trying to decide if he was high earlier. If I could detect it or if I let my dick make all my decisions. Let my desperation to be close to him blind me like it used to. That’s the fucked up thing. I can’t tell. Sometimes, in the past, I could. I could look into his eyes and know if he was high. Other times, he appeared so normal. I guess I got used to him on good days when he could move through the world unphased and smile. Oli does the same.

Eli isn’t my brother.

They’re on two very different spectrums concerning drugs. Oliver knows he has a problem. He purchases his shit illegally and has the appearance to prove it. Eli is in denial—calls it hismedicine—thinks because he can get a prescription for narcotics that it makes it all okay. I want to know how he can sleep at night—how he keeps going with the body count constantly growing.

Nothing about what happened earlier is okay. He says sex is all we are, but I know that to be false. I think he forgets the past or likes to cherry-pick from it because it’s easier than to admit he threw away a real relationship. We never talked about the hard stuff. That’s true. His parents overdosing? Yeah, I didn’t know that. But all the other shit you do with your partner, we did that. The distance was rough often, so we had to speed through things most couples have years to get around to.

We are so much more than physical, but that’s also a pretty good chunk of what makes us up.

Here I go again. Romantascizing.

Coming up with excuses to justify my addiction to him.

I’m just like them—a fiend for something that’ll ultimately kill me. I reach up and brush my fingers over my scalp, feeling the scar that’s there. It was such a superficial injury but an eye-opener. It’s what kept me away this long. It’s what made me understand just how selfish Eli can be. And how it ultimately led to the end of us.

My phone buzzes, and I check it because, at this point, I don’t really care who is reaching out. I feel so alone.

Nyx: Peep the threads.

Underneath is a picture of Helios with a flashy new collar. I don’t have the heart to tell her he will rip it off by tomorrow. Saving the picture and my throat bobbing because I miss my cat, I quickly write back that he’s adorable. I miss familiarity. This tour is becoming the worst decision of my life.

I text Jorge.

I fucked up.

He writes back a few minutes later. He’s literally five feet away from me in his bunk, but I don’t want to say this stuff out loud.

You fucked him, didn’t you?

I knew you were gonna…

I didn’t…fuck him.

But

Still did something I shouldn’t have.

Because you love him.

Are you crying?

I swipe at my face quickly.

No.

I can hear you sniffling. I’m coming.

Ten seconds later, he’s in my bunk, and I’m being held like a baby…again. But I snuggle into him greedily. I thought my heart was dead—long gone and forgotten about, but it beats rapidly and hurts. It still bleeds and trembles.

Silent cries come out while Jorge rubs my upper back.

“Do you ever wonder if maybe he was just as scared as you were? The cops arrested him, man.”

“Because he was drinking,” I mumble.

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