Page 60 of Ruin

“Kaz, it’s been fifteen yea-”

“It doesn’t matter,” I grit out, cutting him off again, always making excuses for me, for what I did. “It doesn’t matter how long it’s been, it still happened and I didn’t stop it.”

“You saved me,” it’s a low growling statement and I hate hearing it, because it’s not even remotely true.

“I was a coward,” I laugh caustically, lifting my eyes to his from beneath my lashes. “I’m still a coward now,” I whisper, and it feels like my chest cramps. “I’m still a fucking coward.”

“I don’t think that when I think of you,” he admits. “That’s never been a word I’d associate with you.”

I stare at him, the bright moon washing him out, his pale skin glowing white beneath the dark ink of his tattoos. He watches me, licking his lips, he shakes his head, glances down to his booted feet, still lying back in the wicker chair.

And all I can think of as I look at him, this beautiful, violent savage, is that he still thinks of me. He still fucking thinks of me. It’s something. That I’m on his mind. And I wonder when, why, what triggers thoughts of me inside of his head.

Charlie reaches up, taking a spliff from behind his ear, lifting his hips up from the chair, weight on his elbow on the arm of it, he shoves his hand in his pocket, plucks out a lighter.

“Smoke?” he asks, dropping back down heavily into his chair.

Placing the joint between his lips, I nod silently, watching his pout pucker around it, cupping his hands, he lights the tip, drawing in a heavy pull. His chest rises, lifting and lifting, until it stills, breath held. Our fingers brush as he leans forward, passing me the joint, which I hastily force between my teeth. Slowly, I draw in a deep breath, thick, sticky smoke filling my lungs, I feel my body tensing, muscles coiling, and then I let it all go with my exhale at the same time as him.

Dropping my head back against the top of the chair. I take another drag, pass it back, roll my head to the side to watch him. His head leant back, position mirroring mine, he places the joint between his lips, letting it rest on his bottom one.

Sweat sticks my clothes to my skin, collecting on the top of my chest, little beads gathering and rolling down my abs with the humidity. I flick open the top few buttons of my shirt, rough pad of my thumb catching on the cotton. I let the sticky smoke seep out of my nostrils, rolling my tongue across my teeth to let the rest of it rush out of my mouth.

I look back at him, and picture him as he were, when we were both young men and we were so different to what we are now. He was this intelligent, almost nerdy, softly spoken guy with a dimpled smile and bright eyes. There was light inside of him as opposed to the monster that resides there now. I helped create it, the beast beneath his bones and I wish I were sorrier.

But I want this Charlie as much as I wanted the old version. Before. The one before the caging and the torture.

He flashes his eyes up onto mine, like he knows what I’m thinking about, and his eyes tighten, just a little, the way his lashes seem to flutter without actually closing over his eyes, brushing his cheekbones. They vibrate like a butterfly’s wings and then they close altogether.

“Charlie,” the way the word rolls off of my tongue, like crushed, jagged glass, my throat swells as though I just vomited up a broken vase. “I’m sorry,” I swallow, wanting to look away but unable to with the way his head cants, giving me his attention. “For the other night. For the one before that, and the one before that.” I swallow again, curling my fingers into the palms of my hands. “For everything,” my shoulders lift up to my ears with tightness, and I don’t know why I said anything at all.

Maybe it’s the cloud of marijuana circling our heads, flooding my lungs. The vodka as I sit forward, swallow some more, let it burn its way down my oesophagus.

Perhaps I’m just tired.

It’s as though my whole body melts at the thought, flopping back into the foam cushion, sinking into the chair.

Charlie shifts in his seat, the sound of his jeans rough on the plump cushion, and I see him move in the reflection. Leaning forward he pinches out the spliff, dropping it to the glass top and reaching for the bottle, he swallows it down, his throat working, Adam’s apple bobbing.

I know he won’t know what to do with the words I just gave him. Charlie’s never truly been sorry for anything, I don’t think. I don’t think he really understands what it is, forgiveness. If that’s even what it is I’m searching for.

Maybe I just needed to say it. Confess. Get down on my knees an-

“Kaz,” Charlie rasps, elbows on his spread knees. “I want you to be happy,” and it’s like my heart stops.

I blink hard, trying to keep my eyes averted, unable to look at him.

“I want you to find someone who makes you happy,” my mouth opens to tell him I don’t fucking want that. I don’t want anything without him, “I’m happy,” he confesses, looking at me still, but I can’t do it, I can’t fucking look at him as my insides knot. “I think,” he half-laughs, but it doesn’t sound humorous. “I don’t really know what that means for me, what it means to be happy,” he swallows, finally looking away, but it’s worse then, his eyes on mine in the dark reflection.

I’m on my feet in seconds, my hand wrapping around his throat, wrenching him up and out of the chair, I force him against my chest, my own heaving with breath.

“You think this is nothing?” I ask him, his hands by his sides, my fingers flex on his throat, knocking his head back, thumb squeezing at the corner of his jaw, forcing him to look up at me. “You think I’m nothing to you, now?”

He laughs and it’s rough and deep, too much for my brain to compute, so I clasp him tighter.

“We’re nothing, Kazimir,” he whispers. “I’ve never been more to you than a dirty secret.” He stares into my eyes, something dark lurking in the slime green depths. “Nothing more than a filthy littlefuck youto your dead daddy.”

“That’s not fucking tr-”

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