Page 42 of Not Made to Last

“Talk to me. Take me off the edge.”

She nods, and I slowly lower my hand. “But why can’t I just put your dick in my mouth?”

I slam my face into her pillow, again and again, until she laughs into my arm. “It’s not funny, Cheeks!” But I’m laughing, too.

This whole thing is ridiculous.

She strokes what little hair is on my head, and I almost regret keeping it short. I close my eyes, ready to bask in the feeling of her fingertips stroking my skull, but as soon as darkness fills my surroundings, I’m reminded of why I keep my hair short.

I suppress my grunt when he yanks my hair, pulls it from its roots. His hot breath coats my face when he sneers, “What now, you pretty-boy faggot?”

A shiver wracks up my spine, and I force my eyes open, suddenly too aware of my surroundings, of the shakiness of my breaths. Of Olivia lying next to me,watchingme.

There’s an obvious switch in the air, a heaviness blanketed by my stupid emotions. My pathetic fears. I hate this part of my life. I hate the darkness I can’t seem to shake no matter how bright the light is that envelops me.

“Wilmington,” Liv says, and I turn to her, but not completely. Biting down on her bottom lip, she looks directly into my eyes, and she must sense the unanswered questions swarming inside me, because she adds, “You asked me before where I considered home, and my answer is Wilmington.”

It takes a moment for her words to kick in, and when they do, the tension in my chest dissipates, unfurls through my bloodline. Not only is Liv doing what I asked, talking me off the physical edge of release, but she’s giving me what I came here for.

She’s giving meher.

“What about you?” she asks.

I wait a few seconds before flipping over and extending my arm. Liv takes the cue, moving in close until she’s in the crook of my arm. I twist a strand of her hair between my fingers and sweep my gaze around her room, trying to pinpoint exactly what it is about it that’s creating a familiar feeling in my chest. I felt it the moment I stepped inside, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why. “What about me?”

“Is the house you live in now where you consider home?”

“Nah,” I’m quick to answer. “We used to live… a couple blocks away, actually.”

“You lie.”

“True story.” I tug gently on the strand I’d been playing with and add, “I was pretty young when my parents made their money, so we weren’t there long, but I remember it.” I don’t tell her that it’s still ours. That I still go there often because my friend, Oscar, lives there now, and his mom forces me to have dinner with them at least once a week. “The house is small, only two bedrooms, so my sister and I shared, and…”

“And?”

“Nothing.” I shake my head, refusing to continue. I have a feeling that the things she misses from her childhood were ripped away from her, making the things I miss from mine completely inconsequential.

“That must be a big contrast to where you live now?”

I nod. “This house reminds me of my old one,” I tell her, adding as an afterthought, “not because it’s small or whatever; it just feels… I don’t know… lived in?”

“Your house doesn’t feel like that?”

“No.” I laugh at the thought. “My house feels like a hospital.” Sometimes, it feels like a psych ward, and I’m the only patient. Obviously, I don’t tell Liv that. “I moved into the pool house thinking it would help with feeling so…”

“Isolated?” she offers.

My lips thin with my forced smile. “I guess, yeah.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, scrunching her nose, shifting the freckles there.

One day soon, I’m going to kiss every single one of those freckles. Starting now. I press my lips to her nose, then her cheeks, her shoulder.

She squirms in my arms until she’s out of my embrace. “You ever build a pillow fort?” she asks, and I feel every bit of tension inside me slowly unravel.

Smiling at the absolute randomness of her, I answer. “Not that I can recall.”

Her grin is instant, innocent and pure, and it only draws me further into her web. “Wait right there,” she says, palm up between us as she gets off the bed. “Don’t move, okay?”

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