Page 32 of Tortured Whispers
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Even after days had passed, I still found it tough to naturally move my fingers. I really had to force them to work or else they wouldn’t. My thumb was back to normal but my other fingers felt useless.
I was still terrified to speak to Caesar about it because he’d take me to the doctor or the hospital and then everyone would see that I was a cutter. Everyone would get the same look of pity and disgust. They would judge me. Every time I thought about it, my heart pounded and sweat slicked my forehead.
I just stayed out of his way and every time he tried to talk to me, I avoided him by rushing into the room I’d made my own. He knocked but I wouldn’t answer.
I guess Caesar got tired of that shit because when he came home after day three of me avoiding him, he cornered me in the kitchen. I pretended to be startled but I wasn’t. Nothing about Cease scared me. If anything, I felt comfort the moment I felt his warmth.
I looked up into his soft brown eyes and felt every drop of water in my head evaporate. Why did I have to feel so whole in front of him? “You can’t avoid me forever, Brook. It’s Sunday and we need to talk.” His eyes were sporting deep circles and his hair was messy like it normally is when he sleeps like shit.
What made him toss and turn all night?
“About what? How stupid I am? How fwustwated I make you?”
“No!” He roared and I flinched a bit at the intensity of his voice. “You’re not stupid and even though you frustrate me I don’t want to ever be away from you.” His eyes softened with sadness and it gripped my stomach like an iron fist.
I reached out a timid hand and touched his cheek. I couldn’t help myself. I knew it was wrong and I shouldn’t have touched him at all but I couldn’t resist the pull he had on me. It was magnetic, and just like magnets, I couldn’t help who I was attracted to.
I couldn’t help who I loved.
Love…
“Can we please talk, Brooklyn?” Caesar asked, his head hung low like the weight of the world was on his neck.
My mind ping-ponged between answering him and trying to feel out the realization that I loved him. I was stuck staring at him as a result. Once again, I looked stupid.
Cease gripped my hand in his and electricity tingled through my fingers. We sat on the couch in the living room and I looked at him, still stunned that I loved him. Of course my first experience with love would have to be sorely unrequited.
The thought of it made my gaze fall to the floor. I stared at my bare toes and wiggled them on the plush carpet. Cease tipped my chin up and made me look at him.
“I don’t hate you. You know that right? I love you so much, Brook.”
“No, you don’t. Not like I love you,” I told him, my voice a whisper.
“Brook, I can’t love you the way I want to and trust me, I want to. It hurts in the deepest parts of me that I can’t,” he confessed.
“Why can’t you?” I asked, my words trembling as much as my bottom lip.
“Because it’s dangerous,” he told me. “It’s like tempting a lion. Once I get you…that’s it. You belong to me. I don’t share and I don’t hide. I can’t love you like that without serious consequences. I’m not willing to let anyone take you away from me. If I can’t have you the way I want to…at least we can still be Brook and Cease, right?” He asked.
The raw emotion in his voice shattered me in a million tiny pieces. He wanted to love me the same way I loved him. Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he was just as warped and fucked in the head as me.
“Listen, I didn’t want to talk about that. Not right now,” he said with a heavy sigh. My head was already reeling from everything so switching subjects sounded perfect. I needed quiet time to digest the new feelings coursing through me. “I found a school for you to go to,” Cease said hesitantly. “It’s not an alternative school, it’s a public school but they have an alternative program. They keep the students on their own hallway.” My mind switched from love to school and I felt a headache moving into my brain and spreading down through my spine.
“All the other students will fuck with me,” I muttered.
“You can request to eat lunch in your class with your classmates. It’s fine. It’ll be fine, Brook.” I wanted to believe him because he was my life preserver. He was the one who pulled me out of the water in my head and breathed life into me but I hated the idea of going to a regular public school. Kids were assholes. Ninth grade taught me that more than anything else did.
