Page 43 of Make Me Scream
“Her?...”
Oh. And then, it clicks. An old, yellowed photograph of Abel’s mom on a stained twin mattress, holding an infant Abel in her arms. A photograph that was the only proof of Abel’s real birthday… October eleventh.
“Abel…”
“Don’t, Peris,” he snaps, then drops his head. “Just fucking don’t.”
“What did you do?”
He jerks away from me, eyes alive and so vivid. “What did I just say?!”
“I didn’t ask what you wanted—I want to know what you did!”
“You know damn well what I did!” he shoves me, and his body against mine feels like a livewire. I put my hand around his neck and shove him against the wall.
“Why?!”
“Because I fucking hate her, and I can’t stand the fucking sight of her!” he croaks, his eyes squeezing shut as he tries to turn his head away from me.
“That was the only proof you had, Abel,” I argue, all the fight having left me at his admission. I’m not sure why I care so much.
“Yeah, a lot of good it’s done me over the years. It doesn’t fucking matter.”
“It might some day.”
“Some day has come and gone, and now, I’ve just gotta fucking survive.”
“Survive?” I question, drawing back to try and catch his eyes. When Abel avoids them readily, I reach down and grab his chin in a punishing hold to whisper against his lips. “What the fuck do you mean ‘survive’?” My chest squeezes.
“I mean exactly what I fucking said.” He shoves me away with surprising force. “Jesus, Peris, you sound so fucking stupid sometimes, and I know you can’t be.”
I rear back, my hand falling from his neck as my eyes widen. “Excuse me?”
“Let’s think about it, shall we? I’m going back to live with my drug addict mommy in a shitty, run-down apartment. We’re not all shitting sunshine and rainbows. The stability I have here, all the cushion and comfort, is going to be gone.
“I’m going to have to go back to living how I was before I ever met you or your mother,” he says bluntly.
I blink at him slowly for a moment, confusion pulling my brows close before his words bring back flashes of memories I wish I could forget—and the thought ofanyonetouching him again makes mesick.“The fuck you are,” I growl.
Abel just rolls his eyes. “You don’t really have a say-so here, Peris. You get to live your nice, comfy life, doing whatever you want.”
Steam rolls out of my nostrils. “I refuse to letanyone?—”
“My body ismine,Peris.” And with that, he shoves past and out of the bathroom, chin held high, even as tears stain his pale, flushed face.
I stare at the empty space he left—the one in front of me and the one inside me—feeling surprisingly hollow and cold, despite the heat flowing through the vents. And when I catch my reflection as I turn to leave, I laugh vacantly at the person who stares back at me.
CHAPTER 16
ABEL
I can’t seethrough the tears.
I know the flame flickers—I can feel it charring the skin on my thumb, the sensation painfully familiar, but I’m frozen at what I know is my mother’s face staring back at me in my memory.
Her blotchy, bruised skin and weak smile. My tiny, frail body hanging in her arms. That dirty, twin-sized mattress on the floor in some random drug dealer’s house. But the thing that sticks with me is the date at the very bottom of the Polaroid.
Abel. October 11th.
