Page 32 of Fractured Constellations
“None of that, Goldie,” Thorn chides, his fingers pulling my lip out. “Only we are allowed to abuse these lips.”
My body still gives the occasional shudder, but it’s so much better having them here, in bed with me, sharing their body heat.
“What happens when you wake up and realize that you could do so much better? That you could have someone like Rachel with her perfect curves and not have to deal with all this shit?”
Silence fills the room, but it’s charged, almost angry.
“I thought we made it clear, Star,” Chase finally replies, his arms tightening around me until I can feel the pressure every time I take a breath. “We want you. No one else. You’re perfect just as you are.”
“But you hated me like two days ago,” I argue, studying the swirls of ink that cover Thorn’s chest, which is practically right in front of my face. “You made me cry, you know. More than once. You were so fucking mean.”
Thorn’s chest heaves in front of me, his hand coming up and tilting my chin until I’m looking into his eyes. The green is dark on account of the lack of light, but I can feel the fierceness of his stare burning through me more than his body heat.
“We thought you were just here to take our money,” he says, and I open my mouth to speak, but he places a finger on my lips.Bastard. “And yes, you were, but it was for the best of reasons, Moonbeam. Nothing is more important than getting you better. Fucking nothing. Do you hear me? And we will spend the rest of our lives making up for the shit we said, proving to you that we didn’t mean a fucking word and were just being spoilt assholes.”
I huff a laugh. “You really were.”
The white of his teeth shows as he smiles at me. “Yes, we were, and nothing any of us say can atone. So we will show you how sorry we are.”
“And as for wanting bitches like Rachel, who by the way paid the price for fucking drugging you, we don’t like fake. You are unapologetically you, so authentic it hurts sometimes. I love the way you didn’t and don’t take our shit. That you don’t let the opinions of others dictate you. It’s more refreshing than youknow, Star, especially in the world we’ve grown up in, where everyone is trying to be something they’re not.”
A lump forms in my throat at his words, at the sincerity of them. “But what if it’s not enough? Things are going to get so much worse than night chills, Chase. I will become a burden?—”
“Don’t say shit like that!” Blade’s voice hisses in the dark, and I startle, the bed dipping as he gets on, climbing on top of me as the others shift so I’m lying on my back. Blade is on top of the covers, trapping me in a cocoon of his body as he settles on his forearms above me. “You gave us purpose when we didn’t even know we needed it. You bring meaning to our lives that were empty. You are not a burden. You are our savior, Goldilocks.”
My lips part, but no sound leaves them. How can what he’s saying be true? They’re so…well, they seem so solid and sure of everything. At least, I thought they were.
“He’s right, Moonbeam,” Thorn adds, snuggling into my side, and I turn to find his face in the darkness. “We’ve been drifting since Mom died, existing but not really living.”
“And then you came in like a supernova and blew everything out of the sky,” Chase says, a hint of a smile in his voice as he also moves closer, though Blade refuses to move, instead settling more on me. It should feel suffocating, but it doesn’t. It feels safe, like he won’t let me float away into space. He’ll hold me together.
“And try as we might, we couldn’t fight the pull, your pull,” Thorn confesses.
“It’s why we were assholes, because we couldn’t deal with what we really felt,” Blade states, and I look into the dark of his eyes, my heartbeat thrashing inside my chest.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask what they really felt, but I hold back, because I’m not sure I’m ready to hear it, or admit to myself that I might feel the same. I worry it’s just the situation. Everything feels so intense because of the looming threat mycancer presents, which can cause you to be rash when you think you may die. Decisions are made based on the fact that soon, you may not see the sun rise.
“Time to go back to sleep, Star,” Chase says after a few moments of silence, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Perhaps it’s cowardly, but it is what it is.
Blade gives my lips a quick peck, then moves off me and the bed, the others shuffling until I have my back to Chase and Thorn at my front again, our limbs intertwined.
“Where are you going?” I ask Blade, though my lids are drooping as tiredness sweeps over me once more.
He leans over Thorn, placing a soft kiss on my cheek, my eyes closing as his lips make contact. “Just some research, Goldilocks. I’ll come to bed later.”
My lids stay closed as I feel him move away, and I notice the chills have stopped, faster than they did last time. I would have been up for several more hours with bone-wracking shakes before, but now I drift off, surrounded by the warmth of my stepbrothers, my body knowing that I am safe in their arms. That they will take care of me, even if my mind wants to rebel against it and remain independent.
Being able to rely on someone else for my care, to take care of all my needs, it’s a temptation that, right now, I can’t resist. I’ll try tomorrow, but for now, I let sleep drag me under, snuggling into the bodies of two of my stepbrothers turned tormentors turned caregivers and possibly something much more.
“Rise and shine, Moonbeam! I brought your favorite disgusting green juice and some actually edible food because I’m nice like that.” Thorn’s overly cheerful voice filters into my consciousness, and I make a particularly unattractive grunt as I blink my eyes open to see the room bathed in soft daylight that filters around the curtains, which are only partly closed.
“You’re not nice,” I grumble, earning a shocked expression from Thorn, who places his hand on his chest.
“I take offense at that, pretty stepsis. I’m the nicest of the three of us and I made this juice especially for you. It’s full of all the good shit, just hold your nose and drink it down,” he informs me as I sit up, my upper lip curled at the sight of the green sludge in the glass he’s holding in one hand. There’s a plate of my favorite French toast on the bedside table, the smell actually making my stomach grumble. “Plus, I brought you breakfast in bed. That’s nice.”
I glance to my other side, finding it empty, and reaching out a hand, the sheets are cold, telling me Chase is long gone. “Where are the others?” I ask, turning to Thorn, and with a sigh, I take the glass from him. “Bottoms up.”
I do as he suggested, not smelling the juice and downing it in one go. It’s not terrible, but I wouldn’t say it’s nice either, or something I’d choose to voluntarily drink.
