Page 9 of Michael's Awakening
“Thank you for coming, Michael. I know you weren’t too excited about it, but I’m glad you came.” He nodded at me and shook my hand.
I raised my eyebrows at him, surprised that he was more observant than he seemed. I thought I had hidden my disdain quite well.
“I apologize if I seemed rude. I really did enjoy myself.” That wasn’t a complete lie. I enjoyed watching my angel perform.My angel?Where the fuck didthatthought come from?I seriously needed help. Perhaps it would be a fun story to tell my psychiatrist about when I saw him next. “I’ll see you Monday at the office.”
I turned from him and halted.
There he was. Just a few feet away.
Gabriel was saying goodbye to an attractive woman with medium length, reddish-brown hair. My curiosity was piqued. Who was she? After she walked off, Gabriel turned back around and stood with two men, one of them older– his father?– and the other one looked to be just a little older than Gabriel and was very handsome. All of them smiled, and the older man looked as if he had tears in his eyes.
A spark of jealousy hit me square in the face as I thought of who the younger man could be.His boyfriend?A low growl formed in my throat at that thought.What the fuck?I needed to get out of there before I did something fucking stupid.
As if sensing my eyes on him, Gabriel glanced up and locked gazes with mine. Time seemed to freeze in that moment. My heart pounded almost painfully as I looked into his eyes. From that close, I noticed his eyes were a stunning shade of light blue. They made a very beautiful contrast to his features.
The way he stared at me, I could almost believe that he felt the same unexplainable connection between us as I did. As if we were two magnets that couldn’t help but be drawn together.
People say that when you find your soulmate, everything just clicks together in your head and you feel like you have found the missing part of yourself, the missing part of your soul. I wasn’t sure if I believed in the concept of soulmates, but in that moment, almost anything seemed possible, as long as Gabriel was there with me.
He broke eye contact first and glanced back at the older man, answering a question that I hadn’t heard. Just like that, all hope disappeared. He hadn’t felt anything, I was sure of it.
I never saw him look back.
Abruptly, I started walking toward the exit, almost desperate to be alone and in my own space. Life was a cruel bitch. I knew I’d probably never see Gabriel again and that revelation felt like a punch to my gut. It was my destiny to have such beauty put before me, just to have to watch it drift away.
Finally back home, I took a hot shower, trying to relieve the tense muscles at the base of my neck and shoulders. I was suddenly agitated and my blood was boiling. After a while, the sensation of the water plummeting down on me only added to my frustration. Hastily flipping off the water, I grabbed a towel and wiped myself off before wrapping it around my waist and exiting the shower. I snatched my toothbrush, squeezed toothpaste on it, and began brushing vigorously. A little too vigorously because the metallic taste of blood landed on my tongue, causing me to spit.
I was a fucking mess over someone I never even spoke two words to.
Begrudgingly, I glanced at my reflection in the mirror.
Dark green eyes were set into a pale face, framed by short, slightly tousled, raven-black hair. My eyes trailed from my face and down to my chest, filling me with a repulsive urge to claw at my skin to try and hide the marks that were now a permanent part of me.
Burn marks covered my chest, along with deep cuts that had turned into rugged and jagged scars. The scars wrapped around and covered the vast majority of my upper back as well and left almost no area untouched. Even after all these years, I could still feel them being burned into my skin as if it was yesterday. I could still remember the way the blade felt as it was unmercifully and forcefully sliced into my skin. The sense of hopelessness I had felt almost every day of my childhood was still ever present in my mind.
My mother had been a cruel woman… and I had been her puppet. I believed I was a beast because that’s how she’d made me feel. Worthless. Unlovable.
I was hideous.
I was unworthy of love because I had never been shown it. If my own mother never loved me, who else ever could? My wretched soul yearned for salvation, but who could ever see past my scars and accept me for who I was?
My life was destined to be filled with meaningless one-night stands. I never let the men touch me– or see me. I’d always fuck them with them on their knees and with me positioned behind them, driving into them until we both reached our climaxes. I always made sure that they enjoyed it, I wasn’t cruel. But, there were certain rules that had to be followed. No touching was one of those rules. No kissing was another.
Fuck this shit.
It was just past nine o’clock on a Saturday night and I wasn’t going to sit and sulk in my house. I needed a distraction, a distraction from the emptiness that was ever-present in my chest. I just wanted to feelsomething.Anything. Something other than the numbness that consumed me when I saw those striking blue eyes staring back at me from the shadows of my mind.
There was a gay club calledRawthat I frequented when I needed a quick hook-up and to forget about my sad excuse of an existence for a while. Pulling on a black, quarter-sleeve, button-up shirt and dark-wash jeans, I grabbed my wallet and keys and headed out the door.
