Page 61 of Hooked On Him
“Come on, bestie. We have jars to fill. Whoever collects the most interesting thing, buys supper.”
“You're on.” I grin.
He winks before his eyes drop to the ground.
A joy I don’t think I’ve ever felt before fills my chest as I laugh, eyes dropping to the ground too.
An hour later, we stopped to sit on a rock, showing each other what we found.
“Oh.” My eyes light up. “That looks like a piece of a blue china plate.” I take the piece from Austin and roll it around in my fingers, the edges smooth before handing it back.
“What about you?” he asks, taking my jar and lifting it up to get a good look. He lets out a whistle. “Damn, Levi. You found some good stuff. Wait, is that?” he pulls out a pretty blue broken marble. “Not the kind of glass I thought we would find.”
“Cool, huh?”
“Love it.” He agrees.
It’s my favorite find, even though I have a ton of sea glass and rocks I’ve found. It’s because it’s the same shade of blue as his eyes. But I don’t tell him that, not wanting to make the moment weird.
We sit and look through what we found, enjoying the quiet, until Austin breaks it.
“Did he do that a lot?” Austin asks.
I look up and cock my head. “Huh?”
“Your ex,” he says. “Did he put you down like that a lot?”
“Oh.” I look away, out to the sea. My gut sinks just thinking about Brogan. “Ah. Yeah.” I clear my throat. “I guess he did.”
“What a fucking piece of shit.” Austin growls.
“He wasn’t like that at first,” I say, not sure why I’m defending him at all. “When we first started dating, he was really sweet. It wasn’t until he got on the football team the next year that he started to change. He got bugged about being gay, but it wasn’t because he liked guys. It was because.” I play with a piece of sea glass, rolling it around in my fingers over and over again as anxiety fills me. “They thought I was weird.” I shrug. “Too nerdy. Too feminine? I mean, maybe the nerdy part, sure, I kind of looked the part. Not that my brain fit. I was an average student for the most part, just really good at science. It fascinated me.” I shrug again. “But I didn’t think the feminine part was true. Not that there’s anything wrong with a man being feminine. I just.... The things he started pointing out didn’t make sense. I wore too much red, or the way I got excited was too girly. The movies I watched, music I listened to. It wasn’t manly enough for them, I guess.”
Austin says nothing and lets me talk, so I keep going.
“It went from criticizing what I liked, to how I looked, to how I talked, to well, everything about me.” I blow out a heavy breath,a weight on my shoulders as I think about the past. “By the time we graduated, I felt like I had changed everything about myself to please him. He made me into exactly what he wanted. And I was miserable.”
“What made you leave?” he asks, voice low but strained like he’s holding himself back. About what? I don’t know.
“Promise you won’t tell my brother?” I ask, finally looking at him.
His blue eyes blaze back at me. “You can trust me with anything, Levi.” And I really feel like I could trust him.
So that's why I tell him something no one knows but me.
“I was depressed. But I was really good at hiding it from my family. Getting up in the morning was hard, but I knew I had to go to school. I was hardly eating, afraid of getting some kind of fat joke from Brogan.” Austin growls but doesn’t say anything. “I was sharing a dorm room with Brogan, and one night, he came home drunk from a party. Something I stopped going to with him because I never felt like I was happy there. Anyways, he climbed into bed, waking me up.” Bile fills my stomach as I speak. “He wanted sex.” I huff out a laugh. “I always wanted sex. And he had the nerve to tell me I was the needy one. That I had too high of a sex drive. No, it was only an issue when I wanted him to do things to me. Not when he wanted to stick his dick in me, get off, and roll over.” I grow frustrated, grabbing a piece of rock next to me and throwing it out to the water as anger fills me. “And that's what he wanted that night. For me to lie there and be a hole so he could get off and go to sleep. I wasn’t feeling good. I wanted to go back to sleep. But he wouldn’t let me. I told him no. And he told me I was being an asshole. That he wouldn’t take long and just let him fuck me. That it wasn’t a big deal.”
I turn back to Austin with angry tears in my eyes. “It was a big deal, Austin.” My voice breaks. “I said no. And he kept putting me down until I gave in. And when I confronted himabout it the next day, he told me I was overreacting. He said that I was making a big deal over nothing, that all I wanted was attention. That’s when I knew I had to make a choice. Break up with him because he didn’t love me. He didn’t care about me. Or, end my misery because that’s what I was. Miserable.”
A choked sound leaves Austin as tears spill down my cheeks. “I chose me.” I laugh. “For once in my life, I chose myself. I told him it was over, and I got a place with Cole. Brogan put me down, called me every nasty name in the book. But I didn’t let him change my mind. I chose me.”
“I’m so fucking proud of you,” Austin rasps, taking the glass jar from my hand and placing it next to him before pulling me into his lap.
I wrap my legs around his waist and back as he wraps his arms around my neck, his hands cupping the back of my head. He pulls me down, putting his forehead against mine. “I’m so fucking proud of you, Levi. You didn’t deserve anything that asshole did to you. He was the one who wasn’t good enough. Not you. He was the one who was sad and pathetic. Not you. He is the one not worthy of love. But you are Levi. You are so worth it. You are sunshine and happiness. Kind and loving. Empathetic and caring. You deserve the world, Levi. To be happy, to be loved. Everything. Do you understand me?” He growls, the grip on my hair tightening.
I’m fully crying now, nodding as I try to keep it together, but I can’t. I break in Austin’s arms. A man whom I’ve always felt close to, but never like I do right now.
He pulls me into a hug, and I cry against his chest.
