Page 36 of Fracture

I hang my head, wishing the ground would swallow me up and take me down to them. I’m overwhelmed with the feeling of not wanting to be here, to be anywhere but here where everything is complicated, sharp and painful.

“I love them both.” I lean on their graves, feeling the rough stone under my palm. “And I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to lose one of them.” I raise my face to look at my dad’s picture. A face like mine. Paler, with blue eyes. But the same smile. The same dimple in his cheek. “I wish you were here, Dad. I wish you could tell me what to do.”

My father simply smiles at me.

Footsteps sound on the path, along with the clacking of a cane. I turn to see a man in his Sunday best coming down the path, a golden pocket watch hanging from his vest, and black fedora perched on his thinning grey hair. He spots me where I’m kneeling on the ground, and his face twists into a scowl.

“Ah,moj bezuzytecny wnuk.”My useless grandson.

I hastily wipe my red face, and rise to my feet. “Dziadek.”Grandfather. “Nice to see you too.”

He grunts, shaking his head. “Surprised you even know where to find them, since you never bothered to come out here. Not even once.”

“It’s not easy, you know.”

“Better for them.” He retrieves a white handkerchief from his pocket, and leans over to wipe the glass over my father’s picture. “They’d be so ashamed of you.”

“They were never ashamed of me.”

“Did they know you were an abomination in the eyes of our holy Father?” His crinkled eyes narrow as he takes me in. “Not that your poor excuse of a mother would care,brudny.” He spits on her grave, and rage so violent wells up in me that I have to stop myself from taking his cane and beating the old bastard to death.

“My father loved her, and that meant nothing to you.” My fists are shaking at my sides. “You’re the abomination, you hateful old fuck.”

“Get out of this place!” He points over my shoulder, his face thunderous with rage. “Get out of this place, you are not welcome here!”

I get in his face, staring down at his tiny, frail form. “You’re going to die soon, and you’ll be all alone. And I will burn down your fucking house, and I will come here and spit on your grave, just like you spit on hers.”

“Do it, I will be laughing at you from Heaven.”A hacking laugh bursts from him.

“You’ll be rotting in hell, and even that will be too good for you.” I back away from him, placing a kiss on my fingers and placing them on each of the headstones. “Love you both.”

“You are incapable of love.” His words follow me down the path, just like every cutting remark he ever made in my direction.

I tear up the dirt in the parking lot as I gun the engine of my bike, gasping for air in my helmet. Pain and anguish well up inside me, and I speed all the way back to Stella’s house. If a cop catches me, it’s a parole violation. But I don’t care. Right now, I don’t fucking care about anything except erasing this feeling from my bones, from my heart, the sharp, howling ache of everything I was taught to hate about myself and just wanted someone to fucking love me for.

Homo. Faggot. Freak.All the horrible taunts and slurs thrown after me, the bruises on my face when yet another kid had slammed my head into my locker door, when I’d been cornered again in the school bathroom by the jocks who decided the gay guy needed a dressing down. It didn’t matter how many girls I dated, how many I slept with, it didn’t matter that I told them I was bisexual. I fucked men, and that meant I was disgusting. A freak. An abomination. Their pastors told them so. Their parents told them so. Everyone told them I was wrong, and therefore, I was.

Stella’s car is gone when I pull up, and I storm upstairs. Her bedroom door is open. She’s not here.

I turn to Levi’s door, tearing it open, startling him as he’s mid-stretch. He’s on his back, head raised watching me with confusion, until I fist my shirt and yank it off over my head. His eyes move over my body with surprise and desire.

I know I’m doing something stupid, but I just need… him.

“One time.” I undo the buttons on my jeans, letting them drop to the floor. “One time, and nothing changes between us. One time, and we get this out of our systems. Then it’s done.”

He sits up, and I see he’s totally naked as the sheet slides down to his hips. “Nothing changes,” he agrees. “Just one time.”

“Good.” I cross the room and climb onto the bed, and his eyes fill with lust. “I want you to tell me what you want. What you need from me,guapo.”

He grabs my face, pulling me down onto the bed with him, kissing me, telling me just how bad he wants to be fucked by showing me with his tongue.

“I want to fuck you,” he says, breathing heavily against my lips.

“You want my ass?” I chuckle, kissing my way down his jaw as he nods.

“Y-yes. There’s lube, and condoms in the drawer.”

I crawl across the bed, and reach into the drawer, pulling out the small bottle of lube and a condom. When I roll back to face him, Levi is breathing rapidly. I lean against him, kissing him hard.

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