Page 42 of Boy of Ruin
A fucking year.
But she’s with him.
She’s with him.
It’s hard to breathe, my pulse racing, thinking of her, underneath him. Of her moaning his name. Him coming inside of her, her dragging her nails down his back.
Him, choking her. Fucking her from behind while he pulls her hair.
I want to vomit. I’m going to fucking be sick.
“Hey,” O says softly, her voice meant to reassure me.
I take a step back from her, flop down on my bed, run my fingers through my hair again and pull, trying to get all of those horrible thoughts out of my fucking head.
She wouldn’t.
She needed space. She needed…to breathe. She missed him. But not like that. She wouldn’t…she wouldn’t fucking do that to me.
She knows I could never forgive her for that.
She wouldn’t.
“You’re okay,” O is saying, and that’s fucking bullshit, but as my nostrils flare, snot dripping down into my mouth, the taste of blood in the back of my throat from all the fucking blow I can’t stop doing, I don’t say anything.
She steps even closer, her hands going to my shoulders as I start to shake, a sob clawing its way up my throat.
She left me. My wife fucking left me. We were going to have a baby. She’s…the baby…they’re mine.
“It’s okay,” O says again, massaging my shoulders, then wrapping her arms around me, holding me close.
I yank my hair harder, tears falling faster now.
The sobs grow louder, my chest fucking heaving, but I try to swallow it down. Bite it back. Clear my fucked up head.
“You’re okay,” she says again, and I pick my head up, dropping my hands, covering hers with my own as I pull them off of me, between us, letting her go.
There’s a crease between her brow and I think of all the mornings I’d go over to her house, watch cartoons together while we ate cereal.
She’s always been there.
In pharmacy school now at AU, I don’t know how she can afford to be here right now, but I’m grateful for it.
For her.
I pick one hand up, run the back of it over my nose and swallow down the blood and mucus trailing down my throat.
“I’m sorry I called you,” I tell her, my voice hoarse. “I’m sorry I…”
She sinks down to her knees, kneeling in front of me, threading her fingers through mine. But I can’t do that.
I can’t do that, because my wife likes to do that. She didn’t care much for most romantic shit, but holding hands was our thing.
I disentangle mine and O’s hands, clench mine into fists, thinking of the scar on my palm. Sid’s matching one.
That meant something to me.
Coagula.
