Page 75 of Bitter Truths

After the break, I return to school glumly. Aaron still isn’t speaking to me beyond hello and good night, and my heart hurts at the distance between us, but I don’t know how to bridge the gap after my shitty behavior, so I mope instead.

With everything that’s been happening, I finally have the itch to open my paints, and even though I’m not painting on the walls, which, let’s face it, is a good thing, I’m putting my passion into creating. It feels so good that I immerse myself only to be reminded when Aaron intervenes that I do have to participate in the real world.

I’m relieved to be able to create, even though my new obsession is still my old one, namely Griffin. Except, this time, I’m stuck on how he looked during the times we fucked, and I spend many an hour trying to recreate his face, to no avail.

How do you capture something so feral and beautiful on a flat piece of canvas?

“Hey,” Aaron says quietly, stopping at my door.

With a small smile, I turn to him awkwardly with my brush in my hand. “Hey.”

“What’s this?” He steps into the room and looks over my shoulder, and I resist the urge to cover the canvas up.

It’s not my best work, but even if it was, painting Griffin feels intimate to me, something that I can’t share with Aaron or anyone else because it’s all so painfully real.

It’s a part of me and a piece of Griffin he shared, which makes it sacred in a way.

“Hals, this is amazing,” he breathes, and I smile shyly, both pleased and embarrassed.

Griffin is lying on a bed in the portrait, with the covers up to his navel and a sexy peek of his happy trail on display.

His eyes are lidded, and he has that smirk I love to hate, but the intensity behind his eyes, it’s the same expression from when we were kids. Looking back on it now, I realize that passion never really went away, even when he was distant and cruel. Is it true? Did he love me even then?

“Thanks,” I say hesitantly, turning away and dropping my paintbrush in the water beside the easel.

“Hals,” Aaron says quietly, and closing my eyes, I sigh.

“I’m sorry. I was a jerk, and you’re right. I was wrong. And I . . . I’m just sorry.”

“Okay,” he says simply, and I spin to him incredulously. “Okay? That’s it?”

He shrugs, his mouth pulling in a wry smile. “Yeah, did you want more? I can punish you if you’d like?”

His words bring back Dr. Marks’ assertion, and I shiver before pushing it away. “So, you forgive me?”

“Of course,” he says simply, and I smile before tears fill my eyes. Aaron is so easy compared to my other relationships, and I need him. Thank fuck he seems to need me, too.

“C’mere,” he says, and I rush into his outstretched arms, burrowing deep.

He rocks me quietly before pulling back and saying, “C’mon, you can’t hide in here forever.”

∞∞∞

I glare out the window as it snows again. I hate the fucking cold. I mean, really. The past few weeks have flown by, and I’ve gotten no further in terms of the thoughts that consume me. Griffin has been achingly cold in our shared class, and he sits a few rows up and away from me. While I yearn for his beautiful smile, I turn away from it and him with a curl to my lip. To say I’m confused would be an understatement.

I’ve not heard more about my video fiasco, and I’m simultaneously relieved and annoyed. Would a little pain and suffering on their end be out of order? Still, I’m glad it hasn’t come back to me because I worried it would affect Griffin, too. All things I should have thought about before I went to Randy’s basement and blackmailed him.

I’m turned from my brooding when I spy Aaron’s reflection in the window. “C’mon, it’s just snow.”

“I hate snow,” I mutter.

“What did snow ever do to you?”

“What did snow ever do to you?” Griffin asks with a smirk.

Smiling, I grab his hat off his head and shriek when he pulls me up by the waist and swings me around. With a huge grin, he drops me to the floor gently and proceeds to tickle me mercilessly.

“Uncle,” I cry, and he smirks, leaning over my face with his devastating hazel eyes.

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