Page 12 of Tears and Other Fears

He tried not to see me. He avoided my gaze, but I kept steady. Riding his cock in a crowded luxury car, parked in an abandoned alley with nothing but rock music and our words to make it feel like something other than a meaningless fuck.

“No,” Young finally answered. “I’m doing this because…” He broke off mid sentence to lean forward and turn the rock music completely off, during an epic guitar rift. “I’m doing this because I couldn’t go another minute without being inside of you,” he growled as I propped my foot up on the edge of his seat to take him deeper. My other foot was still on the wheel. I felt like a contortionist, and pretty soon my feet would fall asleep, but I didn’t dare give up. “Why areyoudoing this?” he asked before moving his hands down to grip my hips, where my black dress was bunched up. He clenched the fabric and my hip bones, digging his nails into whatever inch of skin he could get his greedy hands on.

“I don’t need a reason, Young,” I replied in a breathy tone while increasing my pace. I knew he was close, could sense it in the way he was twitching. Each muscle in his torso seemed tense and ready to uncoil.

“But you have one,” he grunted in response. He was almost there. I kissed him so he wouldn’t force the truth out of me. My reasons were my own. Momentarily distracted, Young dipped his tongue in my mouth, invading me with his taste before biting my lips. It was a reckless sort of kiss and echoed the brutal fuck we were in the middle of. I scratched and clawed my way through his consciousness, hoping he would forget his question, but he didn’t.

I tossed my head back as he sank his teeth into my neck, sucking and tugging at my erratic pulse. I moaned with each lift of my pelvis. He stopped to ask me again, though. “Tell me your reason. You have one, I know you do.”

“Yeah,” I began with a smile while fucking him without mercy. “My reason is I do whatever the fuck I want. And right now, I want you.”

He came like it was something he’d been holding onto for hours. It was loud and reckless, and I watched in appreciation as his entire body melted in the driver’s seat of his fancy BMW. I owned his body and every bit of his self-loathing. I owned his misery. I owned how he missed William, and took whatever bits of jealousy and confusion he had to offer, knowing that there was no going back.

Nathaniel Youngblood was mine, for now.

Chapter 7

The next morning,I snuck out of Young’s bed. We’d raced home and enjoyed three more rounds of furious fucking. It was wonderful, until I’d woken up.

It wasn’t the sex that bothered me. No, I’d been liberal with my body ever since I learned the power it had over people. Fucking was just souls bringing each other a sense of relief. I’d never feared an orgasm, nor had I ever shied away from the judgment associated with having no conscience.

It wasn’t the sex that fucked me.

It was the way Young held me that night. He cradled my head like I was something worth treasuring. It really got to me, made me want to vomit in his bed and run as far away as I could. Intimacy was a weakness of mine. Everyone I ever trusted to love me failed me in one way or another, and I knew that Young would never truly love me, at least not as much as he loved William.

So I put on his shirt like a souvenir and left for coffee the next morning, with plans not to return. Maybe if I left Young with a cold pillow, he’d remember that I wasn’t good enough for his affections.

I wandered around for a while, staring at people and shop windows until I found myself in a coffee shop bustling with people. It wasn’t until I looked around that I realized it was the place Young used to frequent with William. I figured it was my dead brother’s way of fucking with me, reminding me that he had something special with Young that I never would.

I ordered coffee that matched my soul: sickly sweet with more creamer than substance. I wasn’t a fucking cliche that liked the bitter taste of black coffee; I was something that people craved, and I sure as fuck wasn’t good for the people that ordered me.

Sitting in the same neon orange chair at the same table as before, I stared at the cheesy sign that read “Live your best life” and snorted. What a bunch of crap. There was no such thing as abest life.There was only survival.

I sipped the creamy goodness while trying to remember if I brushed my teeth that morning. I had been so desperate to get out of there that I didn’t even look in the mirror.

“Is this seat taken?” a gruff voice asked. I looked up and sneered at the person wanting to sit next to me. I’d hoped that it would be a while before I had to see Samuel Smith, but it seemed fate wanted to destroy me today.

“Do whatever you want, Samuel.” I knew he’d choose to stay. If I really wanted him gone, I’d pour my scalding coffee in his face and laugh as the police carried me away. They say it’s best to keep your enemies close, and since I once let Samuel inside of me, that meant I’d internalized his evil.

He sat down, sans coffee. I bet he didn’t drink the stuff. Samuel started his day with the blood of his enemies and went from there. “Did you get my flowers?” he asked. What an odd question to start off with.

“Yeah, they smelled like gun smoke,” I replied. I didn’t actually know if they did. I was too busy symbolically chewing on the petals and discarding them. “Did you pick them out? Or did you just order something generic to feel better about yourself?”

Samuel reached over and grabbed my coffee. He took a tentative sip, and I fleetingly wished I could have poisoned myself and taken him down with me. “This tastes disgustingly sweet,” he said with a wince before sliding it back over to me.

That was the fucking point, Samuel Smith. Everything I did had a point. It was one of the many consequences of feeling everything and nothing. You had to act with intention and claim every last metaphor you could.

“Why are you here?” I asked with a frown. I couldn’t even finish my coffee, knowing that his lips had touched the rim of my cup. Maybe that was the real reason I couldn’t come while at the institute. My cunt had been tainted by Samuel Smith.

“Have you told anyone?” he asked.

“I’ve told everyone,” I replied before getting up to throw away my nearly full drink. When I got back to the table to sit down, Samuel was shaking in his seat with anger. “Luckily for you, everyone thinks I’m crazy. No one wants to believe a grieving sister with a history of hospitalization.”

It was so fucked up. The stigma of being out of your mind meant that anyone could hurt you and get away with it. The only proof I had was me—and everyone thought I couldn’t be trusted. Figured.

“Does it help that I hate myself?” Samuel’s question caught me off guard, and I legitimately didn’t know how to respond. Did it help? Yes. Yes, it did. But did it bring back my brother?

No. No, it did not.

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