Ever so slowly, I lowered my mouth to the lime. As I did so, I felt the brush of her lips on mine.
Just a touch. Just a breath, and it ignited fire in my veins.
And at that moment, I forgot a lot. My heart stopped, my breathing quit, my thoughts cea...
「 five ✧ fruit kabobs 」 tw: mentions of ed and abuse
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The bitter taste of metal filled my mouth. The taste that I was so used to.
I tried not to cry out as I felt the burns on my back. I tried, but the tears fell anyway, and the agony was ripped out of my mouth in a deafening scream.
But the pain kept coming. I blamed myself. I knew it would happen. I knew it would just make him angrier. I knew that the burns would keep coming, that the pain would worsen and continue to encapsulate me until I blacked out.
But what did it matter? What did anything matter? Because this never got better. This terror, this hurt... it was going to haunt me until I died. It was going to cut me and shred me into atoms, until life itself as I knew it was a bloody, limp mess.
And when he finally left, the pain didn't recede. Not in my mind. The hurt clawed at my brain, scratched at my nerves, bled into my thoughts. It stained my vision until everything was red and until all I knew was that I was never enough.
I was never going to be enough, not for him.
✦✧✦✧
The dream jolted me awake. I felt sick from the memory.
I glanced around after noticing the bed was empty. Augustus was in his suitcase, a towel around his waist again.
I didn't know what to say to him after he saw my back, and I was sure that he didn't know if he should bring it up. Luckily, he did the right thing and stayed quiet.
I changed into black cargoes with a white T-Shirt and threw on a brown cardigan. I topped it with the white Converse I'd bought yesterday and gold jewelry.
This time, when Augustus and I went to breakfast, we quickly found Lacey and Callum and sat with them. Augustus went to grab some food, but I didn't join him.
"So, what room number are you two?" I asked Lacey and Callum.
"515. You?" Lacey took a sip of her water.
"706," I said.
Augustus came back and sat next to me, two plates in his hand. He slid the one with fruits over to me.
"I don't want anything," I hissed quietly enough so no one else would hear.
"Eat the fucking fruit, Laurent, or else I'm going to sit here and wait for you to finish, even if that means we miss the competition today."
Groaning, I picked at the fruit and took the smallest bites possible.
Aurora and Rohan came and joined us soon after, and after talking for a bit, I excused myself and headed back to the room.
