Despite the Pain

Chapter 22

"Does Ethan always go out this much?" I asked as Albion and I listened to his father's steps recede down the hallway toward the stairs. He'd peeked into the room, smirking at us sitting across from each other on the bed with a mess of textbooks and notes between us, and announced he'd be back in a few hours.

"N-not always," Albion smiled to himself, looking down at Buddy in his lap. The kitten was flopped on his back, stretched out over Albion's crossed legs and batting at the curling edge of one of my notebooks. Albion scratched his stomach and Buddy immediately curled up around his hand and bit at his fingers. Albion's hands and forearms had become littered with red surface scratches, though it only looked like Buddy had actually drawn blood once or twice.

My plan to get him ready for our finals involved going over all of the classwork he'd missed to bring him up to speed so that once it came time to study, we could do that together. Trying to prep him for tests more than two months away was useless.

In all honesty, I'd never really needed to bother with studying. I had never had much time to study to begin with, and for the most part if I didn't learn something when it was taught in class, I wasn't going to learn it on my own either. I listened and took notes during class, and that was enough. Writing helped me commit it to memory. That technique wasn't going to work for Albion; writing too much was still too difficult for him. It seemed to be getting harder. Every few minutes he'd drop his pencil and start rubbing his wrist.

Buddy wormed out from under Albion's hand, apparently bored with the attention, and abandoned us to sit in the window. I watched Albion tug at his fingers, frowning down at the page of notes in front of him.

It was math, his worst subject, and one I wasn't particularly fond of either. He had been struggling to keep up with the class, let alone fill in the gaps in what he had been missing. It didn't help that Collins was an insufferable asshole, and seemed to be even harder on Albion because of the exceptions that needed to be made for him.

I flipped my book closed and started to straighten out the mess between us. Albion looked up at me as I reached for the book in front of him and stacked it on top of my notebooks.

"P-please tell me we're d-done," he said as I lifted the stack to move it off of the bed.

"We're done," I smirked, dropping the pile to the floor. He sighed in relief and grabbed me by the wrist as he stretched out to lay down. As he pulled me down I pressed myself to his side, hooking my arm around his waist and kissing his jaw.

"I hate math," he said, his eyes fluttering closed. The recent change in his medication had him tiring out far quicker than he usually did. For his sake, I hoped it wasn't a permanent change. He'd never make it through a full school day like that, and that was part of the deal to get him to move up the next year.

"Me too," I said, nuzzling against his his neck. He wrapped his arms around me, letting out a contented sigh. His fingers traced lazy circles over my back and I smiled to myself.

We hadn't found any true privacy since that night in the kitchen and that was the first thing on my mind. I loved the bursts of confidence he had shown me on that night as well as the nights leading up to it.

I hooked my leg over his, turning my face to kiss his neck. Albion hummed quietly, his throat vibrating under my lips as his arms tightened around me. All I could think of was what he said to me. He wanted to undress me. Did he mean it? I shifted to kiss him, making it as slow and deep as I could stand. "You're not too tired, are you?"

"N-no," he smirked. I smiled and kissed him again, tugging at the hem of his shirt. He sat up, allowing me to pull it up over his head. I laid back down with him, shifting to straddle his leg. Albion slipped his hands under my shirt, smoothing them over my skin as he pushed it up.