How to Survive Your 19th Life [BL]

Chapter 66: Hopeless

"I love you," I said, looking at Emiel's hazel, mascara-smudged eyes. I was back again. I collapsed onto my knees in the snow. Emiel rushed over to me and knelt.

"Are you okay, Sol?" he asked. Those beautiful eyes of his were gazing at me, only me. Just a moment ago they were pouring tears and now they were dry and alert.

I reached up and grabbed his face. "Whoever you are inside, Emiel... I don't care."

He didn't understand. Of course he didn't. Between this sweet young man and his murderous internal demon, I felt that I knew the demon more. He was a stranger to me when he was sweet. And yet...

Emiel cried. He wept harder than I've seen before.

I was tired. I didn't care. I walked back to my dorm and didn't say a thing to Emiel as he followed me. Once inside my bedroom, I laid in my bed with my clothes still on. Emiel got in bed beside me and held me until we went to sleep.

The next day, I went to Perkins Library to at least start studying for next semester's classes I would likely never take. There was no point to any of it but at least it got me busy. I barely ate anything. I barely slept.

There was no point to any of this.

It was more fun to watch water drip from the kitchen sink than it was to even have sex. Emiel tried to initiate. He touched me in all the places that I liked, but my erections were slow to come. Even when I did orgasm, it was lackluster and dull. At first Emiel didn't notice too much, he was burning with so much passion to fuck me. But then, he quickly noticed that I was a boring lay. I didn't top and I didn't otherwise do much else.

"Are you depressed?" Emiel asked me after a failed arousal attempt. Finn was out of the apartment for the night, doing God knows what, so we were naked in the living room, sprawled across the floor.

I shrugged. "My dad has cancer."

"What?" Emiel shouted.

"I don't want to talk about it." This was an easy excuse because I just didn't feel like being pestered about my mood. I had already blocked Malai and Henri from my phone, my parents too. I didn't want to talk to anyone. The only reason I didn't block Emiel was the obvious one. He would kill me anyway though. He always did.

Emiel rubbed my stomach and sighed. "Well you can talk to me if you need."

"Okay, cool."

He got dressed and left me to stew in my own gloom.

I wasn't sure how long I was like that for. Days blended, one after the next. Lives compounded on top of themselves in my dreams. I was dizzy with death and life and death again.

Time spent in the library was tolerable. I found myself on the top floor of the stacks randomly, led up there by a mundane pull towards past deaths. Emiel still stalked me. I would catch sight of him watching me when I wasn't holed up in my dorm. When I saw him, I usually just approached him and watched him come up with excuses for why he was nearby.

It was somewhere near the middle of the semester, maybe closer towards the end I wasn't sure, when a familiar voice called out to me on my way back to my dorm from the library.

"Solo!"

I turned to catch Henri running up to me. My heart dropped into my stomach. Immediately, I looked around for Emiel.

"What are you doing here?" I asked Henri when he was close enough. Seeing Henr at Javernick was as startling as seeing a kitten in the middle of highway traffic. I wanted to save him desperately and quickly, but I didn't know how to navigate the situation at all.

"What's going on?" Henri asked, placing his hands on his hips and furrowing his brows. "No one can get a hold of you, Solo. Not your parents, not me. You have us all worried."

I hugged myself. It might have been a weird thing to do, but the danger around us was tripling every second that passed. If I didn't get a hold of myself, I might have fallen apart. "You need to leave. I'm fine. I am busy. School. Go. Now."

I turned and started speeding towards my dorm. Emiel would see. Emiel was somewhere watching, deciding how he would slice me to pieces. Sweat broke out on my forehead. When was the last time I ate something? My stomach cramped at the thought of food. My anxiety heaved.

Think of something clever to send him away. Think of something clever!

"I hate you!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. Nearby students looked at us. I hoped this would be loud enough to be heard by Emiel.

Henry grabbed my arm and pulled me to a halt. He stepped in front of me.

"Talk to me, Solomon," he said. I focused on his neat beard, so soft looking and clean. He had the cutest straightest smile when he was happy. Now, his big round eyes were cloudy with worry. "Please Solo. You're acting crazy."

"I'm acting crazy?" I laughed. "I am the only sane one here! You all are living your lives on a hamster wheel." I balled my hands up and put them up by my chin, then started moving them back and forth quickly, imitating scurrying hamster feet. "I am cursed to suffer with knowing I am on the wheel, Chicken."

He nodded, obviously trying to placate me.

I shrugged him off and made a break for my dorm, running as fast as I could. Due to my weakened state, I wasn't very fast at all. Henri managed to keep up with me in a light jog. I stopped halfway there, panting heavily.

"You need a hospital," Henri told me. "You are skin and bones, Solo. Is this an eating disorder thing?"

"You shouldn't be here," I told him, coughing from exhaustion.

"If you texted me back, I wouldn't be here."

"I'll text. Just go home."

"Look," Henri said, shoving something in my pocket. "I am staying at the hotel in town, just for the night. Come by if you are up to talking. Otherwise, your parents will be driving up."

With that, Henri left. After catching my breath, I took his spare hotel room card from my pocket and dropped it onto the sidewalk. There was no reason for me to go see him. There was no point to any of it. I already explained my loop to Henri, just for him to forget it all when I died again.

It was all pointless...