Anomaly; Stranded The Series (bxb)

Chapter 7: The Confession

The rain hadn't let up.

It had been hours since the storm hit, turning the world into a constant downpour, where everything felt soaked to its core. The jungle dripped, the sand had turned to sludge, and the sky seemed determined to drown the island in a never-ending wash of gray.

Eli sat under the shelter, his body trembling with cold and exhaustion. He hadn't moved since Jonah stormed off into the jungle. He hadn't even tried to follow him.

Part of him wanted to go after Jonah, to fix whatever had just shattered between them, but another part of him was stuck—paralyzed by the weight of what Jonah had said.

Bi. Jonah was bi.

Eli couldn't stop hearing it in his head, the word echoing like some kind of accusation. It wasn't the fact itself that messed him up. It was what it meant. What it revealed about Jonah, about their friendship—about everything they hadn't been saying for years.

But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was how Jonah had seen right through him, laid bare all the things Eli had been hiding from himself. The denial. The avoidance. The confusion.

And now, sitting here, Eli couldn't outrun it anymore.

The truth felt like a noose tightening around his neck, and he didn't know how to breathe.

He pulled his knees to his chest, his fingers digging into the soaked fabric of his jeans. The storm wasn't just outside anymore. It was inside him too. Every thought was chaos, swirling around with a kind of panic he hadn't felt in a long time.

What the hell was he supposed to do now? Pretend nothing had changed? Pretend Jonah hadn't just ripped open this ugly part of Eli's heart that he'd been desperately trying to ignore?

A crack of thunder split the sky, but it wasn't loud enough to drown out the sound of footsteps approaching from the jungle. Eli didn't have to look up to know it was Jonah. He could feel him—his presence like a pull that Eli couldn't shake, even if he wanted to.

Jonah stopped just outside the shelter, his body drenched, water dripping from his hair and down his face. He looked like he'd been through hell—his jaw clenched tight, his fists still balled at his sides, his eyes dark with some emotion Eli couldn't name.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The rain filled the silence between them, a relentless backdrop to the tension that had been building for weeks—for years.

Eli's chest tightened, his fingers digging deeper into his legs, like holding onto himself was the only thing keeping him from falling apart.

Jonah didn't move closer. He stood just at the edge of the shelter, staring down at Eli with an expression that was impossible to read. Hurt? Anger? Desperation? Maybe all of them.

"I can't keep doing this," Jonah said finally, his voice rough, raw.

Eli blinked, looking up at him, startled by how quiet Jonah sounded. Usually, Jonah was loud when he was mad—aggressive, forceful. But this wasn't that. This was something else. Something deeper.

"What are you talking about?" Eli asked, his voice hoarse.

Jonah swallowed hard, his throat bobbing as he struggled to find the words. When he finally spoke, it was with the kind of vulnerability Eli had never seen from him before.

"I can't keep pretending," Jonah said, stepping under the shelter now, closer but not too close. His eyes locked on Eli's, and Eli felt like he was being seen in a way that made him want to crawl out of his own skin. "I can't keep pretending like I'm okay. Like everything's okay between us."