WHERE TO NOW? (M/M) 18+

Chapter 40

Skinny Love.

The sun was starting to set, casting a darkness that drained the colour from my room and engulfed it in a permanent shade of black. With the curtains drawn shut, the space felt eerily like a tomb-much like my chest, an empty and decaying cavern where my heart used to live.

The tears stopped long ago, unable to fall with the numbness I felt inside. I now sat facing the room with my back against the door, my body weak and weighted, refusing to lift me.

I needed to get up, I knew that. I needed to stop wallowing like I'd told myself I would hours ago. When I walked out that door, things would be different, I said. I wouldn't keep doing what I had, the constant pain I gave myself for hoping for something that was never even an option.

Damien didn't want me like I wanted him. I was just the closest thing to an escape he could find.

I did all of this to myself by wishing for something I could never have. For thinking I was someone who could've been loved, yearning for that attention and care I lacked from the very beginning. I grew attached to him, someone who chose to be alone and purposely hurt others.

I tried to convince myself that it was all for me, that he hurt those people and did those things because I was in danger. That my pain drove him mad. But he would've done the same for any useless soul that was in trouble.

I sighed, leaning my head back against the door.

I knew he cared, I did, but to what extent? I'd spent every day with him for the last three weeks, tending to him and making sure he was okay... but that's where we differed. If I was injured, I mean really injured like he was, would he wait with me? Would he cry every night like I did?

It didn't matter anyways, I wasn't going to be a warm body or whatever the fuck I'd been up until this point, not anymore. It was over.

I pushed myself up, ignoring the stiffness in my spine from sitting motionless for hours. I needed some water, and I could vaguely hear the sound of the others messing around downstairs, completely oblivious to what was happening up here.

I made my way over to the timber dresser, sluggishly sifting through the contents I had placed inside-the items that the others had found and thought would fit me when we had first arrived here. I pulled on some new underwear, along with a pair of light blue jeans and a white t-shirt that was a little too big for me-the sleeves hanging down to my elbows but it'd do. It had a cute cartoon character on the front. Was it a bear, or a monkey? I couldn't tell but it was brown with big round ears. It looked like something Kieran would wear proudly.

At least the jeans fitted me.

I sighed, taking a deep breath and attempting to steel myself before going downstairs and pretending like everything was okay.

As I opened the door and stepped out, my eyes unconsciously swept beside me to the door a few feet away at the end of the hall. The room I'd spent so many hours in as of late, the door now left wide open.

If I hadn't felt so numb, that might have alarmed me. The thought that he was somewhere in the house, waiting for me, might have put me on high alert, readying myself for the pain of seeing him again.

Or maybe it would have just sent me scurrying back into my room like the coward I generally was, but luckily for me though, all I felt was emptiness.

My attention drew back onto my door as I turned around and pulled it shut. Darkness flared in the side of my vision, and I stopped dead in my tracks. My eyes tilted down, zoning in on the space beside my doorway.