The Sweetest Summer

Chapter Thirteen - Savage Love

** Anyone figured out, each chapter is named after the song that inspired it?! Thanks for reading, you gorgeous people ❤️**

"I lied before." Eli said, his lips moving, but barely making a sound.

"What do you mean you lied?" I strained to hear him, subconsciously leaning toward him, despite the way my stomach turned at his admission of guilt.

"Earlier this summer, when I told you we were on a break from filming, I lied." I furrowed my brows but said nothing. "I actually took some time for personal leave."

"Oh. Kay." I said slowly, looking back out to the lapping water for clarity. Eli was quiet for several moments before he spoke again.

"It's my mom." I swallowed dryly. "She's cheating again..." My eyes snapped back to his pained profile. I searched for his hand on the blanket, but he didn't look at me even when I interlaced our fingers.

"Dad called me on set in Vancouver in hysterics, begging for me to come home and be a part of their 'healing process'." Eli's face contorted into a grimace. "They're at a marriage rehab place off the coast." I ran my thumb across the back of his hand, hating the pain all over his face.

"Maybe it was all just a misunderstanding..." I surmised, but the ashamed look on his face told me otherwise.

"She admitted it, last week. In their counseling session." I put my head on his shoulder and rubbed his arm, my heart breaking for the way his shoulders shook. It wasn't the first time Eli's mom had been unfaithful. When I was ten and he was fourteen there had been rumors of an affair with a photographer in South Africa. Eli's dad had been home, raising him while his mother and her modeling career were off God knows where, doing God knows who.

"I was at their retreat that week I went missing. I was being a part of our fucked up family therapy, where cell phones were not permitted..." Eli shuttered as if reliving the session.

"I'm so sorry, Eli." I nuzzled into his shoulder and he shifted to put his arm around me.

"Yeah. It really sucks, I'm not gunna lie." He started rubbing circles on my back. "I planned on just staying for the therapy, but after the 'break through' my dad asked me to stick around, and watch the house, and attend a couple more sessions." My selfish heart hammered at the idea of Eli staying longer.

"Well, you know I'm always here for you, if you need me..." I glanced back up to his face and he pulled away slightly.

"That's the problem kid, I always need you." My heart raced even though he used that stupid fucking nickname I hated. "I think about you all the time. When I'm with you. When I'm not with you..." His long fingers trailed down my arm and laced with mine again. "But I can't be what you deserve." He leaned back and looked out to the water, crossing his arms over his chest so his biceps bulged out at me. As much as I admired the rope-like muscles, I didn't like the sound of him deciding what I deserved, or the way his body was now closed off to me.

"Oh yeah, and what do I deserve?" I choked through my teeth, begging myself to be strong. Eli turned at the sound of my grief stricken voice and stared at me, his eyes hungry, and his voice urgent.

"You deserve someone who will worship you and give you all of their time. Someone who will give you their heart, and their body, and everything you've ever dreamed of, and even more that you haven't." He placed his large hands on my cheeks and his blue eyes burned a hole right through me. "You deserve someone who will love you wholeheartedly...and I can't be that for you this summer." Eli pulled away and it felt like he pulled my heart right out along with him.