A Little Bit

Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty-One

Warren

I can feel SJ’s eyes boring into the side of my face as I pretend to concentrate on the TV in front of us, occasionally stirring the takeout she ordered.

“You should eat,” she barks at me.

“I have eaten,” I snap back at her, immediately regretting it.

SJ has been staying with me ever since she walked in on me about to slice my pain away. She doesn’t let me out of her sight. I had to beg her to let me use the bathroom alone, and even then, she puts a timer on and barges in whether I’m ready or not.

It’s intrusive.

But… appreciated. I think if I were to be alone with my thoughts, they would probably consume me. So despite how pissy I get when she orders me around, I know it’s because she’s one of the few people who actually loves me.

“Sorry,” I mumble, conceding and shoving a mouthful in my mouth.

“More,” she demands.

I roll my eyes but take another bite, and we fall back into silence until she breaks it. “It was an accident, Warren.”

She’s been doing this every so often—trying to make me feel better. I shut my eyes, slightly shaking my head. I don’t want to think about this. I already think about it all the time recently. The memories I suppressed for so long—the ones that secretly ate at me like a cancer—are back in the forefront of all my thoughts. Reliving it all in vivid color.

“Does it really matter? It was still me. If I wasn’t on the road—” I cut myself off, unwilling to cry right now. I’m so fucking tired of crying.

When it first happened, I constantly cried, until Grandaddy sat me down and lectured me about the appropriate amount a man should cry, which I was not adhering to. Maybe if he knew why I was crying, he would have let me. Probably not, though.

So I saved it for nighttime, letting myself break when the moon stole all the light and putting my smile back on when the sun came out, until eventually, I had pushed it all down deep enough that I barely thought of it. But it was always there, in the back of my mind. The darkness. Lingering. Making me punish myself. Fucking me up like I deserve. Where no one else could see.

“You should’ve told me,” she replies quietly.

I turn to face her, looking straight into the hurt in her eyes. “Mother said not to tell anyone. No one else knows.”

She rolls her eyes and then looks at her plate, aggressively stabbing her food. “Okay well, fuck her.”

“She was trying to protect me.”

SJ throws her head back and laughs loudly, no humor in the noise, before glaring at me. “That’s bullshit and you know it, Warren. She’s always looking out for herself and I bet you … there’s more to the story here.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t fucking know,” she mutters, returning her attention to the plate. “But if I know anything about this family, it’s that there’s always other shit going on. Always .”

I let that thought roll in my head for a few seconds until I hear a sound coming from outside.

“Do you hear that?” I ask, setting my plate on the coffee table and walking toward the window.

“Yeah, I do,” she mumbles, following after me, shoving her head next to mine as I pull the curtain back.

I let out a quiet gasp when I see Eli, stumbling and singing in the middle of the street in front of my home. It’s all muffled through the window, so I can’t tell exactly what he’s singing.

“That’s Eli? Right?” she asks, raising a brow at me.

I don’t answer her. She already knows anyway. I can’t tear my attention away from him. His tall, muscular frame barely able to keep himself up as he sings something I can’t quite hear.

SJ reaches in front of me, yanking the window up.

“SJ!” I hiss. “Stop. You’re going to interrupt his… moment.”

She shrugs. “I want to hear what he’s singing.”

I go to reprimand her again, but my ears perk up when I hear my name.

“Warren and plants sittin’ in a tree. K-I-S-S-S-S-S-S-I-N-G.”

“I think there’s some extra Ss in there,” she mutters, making me elbow her ribs. “Ow,” she complains.

“Don’t joke, SJ.”

“Sorry,” she grumbles.

“Warrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeen,” he yells.

“Shit,” I mutter and turn toward my sister. “Stay here, okay? I’ll be right back.”

“That’s fine,” she says, looking back out the window. “But don’t tell me not to watch because that’s not happening.”

I roll my eyes but leave her there, practically falling to throw shoes and a jacket on before going outside.

As I slowly approach him, he’s still muttering and singing, eyes closed and face tipped up to the sky. “Eli?” I question hesitantly.

His eyes snap open, pulling right to me. It feels like it’s been forever since he set them on me, even though they’re laced with hatred and resentment, I still feel warm under their attention.

“No no no no no,” he says, shaking his head. “Don’t talk to me. I’m falling apart in peace.”

He goes back to ignoring me, continuing his song. “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the sapping… s-saply—sapling? What’s a damn baby tree called?”

“Eli, are you okay?”

That gets his attention. He stops singing, slowly turning back to me, a fierce glare fixed on his face. “No. I’m not fucking okay . How could I be okay? I will never be okay again. Is that the answer you wanted?”

His words are angry and slurred together, cutting me deeper than anything physical ever could. But I try to focus on the fact that I need to get him safely home. He trips over his own foot and almost face-plants into the street. “Oh, shit,” he mumbles.

“Maybe I should call you a ride.”

“No,” he says. It’s quiet and tortured. And when he looks at me, I see all the pain that I put there. It’s terrible. Immense and exhausting.

We’re wrapped in a bizarre stillness, the air frozen around us, and then he rushes me, grabbing my face in his hands and crashing his mouth to mine, kissing me wildly. Feverishly. Shivering all around me as he slips his tongue in my mouth.

I know I should stop this. He’s drunk out of his mind. But I may never get this again.

The last time we kissed, I didn’t know it would be the last time. This time, I know it. I can savor it, catalog his taste—his feel.

I eagerly open for him, groaning while licking into his mouth, wrapping my arms around him and wishing this wouldn’t have to stop.

He pulls his lips off of mine, pressing our foreheads together almost to the point of pain, his hands in my hair, fingernails digging into my scalp. I hold him tighter to me.

“You’ve poisoned my mind,” he mumbles quietly. Sadly. “I can’t get you out of it, and it’s killing me.”

I stay silent, tears stinging my eyes, because what is there to say? There’s nothing that can help.

“You took her from me. Then you knew and you kept it from me.” His voice cracks at the end as tears start rolling down his cheeks. “So why do I still want you?”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” My voice is a hoarse whisper, pain weaving through each of my words.

He kisses me again with his eyes shut. It’s sweet and soft, his lips moving unhurriedly against mine. Not what I deserve at all. A definite goodbye.

When he leans back, his wet eyes shoot open, looking straight into mine, suddenly so sober and severe. I try to memorize the color. How they’re dark and warm. Their caress slipping over me like silk.

“It’s not enough,” he whispers.

My tears finally spill over, my shoulders shaking, the reality that I can’t do anything to fix this pressing down on me, making it hard to breathe as I hold him for the last time.

He steps out of my arms, wiping his eyes and taking a deep breath. “Goodbye, Warren.”

Before I can say it back, or stop him, or do something else more stupid, that girl from his dorm—Katie, I think—appears on the sidewalk.

She doesn’t look at me, only Eli as she approaches him. “Hey, bud. Want me to walk you home?”

He nods his head solemnly, so she wraps her arm around his waist, turning him to start walking down the street.

“Oh. Hold on,” she says, then turns back to march up to me, pushing her finger into my chest, her face filled with uncontained fury. “I don’t know what you did, but fuck you .”

She pours as much venom as she can into those last two words then stalks back off to Eli and takes him away from me.

I watch until I can’t see them anymore and then continue to stand there, letting the cold and darkness envelop me before SJ comes and drags me back inside.