Page 164 of Ghost Ribbon

I snapped out of my thoughts and pointed at the snacks.

The bags on the counter. The strawberry gummies and the strawberry chocolate and the strawberry-flavored everything that Ilya had brought over. “Don’t bring him that anymore. He can’t eat them.”

Ilya looked over them. “I didn’t know.” He sounded defeated. The bags he brought this time weren’t even opened. They were all fully closed, which was a first because he would usually eat half of them on the way here.

“It’s okay, but having them here and not being able to eat them will just make him sad. You can bring him more when he’s better.”

When he’s better.

Not if.

When.

After Ilya left, we went to the bedroom.

I thought we would be sleeping.

That was what I expected because I had not touched him lately.

I was scared to hurt him.

Sure I held him. I caressed him and kissed him but I didn’t do anything beyond that. For weeks.

We were in the bedroom. The lights were off. The city glow came through the curtains. Then he reached for my face.

His fingers found my jaw and he kissed me. “Fuck me.”

I pulled back. “Marco, it’s not a good idea.”

Hurt flashed in his eyes and I wanted to slap myself.

He looked down at himself. “Is it because…” he started, and his voice was tentative. “I know I look worse than before. I lost a lot of weight, so I c—”

I cupped his face and made him stop talking.

God.

How could this pure, beautiful angel think so badly of himself?

How could he look at his own body - the body I had memorized, the body I had traced, the body I had held and kissed and worshipped in every state, in every condition, in every version it had ever existed in - how could he look at it and see something lesser? Something worse? Something that would make me not want him?

How could he not know?

How could he not know that he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen? That he had been the most beautiful thing I had ever seen since the night I first saw him?

How could he not know that his body - every version of it, every state of it, every diminishing, failing iteration of it - was the only body I had ever wanted? The only body I had ever craved?

“Malyshka,” I grabbed his attention. “You look as beautiful as ever. I just don’t want to hurt you.” I caressed his face.

I hate how insecure he is because he was the prettiest thing I had ever seen.

That was not a matter of opinion. That was a fact and I could not make him know it and that inescapable failure was one of the great torments of my existence. But I knew why he was like this.

I followed Dimitri’s footsteps and I didn’t stop at the medical files. I obtained records from every school he attended, piecing together years of his life that he had never willingly given me.

He had been bullied. Badly.

And I hated myself for not being there.