Page 80 of Left In The Dark

“What the fuck was that?” I yell.

My dad’s face distorts. “Look, I should probably go after him. He doesn’t have the keys.”

I grab his arm as he’s walking off. “You and Hayden? For how fucking long? You’re just hopping from one young guy to the next now? Is that it?”

His brows lift. “What are you going on about? Is that something your mom’s been telling you?”

“How long?”

He scrubs his jaw. “He’s the only one there’s ever been since your mother.”

“Bullshit.”

He pulls out of my grip. “Look, believe what you want, but that’s the damn truth. It’s not like I get anything out of lying. He was the one who needed to keep us a secret for a while.”

“Yeah, well, making out at the grocery store probably wasn’t a good idea. So, is he the one mom caught you texting? Why wasn’t it his photos she showed me?”

He deflates and his hand moves to the back of his neck. “She wanted to know who it was, so I lied because like I said, Hayden wasn’t ready for anyone to know about us yet.”

I was wrong all along, and Blake was telling the damn truth. He was never with my dad. “You know he’s probably using you, right?”

“I really don’t care to hear your thoughts on what I choose to do in my personal life. It has nothing to do with you. Now, if you would excuse me, my boy’s waiting in the cold for me.”

I huff a laugh. “Your boy, huh? With the way he’s getting around these days, it seems like he’s everyone’s boy.”

“I’m done standing here listening to this.” He storms off, shoving at my cart, and I let him go, disgust settling deep in my gut.

Him and fucking Hayden. Not in a million years would I have seen that shit coming. My question is, what the hell is Hayden getting out of it? What’s his game here? Does this have to do with his own insecurities? Is he not getting enough attention from people his age anymore? Or was he the one who needed to be where Blake is all along?

I scrunch up my face. No. No, Blake is the only person who gets to be where he is. Especially now that he’s in my bed waiting for me to come home to him. It’s starting to feel like his home too. Like our home. It’s why I keep going back and forth on letting him go. This has all gone too far. I thought he was finding his way to a better version of himself, but he’s finding more damaging sides too. He’s hurting himself to get his way.

I no longer think I’m making him better. I’m no longer any better than he ever was either. I think I might be worse. And more and more I don’t recognize myself. I didn’t think we could ever be good for each other with the way he was before, and we can’t be now either. Not because of him anymore but because of both of us. Where do we go from here, though? How do I fix this? If only there was a way to do it all over.

I slam my hand on the cart handle and zoom through the other aisles, tossing in enough food to last us a week. I grab some other essentials too, adding in hot chocolate and marshmallows. I think about Blake holding his steaming cup to his mouth as we laugh in front of the fire.

He wasn’t the only one who got in the way of us having that. I did too. I still am getting in the way. I can still give him that for the last few days he’s with me. I don’t know how I’m going to let him go or exactly when, but I know it has to happen.

It has to be, for him and me. As I told him earlier, it’s time he found his way on his own, and it’s time I find my way back to who I was before I let all the wrong people influence the monster I’ve become. That’s what I am. I look at my reflection in the store’s glass doors, only seeing the masked version Blake has been getting of me.

I don’t want to be like that anymore. Blake will soon be free to make all the right choices on his own. I have to start making some too.

Twenty-Seven

Blake

I shift in the bed, lifting the blanket over me, having to untuck it to get it around the cuff. My hand lifts to my blindfold and stops when my fingers trail over the back. He’s not here. He won’t know I took it off. I can put it right back as it was as soon as I hear the front door open. He’s probably as loud entering as he is leaving. It’s an older house, so I’m sure that has more to do with it than with him. I can tell without looking, by the creaks in the floor, rustling of the pipes, and the loud thud that sounds around me, when the heater kicks on.

I thread my fingers through the ties and stop again, unable to let myself pull them free. If I take it off, I could see where I am and see if I’ve been here before. I could see what his room looks like and maybe what kind of person he is based on what he leaves on his nightstand.

I tug at the back and then let it go, sighing. He won’t know but I will. I’ll know that I’ve been bad and gone against his rules. He didn’t say for me to keep it on, but sometimes I feel as if the command is unspoken and he’s testing me.

I sit as far back as I can, stacking pillows behind me and shaking my foot, the chain rattling against the metal. I pull and pull to no avail, the rough edges digging into my skin. I crawl to the foot of the bed and tug on the bottom bed post and kick at it. It shakes a little, and when I hit it with my foot again, there’s a clinking sound. A screw came loose.

If I keep going, I can shake my foot more freely and I’ll be free too. Unless he locked the other side of the door.

“What are you doing, piglet?” I hear the words in the back of my mind and shake at the thought of not wanting to disappoint him. I don’t know why it’s worse than making him angry, but it is. He won’t hit me like my dad used to. What he does is worse. He makes sure I’m going to miss everything he plans to take away from me the minute I fuck up. And I have.

He holds and cares for me. He kisses away my sorrows and wipes my tears. He’ll hold me and touch me whenever I’m too starved for it. He gives me things no one else has, and that’s why it hurts so much, because though I lacked all those things before, I never could miss what I didn’t have.