by Aly Martinez
I’d never had anything I could call my own, but Eliza Reynolds would always be mine.
I ran my hands over her small body, memorizing every inch as I went. I made mental notes of the newly exposed freckles, including the one just under her right breast. I burned that one into my memory as I watched her breasts sway each time I pressed inside her.
I’d remember it all.
Because that was all I thought I’d ever have of her.
That one moment.
“Oh, God, Till,” she cried and her voice hitched.
“Say it again, Eliza. Tell me,” I demanded then roughly filled her. I needed to be gentle. This was her first time, but I was desperate. I had to hear her come again.
There was always the possibility that there would be a time in the future where I could find her and convince her to be with me again. Maybe I could get my life together and be deserving of her. Actually have something to offer her.
But even if that farfetched fantasy became reality, there was a very good chance I’d never hear her again.
“I love you,” she whispered, turning her head to take my mouth.
“You think you can come again for me?” I asked when I pulled away. I forced myself to switch to slow glides.
“I, uh . . . don’t know.”
“Come. Please.” I sat up and found her clit with my thumb.
“Shit.” Her whole body arched off the pillows as she dropped her legs open even wider.
“Please come,” I chanted, leaning forward to suck her nipple into my mouth.
I wasn’t wearing a condom, so I had to pull out. But I had to claim this last first before doing it. I wanted to be the last man she ever pulsed around, but I could settle for knowing that I was the first. I poured every resource I had into getting her off. But with every touch, I was forcing myself there as well.
“Damn it,” I cursed as I lost the battle with my own release.
Pulling out, I pumped hot cum onto her stomach. Crashing on top of her, I buried my face in her neck and repeated her name as though it would be the last time I ever said it. And it very well could have been.
“I’m sorry.” She began to rake her nails up my back.
“For what?” I responded, out of breath and with aftershocks still firing through my cock.
“That I didn’t come again.”
“Don’t apologize for that. I just covered you in cum.” I laughed, rolling to retrieve my boxers and using them to clean up her stomach while she giggled and squirmed under me.
With my boxers out of commission, I pulled my jeans on and settled on my side, propping myself up on an elbow to face her. While she had put her panties back on, she remained topless. There was no way I could leave while she was naked. I nabbed my hoodie off the ground and handed it to her. With an eager smile, she tugged it on.
Apparently, she didn’t feel nearly as awkward as I did because as soon as she relaxed on the pillows, she curled into my chest. I dropped my arm under her head, and she snuggled in tight. It was absolutely perfect. But I knew it was fleeting.
“You okay?” I asked, slightly concerned that I had been too rough.
“Mmmm, very,” she mumbled against my chest, punctuating it with a kiss.
“Eliza?”
“Yeah.”
“I meant what I said.”
“Me too,” she responded lazily, squeezing me.
I held her for several minutes before I heard her take a deep breath and release it on a sigh as she fell asleep. It was music to my failing ears. It was also gut wrenching because it signaled the end.
Our goodbye was bound to happen. People like us didn’t get handed happiness on a silver platter. We had to work for it. Her working for it meant going away to college, and mine would be hustling and busting my ass just to squeak by.
I didn’t want to let her go, but the end was near. She was leaving. I wasn’t about to be the one sitting around, watching her go. It might have been considered selfish to some, but to me, it was self-preservation. I’d remember that night. The highest of the highs.
I lay there for a while longer, grieving my loss. I didn’t regret having taken the risk for one second though. Even if she forgot me in time, I’d always have one night where, for a brief moment, my fantasy had merged with reality into a world where Eliza was mine in every way possible.
When I was able to slip out of her grasp, I walked to the window and pulled in the easel I had made her as a graduation present. It wasn’t anything fancy. Really, it was just the spare scraps of wood I had collected from my job at the construction site. I had one of the guys do me a favor and lend me a sander and some stain so it at least looked nice. It wasn’t much, but I knew she’d love it. So I left it there for her to find. I couldn’t be there in the morning to see her face when she saw it, but I wanted her to have it anyway.
I considered walking out of the door when I left that night—closing that fantasy world once and for all. Coming in the window might have been a silly superstition I’d started all those years earlier, but it felt real to me. I went so far as to grab the doorknob, but at the last second, I couldn’t follow through. So after one last glance over my shoulder at Eliza as she slept in my hoodie, I crawled back out of that magical window for the very last time.
* * *
The first few days in the real world were excruciating. My mom was a bitch, and my dad was an idiot who was always up to some bullshit, most of which was illegal. Social services were there once again about Flint and Quarry. It was the same old song and dance, but this time, I had to deal with all of it without the escape that Eliza and our little apartment provided me.
I didn’t know how I forced myself to stay away. I started taking a different route to work so I didn’t have to pass that abandoned building every day. She could have been there . . . but she probably wasn’t. She was moving on, and I was floundering.
Boxing was the only thing that kept me sane. When I missed her, I worked out. When I needed her, I trained. And when the world became too much, I imagined her. Her smile. Her laugh. That one fucking freckle haunted me. Which only made me miss her, so I trained some more. My life was a never-ending cycle that both began and ended with On The Ropes—with Eliza.
However, my body could only take so much abuse. Ten hours was the max a kid could work at the gym, but I was easily putting in at least twenty-five hours a week. Slate started forcing me to leave each night. I would have rather been cleaning the jockstraps than go home though.
Three months after I left Eliza, I was laid off from my job at the construction company. Not only did I become hard up for money, I was suddenly overflowing with free time. It was a nightmare. I couldn’t pay the rent and had nothing but time to worry about it. Thankfully, a kid at the gym helped me get a job cleaning up at the auto repair shop where he worked. The money was okay, but I learned a ton from the mechanics. They helped me buy a piece-of-shit truck from a customer who couldn’t afford to fix it. It took months to get it running, but as I drove out of the parking lot in a truck that was completely mine, I felt like the biggest success on the planet.
After that, a whole world opened up for me. Being able to travel more than a mile from my house gave me a freedom I had never experienced before. Sure, there was public transportation, but when life went to hell in a handbasket, I didn’t have to check the bus schedule now. I could just hop in my truck and drive as far as my usually empty gas tank could take me.
That truck was the reason I ended up with my father the night when everything went wrong. The night when he turned on me and I left him for dead.
The same night Eliza saved me all over again.
Chapter Eight
Eliza
I WAS STARTLED AWAKE BY a loud knock on my window. My heart began to pound from the surprise wake-up call, but as I managed to rouse my lagging mind to consciousness, I automatically knew who was on the other side. I could picture his straight, black hair barely sticking out from under the edges of a beanie and his hazel eyes—
the ones that could stir something inside me with only a single glance. I could clearly envision the sexy grin that only tipped one side of his mouth while his thumb nervously toyed with his bottom lip in that way that drew the attention of every woman in a fifty-mile radius.
As I walked to the window, I ran through every possible excuse why I shouldn’t open it. Perhaps I should have gone back to bed and sent him away without a backward glance. I wouldn’t though. Regardless that he had rejected me, I found myself absolutely unable to return the favor. Unfortunately, I was transparent because Till Page obviously knew that too.
“Doodle, open up,” he whispered from the other side of the glass.
“Till, it’s late. Go home,” I urged, knowing I wouldn’t be able to resist opening it for much longer.
“I, um . . .” His words caught with uncharacteristic emotion.
“Till?”
“Please, Doodle.” His voice cracked, which shattered whatever imaginary resolve I was holding on to.
I threw back the curtains and pried the window open. Based on the way he sounded, I was fearful of what I would find on the other side. My suspicions were confirmed when I caught sight of his blood-soaked T-shirt.
“Oh my God, Till. Are you all right? Is that your blood?”
“No,” was his only response. My eyes raced over his body, looking for any possible injury, but with the exception of split knuckles, there wasn’t a mark on him.
“Get in here.” I stepped away to allow him room to crawl inside.
“No,” he repeated with glazed over eyes. He leaned in only far enough to grab my hips and drag me out the window.
“What the hell are you doing?” I cried out as he carried me to a beat-up pickup truck.
He didn’t answer as he placed me on the seat and slammed the door closed behind me. Till might have been there physically, but his mind was lost somewhere else.
Just as he slid behind the wheel, his empty eyes swung to mine.
“What’s going on?” I whispered.
“I need you,” he said desperately.
“Then I’m here.” I reached over to squeeze his arm, but it did nothing to relax his tense, straining body. “Whose blood is that?”
He swallowed hard then shook his head in response.
It wasn’t enough though. “Please. You have to give me something here. I haven’t seen you in six months, and tonight, you showed up at my window covered in blood. I’m scared,” I said quietly, so as not to spook him. This wasn’t my rock, Till. This was a virtually unrecognizable, nervous boy.
“I’ll tell you at the apartment,” he muttered, and a pang of guilt stole my breath.
“No. Tell me here,” I demanded. “I’m not leaving.”
“At the apartment,” he repeated.
“There was nothing in that apartment but me and you. So we’re already there. Close your eyes.” I reached over and folded my hand over his.
He immediately opened his hand and intertwined our fingers. “I just want to go home, Doodle.” His voice broke as he leaned over, resting his head in my lap like he had done so many times before.
I went to work running my fingers through his hair, scratching his head in the way I knew would soothe him—but it didn’t this time. His huge body crawled even closer, wrapping both arms around me to hug my legs.
“Talk to me,” I urged again.
“No. You talk. I want to hear you while I still can.”
While I still can.
His words began to ricochet through my ears like a stray bullet fired from an unknown gun. They had been intended to be innocent, but they were deadly to me. They showed me that he wasn’t planning to stay this time either. This was but a brief stop for Till. Claiming whatever he needed at the moment before casting me aside yet again. My pulse began to race. I needed to be there for him, but who was going to be there for me when he walked away all over again? Where was he when I needed him?
“You’re the one who left, Till. I wouldn’t have gone anywhere.” I swung the door open and climbed out of his grasp. Then I hurried back to my apartment, wishing this were all just a nightmare and that he had stayed gone.
I heard his footsteps on the sidewalk behind me.
“Doodle! Please!”
I ignored him and kept moving toward my front door—my only refuge from the painful world without Till.
“Please,” he continued to beg behind me, and that single syllable destroyed me. “I just need to go home tonight.”
Funny, I wanted to go home too. I’d wanted that for a long fucking time though.
My temper slipped and tears sprung to my eyes. I spun around to face him, and he stilled just two steps away.
“There is no apartment, Till. I called the city and told them people were squatting in it. They cleared it out, gutted it, and then boarded it up tight. I sat in the parking lot and watched them do it. It’s fucking gone!” I took great pleasure in watching the words hit him like physical blows.
Yeah, kicking him while he was so obviously down shouldn’t have felt good, but it eased the pain I had been living with. It was about time that someone else lived with that shit. I was exhausted.
“No. No, no, no, no, no.” He stumbled backward before rushing forward. “Why would you do that?” he breathed before repeating it on a roar. “Why would you do that!”
“I needed it to disappear!” I screamed through my tears. “Just like you did.” I sobbed, reliving the morning of waking up without him all over again.
“That wasn’t yours to take away!” he exploded into the otherwise silent night. His words echoed off the surrounding buildings, each wave slicing me to the quick all over again. “That was our place. Not yours.” His voice cracked right alongside my heart.
“Yeah, well, there was a lot of stuff that wasn’t yours to take either.” I held his gaze, desperately trying to be strong, but as his eyes grew wide, I whimpered.
His long legs strode forward, and he stopped only inches away from me. He was crowding me, but he still leaned in closer to my face. “There is nothing in this world that was ever more mine than you,” he stated.
Though it was the absolute truth, I wished with all my heart that it were a lie.
“Till,” I cried, swiping the tears from my eyes.
“Why!” he shouted, causing his muscles to tense under the force. “Goddammit! I needed that place.”
Porch lights flashed on from the surrounding apartments, illuminating not only the dark, but also my rage.
I shoved my hands against his chest. “What about what I needed? You left! I waited in that fucking apartment for weeks.”
He didn’t budge, but my bare feet slipped, sending me toward the ground. Impossibly fast, Till’s hand snaked out and caught my arm. But I didn’t let his chivalrous gesture douse my fire. I had six months’ worth of words to say to the man I was irrevocably in love with.
“You took what you wanted. Then you left me.”
“Doodle,” he whispered.
I had been perilously close to the edge of insanity, and with one single word, he’d pushed me over.
I lost it completely.
Pounding my fists against his chest, I screamed at the top of my lungs, “It’s Eliza! My name is fucking Eliza! Not Doodle!” I spun to march away, but Till’s arms folded around me, lifting me off my feet to restrain me.
I was miniscule compared to him. There was no use in fighting, but I still kicked my legs, irrationally desperate to get away from him—but only because I knew I couldn’t keep him for forever.
“Stop it!” he growled into my ear. “I know your goddamned name—probably better than I know my own.”
While I was wrapped in Till’s strong arms, six months’ worth of tears fell from my eyes. He carried me to my apartment and guided me back through the window before following me inside. Then he stripped out of his blood-soaked shirt before dragging the blankets down and climbing into the bed behind me. I cried for a while in his arms, even turning to
face him, only to cry against his chest. I had missed him so much.
I knew I’d loved Till years ago, but this was more. I needed him in order to function on a very basic level. Together, the world didn’t feel so big and overwhelming. He was my escape—the dream personified.
Till Page was comfortable.
His hands trailed up and down my back as he lulled me until the words fought their way out.
“I couldn’t stop going back,” I announced in a broken whisper. “I didn’t know where you had gone. And for the first time since I was thirteen, I was alone inside my own head. God. It was a scary place.” I tried to joke, but the tears streaming down my face told the truth.
“I’m sorry,” he responded on a sigh. “I couldn’t stay.”
“Why?” I whined, but I curled in closer against his chest, needing to feel him more than anything else.
“I don’t know, Doodle,” he lied.
God! It was such a fucking lie. He knew as well as I did. He just didn’t want to tell me.
“Where did you go?” I pressed further.
There was no way I ever could have expected his answer, but that wasn’t because it was a novel thought. No. His answer was surprising because it was the source of my anguish too.
“The real world.” He kissed my forehead.
“Right.” I abruptly sat up, drying my eyes. “That’s exactly why this hurts. We could have gone together. But you made that choice for both us. I would have given absolutely anything to be in the real world with you.”
“You don’t understand.” He began toying with his bottom lip. “Doodle, you’re not real to me.”
To date, it was the most hurtful thing anyone had ever said to me. The tears instantly dried, and an unlikely smile crossed my mouth.
Yeah. That stings like the real world.
“Get out,” I ordered. For the first time ever, I truly, and rationally, wanted him gone from my life. No one, including my parents, could have hurt me more than he had with those five words.
He squeezed me impossibly tight.
“No. Listen to me.”
“Get. Out,” I told his chest through gritted teeth, as I lay tense in his arms. I was no longer returning his embrace; I was no longer returning anything.
