Scarred Souls: Second Collection

by TT Kove

  There were limits to how long I could keep a hug going though, and when he didn’t seem to let go anytime soon, I slackened my own grip.

  ‘Josh?’

  No answer.

  His breathing was slow and heavy.

  He fell back asleep.

  I smothered a chuckle because really. That was a cliche if ever there was on. Falling asleep after orgasm, standard male stereotype. At least he was adorable.

  ‘Love you.’ I kissed his temple again and settled for some more sleep myself. I wasn’t particularly sleepy—I was used to being up early—but I could doze here with him for a little while.

  It was a Saturday—and we’d been together two years today, after all. That certainly deserved a lie in and cuddle in bed.

  I wished I could wash my hand though… but our tees were ruined anyway, so I discreetly rubbed it off on his since it was closest. Then I wrapped my arms around him again and just held him tight.

  I’d do anything for you, Josh.

  Even sex—once in a while.

  I was secretly glad I hadn’t had to get naked and perform again today, it was only a week since we’d done it our first time. I would do it again—maybe for his birthday, as we’d sort-of agreed on, half-serious, half-joking. But this, wanking him off… this I could do more often.

  But only because I love you.

  Because he was the only I trusted with this. The only one I trusted not to step over my boundaries. He might be emotionally unstable and good at making big deals out of trifles… but he was also pretty good at understanding me.

  I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

  That might be too early to say, having only been together two years and being only twenty… but I knew it was true. He’d buried so deep under my skin I could never be rid of him. I never wanted to be rid of him.

  He was it for me.

  My sweet, adorable, scarred, broken Josh.

  Josh

  So I wasn’t all that eloquent this morning… but I hope I got my point across. That sex doesn’t have to be penetrative every single time. We just had sex—because a hand job is sex too. Maybe not everyone thinks so, I don’t know, but as long as you do something sexual with another person… it’s sex.

  The hand job was good. I got to feel his hand on my dick. How wonderful is that? He stroked me off. A bit clumsily, maybe, but he’s never done this before. I couldn’t have expected anything else.

  And he’s open to doing this more often than actual penetrative sex.

  Guess what?

  I’m happy with that. It’s more than I ever thought I’d have. It’s just… like a cherry on top. I was happy before he suddenly started worrying about sex. That came sort of out of left field, to be honest.

  But I think we’re in an even better place now?

  Yeah, we definitely are.

  Better place, better understanding, a better relationship.

  I love him so much I worry sometimes. Worry about what will happen to me if he figures out he doesn’t want this anymore. Worry about what will happen if this love just continues to grow… because it’s pretty all-consuming now, and if grows even more there just won’t be any space for it.

  Yes, I worry sometimes… but mostly I’m happy. If there’s one thing in my life I’m sure of—and let’s face it, it’s not much I am sure of—it’s him. It’s us. We belong together.

  We might not be completely compatible, but that doesn’t matter. We are made to be together and we’re making it work. Being all grown-up and reasonable about it and all. Compromises… it’s a good thing that.

  Other people might think our relationship is weird.

  But you know what? It works for us. We’re happy together. We love each other. We don’t need anything more than that.

  We’re happy just like we are.

  And that is our strength.

  23

  Bad News

  Josh

  Chad, Tyler and I spilled out of the pub. The streets were dark at this time of night and we stumbled a little as we might’ve had too much to drink.

  ‘Bloody Wynn,’ Chad growled next to me. ‘Abandoning me earlier. We were supposed to walk home together.’

  ‘You’re the one who didn’t want to leave,’ I pointed out.

  I should’ve left earlier too, truth be told, but we’d had such a good time. And it wasn’t often I got to hang out with Tyler lately either—he was always busy studying or working.

  ‘But he didn’t have to leave me,’ Chad whined. ‘He’s used to working nights. He’s a bloody bartender, after all. I don’t get what his deal is.’

  He had been more subdued than usual, maybe. Not that that said much because Wynn wasn’t fond of speaking or showing emotions.

  I still didn’t know him, and I’d known Chad for going on two years now. As Chad’s best friend, Wynn was always in the periphery, but that was it. He didn’t get involved with anyone but Chad.

  ‘I guess I’ll just make my own way home then.’ He groaned as if this was a big inconvenience for him. Then he brought his hand to his forehead, mock-saluting us. ‘See you later.’

  I waved in farewell while Tyler only nodded.

  ‘You all right?’ I asked him as we continued down the street. We were headed the same way for now, so we still had some more time to chat.

  ‘Yeah.’ He gave me a brief smile. ‘Just one exam left and then it’s the summer holidays. Another year to go, and then three years of hard work finally pays off.’

  ‘Good for you.’ He’d gone into nursing after I first met him, specifically mental health nursing. ‘Maybe you’ll be my nurse sometimes when I’m sectioned.’

  He snorted.

  ‘Don’t say when. If. Much better. It’s not set in stone that you’ll ever be sectioned again.’

  ‘Kind of is.’ I knew myself enough for that.

  I was just being realistic.

  Yes, I had good periods, like now, but they never lasted. Something always happened to drag me back down and under.

  Whenever I tried to do good—to stop cutting, to be more emotionally stable—I always messed up. It was best to simply acknowledge that I would fail. That way the disappointment wouldn’t be so bad.

  The only thing I had still to mess up was my relationship. Though that was a struggle sometimes too.

  If it hadn’t been for Damian and his unending patience, I would’ve wrecked it a long time ago. That was me, or my disorder, something. I wrecked everything. Reacted to everything with feelings that were far too over-the-top.

  But Damian was patient, and that… that was the only thing I had. Him. Us.

  ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself.’ He clapped my shoulder good-naturedly. ‘You’re doing well.’

  ‘For someone with a debilitating mental illness living on benefits you mean?’

  ‘Now you’re just being negative.’ He bumped my shoulder with his.

  I chuckled and turned to try and shove him in return, but he was bigger and broader than me, so it didn’t really work.

  Something caught my eye behind us. Someone was walking… but they’d stopped now that we’d stopped. They stood in the dark so I couldn’t see who they were, but people coming up the pavement from the other side walked past us.

  Then the shadowed figure turned down a side-street and was gone.

  I blinked.

  Strange.

  ‘Umm…’ I shook my head.

  ‘What?’ Tyler glanced behind us.

  ‘No, it’s nothing.’ I stared walking again, but couldn’t help but glance back from time to time. That had been sort of… eery. Not that it should—lots of people were out and about even this late. We lived in London, after all.

  ‘How’s the writing going?’ he asked then, bringing my focus onto something that always held my interest.

  ‘It’s okay. Just a hobby, but… I post it online sometimes, on free sites, and people seem to like it.’

  ‘That’s good.’ He grinned. ‘Maybe you sho
uld publish it?’

  ‘Publish it?’ I stared up at him. ‘Myself?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He nodded enthusiastically. ‘Ebooks are gaining popularity. There are sites you can put your books up on and get all the royalties after they take their cuts.’

  I narrowed my eyes suspiciously.

  ‘How do you know this? Are you secretly writing stories and publishing them?’

  He snorted now.

  ‘Hah, no, I wish. I’m not very good at writing. I’m not creative enough. But this girl on my course does it. I heard her talking about it the other day. She writes straight romance, though. That’s not really your thing, is it? But there’s still readers out there for other things too.’

  I didn’t touch straight romance, no… but some of my stories had romantic elements. I tended to work through my issues through writing.

  It was sort of like therapy. I wrote about characters who’d been abused in their childhood, or when they were teenagers—or both. People who self-harmed and were mentally ill. And many of them found love even though they struggled. Like I had.

  I wanted to show there were hope for us, no matter how messed up we were.

  ‘And the blogging?’

  ‘That’s going well too.’ I’d started blogging last year, mostly about my borderline personality disorder and how life was like for me. How I tried to deal with it. How I struggled. What I remembered from my childhood and teenaged years, though never in much detail.

  Nowadays my written journals were usually reserved for things I couldn’t write about in a public forum, like my love life and sex life. Damian didn’t want his sexuality and our private business aired out there, and I respected that.

  That didn’t mean I didn’t write fiction about it though. And he’d never said anything about that, so…

  ‘Well, this is where I’m going.’ He pointed left down a side-street.

  ‘Oh, yeah, of course.’ I hadn’t realised we were at the post where we had to separate yet.

  ‘Think about what I said though.’ He winked. ‘You can still learn some money even if you’re in benefits, right? I mean, obviously you lose them if you earn too much, but if you live off your writing, wouldn’t that be kind of cool?’

  It… would. It definitely would.

  ‘I’ll think about it.’ I nodded. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No problem.’ He lifted his hand in a wave. ‘See you. Don’t be a stranger.’

  ‘That’s my line. You’re the busy one out of the two of us.’ I waved too and then continued on my way. It was still another ten-minutes till I was home.

  My neck prickled.

  I looked behind me, but there was no one there.

  Now you’re just being paranoid. Because of that guy earlier.

  It was probably nothing anyway.

  Maybe he’d just stopped to check his phone or something. I did that sometimes.

  Or maybe he hadn’t been sure where he’d been going so he had to stop to gather himself.

  Both were perfectly reasonable explanations.

  They didn’t make me feel better though.

  I started jogging and though I wasn’t in the best physical form, I made it home in half the time it would’ve taken me if I’d walked. I was winded and sweaty, but it was worth it not to feel that creepy prickling at the back of my neck.

  The flat was dark as I entered.

  Damian must’ve gone to bed hours ago. Silver and Kian too, since I didn’t hear a single sound.

  I tried to be quiet as I clicked on the lights in the living room and moved over the floor towards the bathroom. I took the quickest shower ever, due to not wanting the sound of the water running to wake anyone. I was too sweaty not to shower, so it had to be done.

  Once out I realised I lacked clean clothes, so I dumped the old ones in the hamper and simply wrapped a towel around my waist as I padded back out into the living room. My whole upper body was on full display, but since it was the middle of the night I felt pretty confident no one would see me. Not that it mattered if anyone did—they’d all seen it before anyway.

  The curtains were wide open though and I inched over to close them. Not that I thought anyone would be out on the pavement looking in on me in the middle of the night, but still—

  Someone is out there.

  The thought struck me as I stood there, my hands hesitating on the curtains as I peered out into the darkness.

  Someone was standing there, I could just make out the black human shape against the darker black of night.

  Looking in our window?

  Cold trickled down my spine, chilling me, making sure fear well and truly implemented itself in me.

  I jerked the curtains closed. They were thick and heavy, so no one could look inside now. I hurried over to the door to check it was locked, just in case. Not that I thought someone would break in.

  Or would they?

  Something itched at the back of my neck, the hairs stood on end, like someone was there, watching me. Exactly like I’d felt after Ty and I parted ways earlier.

  The curtains were drawn now though, and I knew I was the only one awake in the flat, so it wasn’t possible. Still, the body felt what the body felt, and it spooked me.

  I peeked out the peep-hole, but the hallway outside was empty. One would need a key to get in the front door, so there wasn’t just this one in the way of a possible burglar, but two.

  I inched my way past the living room windows again, debating taking another peek outside, but if the black shape was still there I didn’t want to know.

  Instead I shut off the lights and headed into the bedroom.

  Damian was sleeping on his stomach, facing the wall. That was usually my side of the bed, but when I wasn’t in it he always seemed to gravitate to my side. It was sweet, but it also left me feeling guilty because I should’ve been in bed with him.

  He had long days at school, so we didn’t have much time to spend together during weekdays. I should’ve been here and gone to bed with him. He had insisted I go out and have fun though, so there was that.

  I quickly grabbed boxers, pyjama bottoms and a tee from the closet, dropped the towel to get dressed, then crawled into bed next to him. I couldn’t see him in the dark, but just knowing he was there, breathing next to me, was enough to relax me.

  But it didn’t help in calming down my mind. That dark human-shaped form outside… I was certain it had looked in our window, but then again… our flat wasn’t the only flat in the building. Not to mention the buildings on both sides.

  He could’ve been looking in on any of them—if indeed there even had been someone out there.

  Reaching out, I put my hand on Damian’s back, feeling the warmth coming from him. It rose and fell slowly as he breathed. I wasn’t good by myself, but with him there next to me I was stronger. Mentally anyway, but to me that was the strength that counted. It wasn’t like I had that much upper body physical strength—making sure I was doing okay mentally was a lot more important than buffing up at a gym.

  Damian had to be up early for school, so I didn’t want to wake him by scooting in closer. He wasn’t the heaviest sleeper, it didn’t take all that much to wake him up. But I’d become quite good at not disturbing him during the almost three years we’d been together now.

  All I had to do was not make noise and keep my distance when I finally went to bed. If I rolled in close and touched him he was more likely to react. If I kept my distance all was good. Like now. Even with my brief touch on his back, he didn’t so much as grunt.

  Maybe he’s tired.

  He was right smack in the middle of exams, after all.

  I love him.

  That was the only thing that was clear to me.

  A big part of my personality disorder was intense, problematic relationships. But him… Three years now, and he was as patient now as he’d been back when we met. Without that patience… I really would have wrecked us a long time ago.

  I could frustrate a rock sometimes, I was perf
ectly aware of this. But when my emotions were out of control… I couldn’t help myself.

  But not him. I never frustrated him. Not much, anyway. At least I had him, no matter what.

  ‘Mmmm.’

  I woke up feeling warm and good and safe. Damian was behind me, chest close to my back and with one hand thrown over my hips.

  His breathing wasn’t the deep one of sleep anymore, so I could tell he was awake. As I stretched my legs out, his arm pulled me in tighter so he could hug me close.

  ‘Feel good?’ His voice was still rough from sleep, so he couldn’t have been awake for long.

  ‘Yeah.’ I sighed contently. He was all warm and hard and breathing against me, and nothing made me feel more content than that. Nothing could really compare to the time we spent in bed like this, spooning, hugging, resting, whatever… not even my messed-up mind could ruin this.

  He wasn’t entirely awake though, as evidenced from the way his breathing started to deepen again. He was falling back asleep.

  I lifted my head a bit to look over my shoulder at him. His eyes were closed, black hair ruffled.

  So peaceful.

  I stroked my palm over his arm, smiling. He had no trouble going to sleep, whereas I, when I was first awake, couldn’t go back to sleep again if my life depended on it. Or like at night, when I simply couldn’t go to sleep at all for no apparent reason.

  I kissed his cheek, got a low, unintelligible sound in return, then I slid out of bed. I tried my best not to bother him. It was still early, and in a little while he had to head to school, but until his alarm started blaring I’d let him sleep.

  After a hot shower, brushing my teeth and dressing in comfortable clothes, I headed into the kitchen. I had lunch with Mum today, but considering how early I was up, I could just as well have a good breakfast too.

  I had a healthier diet nowadays than I’d had back before I met him. Healthier as in eating regularly—it wasn’t like I was eating a lot of greens and whole grains. I wasn’t the best cook either, so that might have a lot to do with it. Breakfast ended up being just toast, like usual, but at least it was nourishment. I was still thin, but I’d gained some weight and muscle tone in the three years that had gone by since my stepfather had finally been put away. Since I’d met Damian.