4. Peris

“Yo, he’s staring at you again,” Gabe comments as he dribbles the ball, standing resolutely in the middle of the court. I pull up short, whirling around to exactly where Abel Silver is, unable to hide the fact I knew where he was because I can fuckin’ feel his eyes on me like nails on a chalkboard.

“Yeah, I know,” I grit out, pressing my hands to my knees, bent over as I catch my breath. The sun is hammering down, hot as shit for September still.

It’s been two weeks since I saw Abel fucking around with another guy at school. Two weeks since I came in my pants, gaze locked with his in the shadows. Everything hidden laid bare to a stranger.

A stranger who saw. Who knows. And now he’s just always… there. A devil on my shoulder, only bigger and more annoying… and prettier.

Gabe snorts. “You’ve got your own little stalker, eh?” he teases, coming up close. I feign switching to the left, but he knows me and keeps moving forward. He bypasses me and shoots the ball, landing a perfect three.

“Fuck off. Goddamnit,” I growl, yanking at my sweaty hair, pulling it back from my face. My teeth click, muscle pulsing under the pressure. Don’t look at him. Don’t look…

Our eyes meet. His bright, silver irises flash, lashes fluttering. He purses his lips and… He fucking didn’t.

“Did he just blow you a kiss?” Gabe balks at my side. A growl bubbles in my chest, seconds away from spilling out between curled lips before Gabe’s laugh shatters my train of thought. I whip around to face him, balking at his laughter. He’s hunched over, ball rolling around his feet, discarded.

“What the hell is so funny?”

He catches his breath long enough to choke out, “He’s obviously flirting with you.”

I rear back, blinking rapidly. “He is not.” Absolutely fucking not. I don’t know what exactly he is doing, but flirting he isn’t. He’s just… fucking with me.

Because he knows.

He saw, and he knows, and he’s playing me. Like a goddamned fiddle. And I’m trying so hard to resist. To keep this… charade in place. But just looking at Abel makes it obvious how frivolous it really is. Because the only other person to ever break through is Gabe. But it’s… different with him. He’s seen some of the darkness and stayed, let me play the part I needed to survive. To make it through every day mostly intact.

Abel just wants to dismantle me entirely, it seems.

“He is, man. Hate to break it to you. Are you that obtuse?”

“No, but?—”

“Does he know you don’t swing that way?” Gabe asks conversationally, back to it, ball back in hand.

Do you know that I wish I fucking didn’t?But Gabriel doesn’t know. And now that Abel saw me, like… that… I can’t forget it anymore, either.

So much for living in denial.

Fucking shithead.

“He’s not flirting with me. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say shit like that again.”

Gabe narrows his eyes. “Don’t be fucking homophobic, Peris.”

My feet stumble to a stop. “I-I’m not,” I stutter, thankful I’m already beet red from exertion so my shame doesn’t display so sharply. “I just don’t like what he’s doing.”

He scoffs, back to utterly unbothered in a flash. “Yeah, dude. That much is obvious. But he seems to have latched onto you for whatever reason. Like a lost puppy.” That makes him snort. I roll my eyes, which find their way over to Abel again.

This time with that word ringing around in my head. His clothes are always so big when his body is so small. And sharp. Like his bones could slice right through his skin if he moved the wrong way.

“Did something happen?” Gabe asks innocently enough, but I still tense at the proposition.

Should I lie? Should I confide in him? I know he won’t judge me. Wouldn’t dream of it, actually, but… he can’t know who I really am. I’ve worked hard to be this person.

Pretending to be good and kind and in control.

I can’t lose that, and even speaking of Abel and what’s happened between us, albeit however small, would change absolutely everything.

Some things are better left unsaid.

“Nah, man. I barely know him.” Which isn’t technically a lie but feels like a very big one. I wipe sweat from my forehead.

“He seems to think he knows you,” Gabe responds nonchalantly. Like those very words don’t rock my entire, carefully rebuilt foundation.

The air is suffocating,filled with his scent—whatever it is. Like cheap bar soap, candy, and iron.

Abel has his window rolled down all the way, scrawny, scarred arm waving through the air as I drive through town, where I hit every single red light possible.

Idling at the third one, I card my fingers through my hair, resting my head in my palm with my elbow wedged against the window. The glass is cool against my skin, a nice contrast to the heat blowing through the vents.

Abel taps bruised fingers atop his thigh in beat to an Eminem song, his overfull, cracked lips mouthing the lyrics.

A car honks from behind me, jolting me from my reverie. I glance up at the green light and step on the gas, keeping my gaze fixed between the road and storefront windows embellished with cliché Halloween decorations—spiders, webs, witches cauldrons.

The sight of them takes me back to the years when I felt excited to decorate, the promise of candy in the following weeks almost too much to stand.

Now, it’s tainted with sour memories. Like everything else.

“You can drop me off up here,” Abel says, flicking his fingers toward the thrift shop a block away as he rolls his window up. I pull into a spot directly in front of the door, racks of clothes easily seen through the clear glass.

“My mom gave you more than enough for brand new clothes,” I mutter as I shift the car into park. Abel turns slowly, pinning me with his standard, blank stare. It’s fucking unnerving, not being able to read a single emotion.

The brat is good, I’ll give him that. The way he pokes and prods, even in his silence.

I swallow slowly, fingers flexing on the cracked leather of the steering wheel. Static from my aux fills the small space of the car, causing the microscopic hairs on my ears to stand on end. My eyes flick toward him. He’s turned in the seat, knees pressed against the gear shift, hands curled softly in his lap.

His jeans, at least two sizes too big, are ripped and frayed with a discolored patch placed haphazardly. I can’t see his shoes from here, but I don’t need to see them to know what they look like. Pink, high-top Converse, old and stained, probably mere weeks away from acquiring some holes in the soles.

The strap of his belt—also too big for his scrawny frame—hangs near his crotch with cheap, silver studs, many of which are missing. His shirt is black with some sort of gothic cross plastered on the right side, faded blue lettering peeling off across his other pec.

I follow the frayed, stretched color up his long throat and sharp Adam’s apple and over his chin. His jaw is lopsided, lips too full. Too pink. Bruises mottle his skin, one eye still swollen, the opposite eyebrow split, now forming a scab.

“Getting your fill?” His surprisingly low voice obliterates me. I jerk away, slamming my head into my seat. My fingers are clamped so tightly around the steering wheel, my knuckles are bloodless.

Fuck, why’s he so pretty?

“You haven’t been flirting with me.” It’s not a question, but Abel takes it as such. He knows exactly what I’m talking about.

An indecent and disgusting snort leaves his ugly mouth. “Of course, I have been.”

I leave my eyes closed, forcing breath into my aching chest. “Why?” It comes out choked.

“Why not?” he counters quickly. I pin him with a quick flash of a glare that goes ignored. “I know it pisses you off. How you hate all the attention. The way everyone notices how I can’t keep my eyes off you. They think I want you. They think you want me, too.”

“I don’t!” I snap loudly. My voice echoes around us—deafening. All Abel does is smirk at me. Unperturbed and so goddamn confident. Utterly unafraid of the consequences.

“You don’t know what you’re doing, Abel.”

“I usually don’t,” he acquiesces, which makes me snort indignantly.

“I mean with me.” I drag my hand through my hair, pulling it back from my face. “You’re trying to… I don’t fucking know what, honestly. But you’re pushing me too hard. I don’t want to be cruel.” Liar.

Biting back a slew of vomit inching up my throat, I face him. Let him see, just a little. What I can control.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” More lies. “And I think I just might if you don’t stop.” Abel’s eyes sparkle in the sunlight, gray irises appearing molten. “We can be friends if that’s what you want. I—I’ll try. But…” Just say it. You need to. “Please stop whatever game you’re playing.”

It’s come down to this. Begging Abel for a reprieve from his torture.

Abel’s face splits into a full, lopsided grin, crooked rows of teeth on full display. “Baby, you have no idea what I’m capable of or what I want from you. But I’ll tell you a little secret.” He leans over the center console, doing his best to fight a grimace of pain. It morphs his grin into something more sinister, more… real. Like I’m finally seeing a flash of what lies beneath him.

“I’ve only just gotten started, Peris,” he whispers into the charged, mid-morning air. “And I’m not going to stop until I drag out of you what I saw that night.” Then, he shoves the door open, letting in a gust of cool air as he grabs his backpack from the floorboard.

“Don’t bother waiting.” The door is slammed shut, and Abel disappears inside the thrift store, each step taken slowly and deliberately, like he knows I’m watching every one of them.

My ears are ringingby the time I pull up to the park. Gabriel’s already there, ball between his feet where he’s hunched over his phone on the picnic table. After shutting the car off, I drop my head against the steering wheel, breathing heavily through my nose, thoughts churning and forever surrounding Abel Silver.

He brings out the worst in me. The parts I thought I’d buried deep, had to keep concealed if I wanted to survive. If I wanted to ensure what he did to me didn’t change me.

But it did. Of course, it did. How could it not? Something like that would change anyone—irrevocably.

It shaped me into something unrecognizable and disgusting, vile and nasty. And if I’m not careful, Abel’s going to shed my front like snakeskin and bare my depravities for whatever sick viewing pleasure he’d get from it. Because why would he care what it would do to me? Apparently, he’s someone who… I don’t know. Who doesn’t give a fuck about the damage he creates. Who wants a bloodbath. Who wants to see me snap.

What I don’t understand is why. Abel doesn’t know shit about me—I know he doesn’t because what happened never even made it into the news. All kept silenced by hushed plea deals and confidential victim impact statements.

But he knows my preferences… and I can’t even admit them to myself.

He knows I can’t keep my eyes off him, even when he pisses me off to the point I vividly imagine choking him and stealing the very life from his lungs. And he knows I’m nowhere near as good as I pretend to be, even when inky black tentacles slip through my fa?ade and wrap themselves around me and everyone close enough to touch.

He sees my lies because he lives in a cesspool of his own.

And he’s not going to stop—that much is clear. So, where the fuck does that leave me? I can either keep fighting him just to end up even more exhausted, constantly paranoid, and on edge. Or do I give in, quit fighting my demons, and let them swallow me whole as I take Abel Silver into the pits with me?

Am I ready to sink, deeper and faster than ever before? Am I ready to let go, to finally let myself feel what has always churned beneath my flesh?

What’s the point in forever pretending to be someone I’m not? I’m already beyond exhausted of pushing and shoving and biting back my instincts—and it’s only been a handful of years. Can I really make it through a lifetime of this shit?

A sharp knock against glass has my heart lurching into my stomach as I jerk back, head slamming into the headrest. My eyes dart over to find Gabe standing with his hands on his hips, a look of concern twisting his features.

Blowing out a breath from between my lips, I grip my nape and crack my neck before dropping the keys into the seat and exiting the car. Gabe steps back, but he still has that fucking look on his face.

“What?” I snap as I stomp toward the empty court. The sound of his footsteps crunching through fallen leaves follows mine.

“What’s wrong?” he asks my back.

His question draws tension to my shoulders. “Nothing,” I grumble pathetically.

He scoffs as he swipes up his ball and bounces it a few times. The air is cool and fresh, and I inhale greedily, needing it to help clear the fog from my head.

“We’ve been friends for how many years now?” he says conversationally, never looking up from the old, worn concrete we’ve been playing on for years.

My eyebrows furrow. “Since middle school,” I answer, albeit slowly, confused as to where he’s going with this.

“Yeah. Since you moved here the beginning of eighth grade.”

“What’s your point, Gabriel?” I sigh, dropping my head back between my shoulders. The sun is hidden behind a gray wall of clouds, but I still search for its warmth when it cracks through the density.

It’s all so cold anymore.

“My point is I know you, Peris. I saw who you were when we first met compared to the person you are now.” He pauses for a moment, waiting for the moment I inevitably meet his dark brown gaze. “And they aren’t two different people. You’re still you, no matter what. Even when you have to pretend. But the shadows that followed you back then are getting darker again.” He says it matter-of-factly. No room for argument. Because he’s right—he has no idea how much—but it still pisses me off, whatever he’s trying to allude to.

“I can see what’s happening. Or… maybe not what, but that something is. You’re in your head again. Angier and quicker to snap. It’s been happening more and more over the last few weeks, so I’m asking you outright—what the fuck is going on?”

Fuck, that shouldn’t hurt as much as it does—being seen, even when I try so hard not to be.

A laugh bubbles in my throat, spilling out into the soft, autumn breeze. It’s loud and chaotic, and it doesn’t stop. I double over from the force, arm clutched around my abdomen as tears leak from the corners of my eyes. It echoes loudly in my head, creating pressure against various points in my skull.

By the time it slows, I’m out of breath, and my throat is aching, parched and on fire. A hand to my back makes me jolt. Gabe rounds on me, shoving me back into the picnic table. I roll my head between my shoulders as he drops down beside me, only I’m on the bench and he’s sitting on the tabletop. My head plonks against the wood, harder than necessary, but I’m hoping it’ll help knock some fucking clarity into me.

“You’re not going to fucking believe this,” I start with. I can’t tell Gabe everything, maybe. Probably not. But I also don’t think I can keep all this shit inside anymore. It’s gonna kill me if I do, and maybe… I don’t know, maybe he can be the one to talk some sense into me, because at this point, giving in to Abel seems to be the better path at my crossroads.

And I know he won’t judge me, so that’s what I hold on to.

He perks up instantly, though his eyes are still wary. Probably ‘cause he just watched me cackle like a hyena for no reason whatsoever. But Gabe being the person he is—chill, rich, and spoiled, but truly good—he doesn’t comment on my behavior. Instead, he switches tones into something easier, more in line with the basis of our friendship. “Spill, dude. By the look on your face, it’s gonna be good.”

“You’re shitting me,”he deadpans.

My hair, now damp with sweat, flops in front of my eyes. I tug it back and tuck it behind my ears with a sigh. “I wish I was.”

“Wow,” he breathes out, looking up at the sky. I copy his movement, watching the dense, gray clouds float across a pale blue expanse. “That’s insane. What a crazy little shit.”

I snort at his apt rendition of Abel. “Apparently, the universe hates me.”

“Ohh, so we’re blaming the universe now?” he mocks me.

“Fuck off. I’m serious. I can’t do this, Gabe. He…” I yank at my hair, “drives me nuts,” I finish lamely.

“Well… yeah, I’d be feeling pretty insane if I had to deal with him like that, too. Besides, he is your foster brother now, and brothers are supposed to be annoying. Not that I would know.” I snort at the term foster brother. If there is one thing we’re not, it’s that.

“Are brothers supposed to want to fuck?” I blurt without thinking, but the second the words leave my mouth, my stomach sinks straight into my ass. Gabe’s dark eyebrows disappear behind his mop of hair, lips pursing out into a pucker. My face blanches while burning simultaneously. Fuckfuckfuck.

I yank on my hair until my scalp stings. “What I meant was you wouldn’t know what it’s like—being an only child who gets whatever he wants.”

He blinks. Again. And then, his lips curve up. “So, you want to fuck him then?”

My teeth clack as they slam together, hands fisting in my lap. Too close. “Gabe,” I growl out—a low warning. He doesn’t give a shit.

“Nah.” He shakes his head. “No, dude. You don’t get to play that off. I had a feeling just now when you started talking about the shit Abel’s been pulling with you, but you never said?—”

“There’s nothing to say,” I spit. Liar.

Gabriel purses his lips before leaning back across the wooden planks, resting his weight on his palms. “I get it,” he says after a long pause.

I glance up, trying to read his face, but even with the sun’s rays gleaming across his brown skin, glistening with beads of sweat, I can’t make out what he’s thinking.

“What is it that you get?” I sound pissy and petulant, but I can’t help the way my heart thumps heavily at the base of my throat, stomach twisted in a knot tighter than one at the base of a fishing lure.

“The internalized homophobia,” Gabe answers nonchalantly. Like that very statement doesn’t flip my entire world right on its axis.

“Excuse me?” I balk, rearing back. He doesn’t even bother opening his fucking eyes.

“I think you heard me just fine, Peris.” He finally cracks open an eyelid. “And I’m saying I get where you’re coming from. Well, not exactly?—”

“No, you fucking don’t.”

“Hey,” he barks, sitting up, face twisted into a hurt-filled sneer. “Don’t snap at me. I’m here. I’m listening. But I’m also not a fucking punching bag, and I have my own feelings and opinions. So shut up and let me say what I need to say.”

Venom slithers up my throat, poised at the tip of my tongue, but the look on Gabe’s face keeps it there. With a grunt, I wave my hand. “All right, fine. Say it.”

“Good. Thank you. Anyway, like I was saying. I don’t entirely get it, but I do think you have a reason for feeling the way you do. What I want to tell you is it’s okay to be who you are. I don’t know if anyone’s ever said that to you before, but I think everyone can do with hearing it at least once.

“I know we don’t talk about shit like this, but I do appreciate you telling me. Abel sounds like a shithead. Obviously, all I know is what I’ve heard at school and what you’ve told me, but just remember, you don’t have to fold and take anyone’s shit. You can be nice,” he says with a roll to his eyes, “but you’re not a pushover.” He rolls his lips between his teeth.

“And if it helps you with whatever feelings are surfacing, I’m pan,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.

All my thoughts come screeching to a halt at that cavalier admission from my best friend.

“You’re… pan?” I parrot, dragging my sweaty palms over my thighs. “Like, pansexual?”

“Yep.” He pops the p loudly.

My head dips down, forehead creased. “Why didn’t I know that?”

“You never asked,” Gabe says easily. “And you’ve made comments before.” His voice is softer at the end, more hesitant.

“Shit.” I drop my head into my hands, digging the heels of my palms into my eye sockets. My mind is spinning with everything that’s happened in the last thirty minutes or so. I can’t keep up. “I’m sorry, Gabe. I didn’t mean to—It was me. Because of…”

“I know.”

“But that’s no excuse.”

“No, it’s not.”

“I’ll try to be better. I hate that I… Fuck. I hurt you,” I trail off, and it sounds like a question.

“You didn’t really because I know it didn’t come from a malicious place. Well… I think it did, but not specifically to anyone other than yourself.” He meets my stare with a solid one of his own. “Right?”

Just say it, Peris. My lips part, but nothing comes out. Eventually, I press them back together to gnaw on the inside.

“I’m sorry,” I say again because that’s all I can say.

“I know.” He grabs my shoulder and shakes me before dropping back on his extended arms. The basketball rests a few feet away, having remained untouched since the conversation started. I walk over and pick it up, rolling it between my hands as I dig the toes of my shoes into the dead leaves littering the grass.

“You were right about me.”

The wood creaks as he shifts. “You wanna elaborate on that?”

I glance over my shoulder at him. “No.”

His lips crack into a small smile. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

“I don’t know what to do about Abel, Gabe. I tried…” I can’t turn around and face him. “Before I came here today, my mom had me drive him wherever—I don’t know. But I tried warning him that if he keeps pushing, I’m going to snap. I-I can feel the anger in me festering—hotter than before. And he’s drawing it out of me, all this nastiness I”ve been shoving down.

”It”s not good, dude.” I’m not good, I nearly say, but manage to keep it just inside as I continue.“I’ve got shit you don’t know about. That no one does and it’s who I am, but I’ve been burying it for, well, for forever, and Abel… he’s just. Fuck.” I squeeze the ball as tightly as I can.

There’s a long pause, and I grow antsy waiting for Gabe to say something. Anything.

After a quick flash of our gazes meeting, Gabe’s mouth twists to the side like he’s thinking about something, and then, it fades into something softer as he says,“You’ve had a few foster siblings before. It’s nothing you don’t already know.”

I clench my teeth, glancing down at my hands, white-knuckled with veins straining. “Yeah, but this is different.”

“Because you already know Abel? Or because you have feelings for him?”

Feelings. I scoff. More like an unsightly obsession bordering on violent tendencies. “Because he fucking knows me,” I grumble. “And he’s living in my house.”

“Ahh,” Gabe exclaims. “You can’t get away from him.”

“No. I can’t. He’s everywhere. All the time.”

“Even I’ve noticed his, erm, constant presence.”

“See, I knew it wasn’t just in my fucking head!” I growl, bouncing the ball between my feet. Gabe saddles up behind me and steals it mid-air to twirl it on his index finger.

“Nah, it’s not.”

“My mom doesn’t know about…” I trail off. I don’t need to say it.

He spins the ball in his hands. “That y’all wanna fuck or that he supposedly fucks for money, as the rumors say?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Gabriel, can you stop talking about fucking?”

“Why?” His eyebrows hike. “It’s the truth. You said so.” Then, he grins.

Oh, that fucker is goading me. “Forget I fucking said that. I didn’t mean literally.”

“Then how else did you mean ‘are brothers supposed to want to fuck?’ That implies?—”

I twist around, lunging for the ball, but he retreats just as quickly, hammering it between his feet.

“I didn’t mean to say that,” I spit through gritted teeth.

“Sure.”

I pull back with a frustrated groan, delving my fingers into my hair and yanking. “Can we be done with this conversation and just play some ball?”

“Yeah. But real quick—have you asked him?”

“Asked who what?”

Gabe rolls his eyes. “Abel,” he says it like I’m stupid; I am, “if the rumors are true.”

“Of course, I haven’t.” I scoff. “Why do you care?”

“Easy, tiger. I’m just curious. It’s quite the rumor to have—especially at a school like Ardent, and we thrive on the drama.” He laughs dryly.

“Sometimes, I don’t know why we’re friends,” I grumble, making him snort.

Gabe shoves the ball into my chest. “We’re friends because I’m the only one who doesn’t just take your shit.” His hand is above his eyes, blocking out the sun’s rays beaming him in the face. “Plus, I am simply—” he stretches his arms wide, “loveable.”

I snort loudly. “Yeah, whatever. Are we gonna play or not?”

“Real shit or just some fuck-off fun?”

“Well it was supposed to just be fuck-off fun, but then you went and made me talk about my fucking?—”

“Your feelings, I know, the travesty.” Gabe grins.

I roll my eyes, ignoring the pit in my stomach. It’s a sensation that’s ever-present anymore. The heavy-woven twine of endless anxieties, scenarios, and possibilities.

I’ve never been able to shed its burden, but with the leather ball between my fingers and the sound of it bouncing off the leaf-littered concrete, it all becomes a little… less.