Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 87950 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87950 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
“What’s going on here, Alex?” Matt breathed, sitting beside me but keeping a safe distance.
“I felt bad about the way we left things at the hotel. I came to apologize.”
Matt shook his head, sighing deeply. “I don’t just mean the hotel. I mean…everything. What’s happened to us?”
The word ‘us’ wrapped around my fragile heart, squeezing it to the point I felt physical discomfort. “I need you to know that everything I’ve done isn’t because I don’t care, or because I’m not attracted to you, because holy shit…I am. I have been for a long time. But… there’s so much you don’t know about me.”
“You think?” Matt scoffed before pushing the hair covering his left eye out of the way. “I’m sorry,” he added, the sarcasm disappearing from his voice. “I just keep trying to figure out what I did to make you unable to trust me. Did you think I’d judge you?” His eyebrows furrowed, the confusion prominent on his face.
“Oh, Matt.” I sighed, guilt swamping my insides. “I do trust you. It’s just…this was never supposed to happen. You. Anyone.”
“You need to quit talking in fucking riddles. Be honest with me, Alex. Please.”
“I will. I am. That’s why I came here. I want you to know everything.”
“You mean there’s more than the HIV?” Matt questioned, his voice unsteady.
“Not so much more. You just don’t know the whole story, and I want you to.”
“Good,” Matt said, scooting a little nearer to me. I was grateful he stopped. If I’d felt his skin on mine I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from kissing him. “Because I want to know. I need to know.”
I took a deep steadying breath. “They say you never forget your first love,” I began. “In my case, I didn’t plan on having a second. Corey was my whole world.” I smiled at the memory, closing my eyes briefly as I tried to picture his face.
“Was your world?” Matt pressed, either nerves or curiosity making his words wobble.
“He died. Just over six years ago. If you remember the day you bought me the jag, when-”
“When you chewed my ass off for trying to be helpful?”
“That was the anniversary of his death. That’s why I’ve been staying at the hotel. We didn’t have much money when we were together so we couldn’t go far, but when we wanted to get away, we’d go there and pretend we were on vacation on the other side of the world. I just…I just needed to feel close to him.”
I remembered my childhood well; football games on Saturdays, church on Sundays, having friends over for dinner during the week. Standard stuff. I remembered when I met Corey, the first time we kissed, the moment he told me he loved me, the way he used to eat the crusts on his sandwiches before eating the middle, and I remembered the pain melting from his eyes when he closed them for the last time. Anything after that became a blur.
For the last six years I existed. I survived. But I didn’t live. It was like someone had hit the pause button on my life when I lost Corey. Sleep, work, eat, shower, repeat. Occasionally, if it got too monotonous, I’d call Ryan for a quick, emotionless, fuck.
“Oh, Alex…” Matt shuffled even closer, our knees touching. The contact reverberated throughout my entire body. “What happened to him?”
“He died from AIDS.” The words cracked on my lips as every ounce of pain I felt when Corey was diagnosed came flooding to the surface. “He didn’t know he was HIV positive, and when he started getting sick we just thought he had a cold at first, but he continued to get worse. He had a fever, his body ached, he shivered, threw up daily. He refused to see a doctor for a while, assuring me it was just a bad case of the flu, but then these nasty looking blisters started cropping up all over his body. Just his back at first, but then they spread to his face and chest. Only then did the stubborn ass agree to go and see a doctor.”
I dragged in a shallow breath, any deeper and I feared my heart might break. “It was too late. He’d progressed to AIDS. He died a few months later.”
The AIDS had weakened Corey’s immune system beyond repair and made him more susceptible to skin cancer. Kaposi’s sarcoma they called it. That’s what caused the blisters. The doctors tried antivirals and chemotherapy but it was too late, it’d ravaged his body, stolen his future. He was cruelly snatched away from me, taking a piece of me with him that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to get back.
Matt blew out a puff of air through pursed lips. “Is—doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does,” I countered. My fingers involuntarily reached out to him, taking his hand in mine. “You can ask me anything. I want to lay everything out tonight, Matt.”