He flinched, even though I’d barely touched him. “I tell my mom and dad everything. We’ve always been really close. And she loves you because she knows I do.”
I covered my face, embarrassed. Heat seeped from my neck up my cheeks, and I imagined I was as ripe as a tomato on the vine. “Oh my God,” I muttered through my fingers.
“Baby, I promise you, it’s not a big deal. As a matter of fact, she threatened me—so did my dad—after I told her.”
“I don’t even want to know why.” I couldn’t bring myself to quit hiding.
“Because my dad is the only man she’s ever been with. And my dad told me I had damn well better have known before I accepted that gift that you were it, or he’d beat my ass himself.”
There wasn’t a world I could picture where children were that frank with their parents and their parents were that receptive to the children. “They don’t care that I’m your student? Or that I’m six years younger than you?”
Eli hesitated to answer and chewed on the inside of his cheek. “There were some lengthy—and rather heated—discussions, but in the end, my mom asked me if you were worth taking the chance of losing my career and my best friend.”
My hands fell to my lap, and I held my breath until he spoke again. My heart didn’t beat, the world didn’t spin. Reality ceased to exist for just a split second.
“I told her I’d walk away from it all. And that’s when she knew. It also became the point that she started driving me insane to meet you.”
My pulse sputtered and ticked back into gear, nature started to sing, and the earth resumed its rotation. Eli Paxton was the epitome of perfection, or possibly just perfect for me.
15
Colbie
I had done a fantastic job of not focusing on Eli leaving, so much so, that I pretended it wasn’t happening. But the night before his flight, the sight of his suitcase on his bed prevented me from lying to myself any longer.
His neatly folded clothes in his luggage twisted that success into a fear of failure, and my imagination took flight with what ifs. The walls hummed and breathed, swelling with each inhalation, closing in. The fan spun overhead with gale force winds. And I struggled to clear the panic away and grasp reality. Weakness shook my knees, and my legs trembled without their support.
If I hadn’t seen his face, I would have thought the wind had blown me away or the walls had swallowed me. It was neither. Eli had scooped me up and carried me out of the room.
“Colbie, stay with me.”
I clung to his voice like a life raft. And each time I started to slip away, he roped me back in.
“Baby, talk to me.” There was no fear or worry in his tone, just love and patience. “Breathe in.” He did as he instructed so I could follow along. “And out.” Slowing down his intake and exhale with each set. “In…and out.”
The quicksand I’d found myself standing in dissipated. The electric roar of the walls died off. And my heart decided to beat in time with Eli’s. The fog cleared, and all that remained was a man with endless patience and faithful love.
He stroked my hair and held me in his arms on his couch. “Panic attack?”
How the hell he recognized that I’d never know. “Yeah. It came on really fast. I normally have warning and can control them.” There was no reason to admit all that other than to try not to feel like I was broken. I didn’t have them often, or maybe I’d just learned how to stave them off before they turned into full-blown incidents.
“You know I don’t want to leave you tomorrow, right?”
Another thing I loved about him—to add to the already extensive list—he understood without explanation. “Yeah.”
“I’ll be back in a week.”
Seven days had never seemed that long until I thought about living them without Eli. I hated that I’d gone from not needing anyone to panicking at the notion of being away from someone. It was weak. That was the last thing I ever aspired to be. “I’ll be fine.” Rationally, I was well aware that I wouldn’t die without Eli around. Emotionally, I was a train that had already left the track.
I just needed to be close to him. As close as possible. That connection would tide me over until he got back, or so I hoped when I lifted my torso so my lips could bond with his. Eli always gave me what I needed, and this was no different.
“Eli…” I breathed his name between kisses. “I need you.”
“I’m right here, baby.” His whisper drove me as mad as his touch; I felt them both the same way.
I shifted in his lap, trying to get situated under him. When he pushed up onto one arm so I could move, I tugged his shirt over his head and left it hanging on the arm that held his weight. He tossed it to the floor as he stood. Eli pulled me up from the couch. My shoulders slumped, and a groan of disappointment might have passed my lips.
My complaining did nothing to deter Eli. He removed my shirt, my bra, and then my shorts and panties. As quickly as mine had disappeared, his did the same, freeing his firm erection with a bit of a spring. I immediately reached for it. I wanted my fingers wrapped around it and then my lips, to taste him, to hear him moan my name. But he stepped out of reach, crouched at the waist, and lunged forward—not with any force—tossing me onto his shoulder. My ass stung from the smack of his hand, and the reverberated slap in the room made me grin.
Then, with each foot he put forward, my smile fell. But Eli turned off the hall before he reached his room and flipped me off his shoulder and onto the guest bed. Relief washed over me. Eli didn’t have to be reminded that his room had triggered the panic attack.
Once he covered me with his body, I forgot about the anxiety I’d felt and the fact that he was leaving. Being with Eli, having all of him devoted to me, was all-encompassing. It numbed me to the outside world, it shifted my thinking, it strengthened my resolve. He made me better.
He also made me scream.
“Eli,” I panted his name on the brink of euphoria. It was a high I never wanted to relinquish.
And when he followed me over the edge and into the orgasm, he nestled his lips near my ear. His breath as devoted as his words. “I love you, Cole.”
* * *
As I listened to the most unlikely thing I’d ever heard—Chasity and Jess making plans to attend a bowl game together with my brothers—I feasted, although not mindlessly. It was calculated. Every bite I took was used to drown them out and feed my relentless need for satisfaction.
For most teens, Christmas break was the best time of the school year. For me, it was torture. Since the lessons I took from Dr. Chalmers were at a college, the campus was closed, and thereby took with it my daily dose of piano. Eli would have been a fabulous distraction, but he’d been gone since the day Christmas break started and wasn’t going to return for another three days. Jess had tried to be a friend, but I wasn’t terribly good company. After the incident at her house, she’d kept closer tabs on me than ever before. Even though I’d relentlessly attempted to assure her it had been the anxiety of admitting the truth, she hadn’t bought into it. Either that or she and Eli had some sort of pact I wasn’t aware of it. Both were highly probable.
My nerves were raw and frayed, and I tried at every turn not to rouse suspicion. This was the time seniors kicked back. I’d gotten into college. I had a full ride. I’d be leaving at the end of the school year. Except for the valedictorian spot, the spring semester should’ve been a breeze. I wished I could adopt the laidback attitude Jess had this year, but I refused to let myself slide—regardless of what my parents thought, thanks to Kendra Cross. And while they had some control over things I did, they didn’t have anything absolute. I’d managed a work-around for piano—thanks to Eli—and I took my watch off midway through my runs to avoid their three-mile rule. I’d upped my game at school, too, making sure to talk to each of my teachers daily. They all bought into the routine, and I was fairly certain that Mrs. Cross would give my brother a glowing report on her next update.
But no matter how well I’d patched thi
ngs over to meet my internal needs, nothing I did fixed the hole caused by Eli’s absence. Text messages and phone calls were nice, but they weren’t the same as his touch or the way his breath floated across my skin. His voice was distorted by technology. And what made matters worse was that he seemed to be having a great time. Eli was home with his parents and people he hadn’t seen in ages, friends from high school. It was hard not to be jealous or envious—both words had a negative undertone in this context.
The two weeks purge-free that I’d had before he left were long gone by the end of day one of his absence. Each time we talked resulted in a binge after we’d hung up. It felt good at first—just like it always did—but that gratification, the perfect fullness, quickly turned to disgust and disgrace. Every gag, every retch cleansed a part of me that soap couldn’t reach and wouldn’t have washed away even if it had. The flush of the toilet was my finale in a solo performance no one witnessed.
It left me high.
Then I crashed.
Alone.
And I’d reached that point once again in the day. My skin stretched tight against my abdomen, and my ribs ached from the bloat of my stomach. Each time I shifted in my chair, I grew a little more uncomfortable. I wouldn’t be able to sit through dessert, and cheesecake was my favorite.
“May I be excused?” I pushed back from the table before I’d finished my question not expecting anyone to stop their conversation, much less care.
Mama glanced at Daddy, and I wondered when she’d last had Botox. The line between her brows sunk in when she frowned. I hadn’t seen that in years. “Colbie, dear”—another cursory glance around the table—“I made cheesecake just for you. Aren’t you going to have any?” She acted as though my neglecting dessert was a personal attack on her.
Everyone at the table had their sights set on me thanks to my mother’s pity party.
“My stomach is a little upset. I just need to use the restroom.” And if I didn’t return before the cheesecake were put away, then so be it.
The mark on Mama’s brow evaporated when her smile appeared. “All right then.”
However, Jess’s face went sour when I scooted my seat in and turned away from the table. I doubt I would have noticed it, except that everyone else resumed the conversation they’d been in the middle of while she stared at me. Her attention tugged at my sleeves and pushed on my shoulders, and I wondered if she sensed my guilt.
By the time I’d reached the bottom of the stairs, she’d engaged in fits of laughter alongside my brothers, forgetting me. This was the one time I relished being ignored. No one was the wiser. And as much as I didn’t want to do this twice in one night, I could be in and out, and then back at the table before Mama had the dinner dishes cleared.
I hurried without running and then stopped outside my bedroom to listen. The sounds of my happy family floated up the steps and settled in the back of my throat like a rock. Heavy and sharp, it made breathing difficult and swallowing nearly impossible. Saliva pooled in my mouth, and my gut gurgled in anticipation. I hated that their happiness ended with this. I wanted to be part of it. To be normal. To fit in.
I slammed the bathroom door behind me, raced to raise the lid, and barely had my fingers in my mouth when the first wave rose like a geyser. Old Faithful had nothing on the power behind my diaphragm. The tears that came weren’t just my eyes watering. My mind pummeled me with remorse and acknowledgment that I’d played a huge part in my own misery, and suddenly, I hated myself as much as I’d hated their perceived neglect.
The second expulsion tried to rip my esophagus to shreds, but I wasn’t done. I’d yet to reach the salad I’d started dinner with, and I wouldn’t give up until I had…regardless of how much it hurt. I opened as wide as possible, stretching my lips until the corners of my mouth split, to get my fingers further in. The door creaked as I tried to jerk my hand away, but I couldn’t stop what Jess had already seen.
Thick spit clung to my hand, and bits of vomit remained in my palm. It wasn’t over, either. I choked on fragments I hadn’t chewed well enough, gagging until I retched again. And while I couldn’t outline the details of her expression, I saw enough to realize I couldn’t pass this off as an accident. It had obviously been intentional, but all those lies I had rehearsed in my head had never taken into account an eye witness. They’d been written for someone standing on the other side of my stage’s curtain—out in the crowd.
Jess hadn’t moved. When I stood upright and faced the door, fear flashed across her expression and then panic set in.
“Colbie…”
I waved her off and realized I’d done so with the paste of vomit and vile still clinging to my nails and sides of my finger. Drool had run down to my wrist, and Jess now had a first-row seat. “I’m fine, Jess. Really.”
I turned the faucet on and made the mistake of glancing up. The mascara I’d put on to look nice at Christmas dinner painted my cheeks in streaks of charcoal. My eyes were not only bloodshot, but a vessel had broken in the white of the one on the right. And my lips cracked in more places than just the corners.
Her head turned from side to side, almost in slow motion. “Is this what you do after every meal?”
I stuck my hands under the water and then reached for the soap. I had to clean them before I could even begin on my face. “No.” I huffed in exaggerated irritation. I hoped it deterred Jess enough to get her out of my bathroom without further incident. “I just ate too much.”
“Nope.” The shake of Jess’s head had become more pronounced, and I did my best to ignore it in favor of making myself presentable. “I’ve seen you eat like that a thousand times. And after every single meal, you go to the bathroom. It doesn’t matter where you are. You find a restroom. Every. Time.”
My tongue swept across my rough lips. I desperately needed to brush my teeth, but I couldn’t argue with my mouth full, and keeping Jess quiet was of utmost importance right now. “You’re making something out of nothing. I promise.”
“You need help, Colbie.”
I grabbed her wrist when she tried to leave. “I’m fine.” I enunciated those two words, certain she’d understand how seriously I meant them.
Jess was going to make herself sick if she didn’t stop twisting her neck. And the tears. “It’s all there. The pieces fit together. I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid that I didn’t notice.”
“Jess, I’m not kidding. Lower your voice.” I’d clamp her mouth shut or shove a washcloth into it if I had to. I was not above gagging my best friend.
The door to the hall stood open from where she’d entered, and her tone rose with each word. She had me trapped, unable to bypass her, much less keep everyone else from listening.
“No. If you didn’t have anything to hide, you wouldn’t be worried about anyone hearing me.” Snot ran from her nose, and she hiccuped when she talked. “How long have you been doing”—she waved her hands in circles around the bathroom—“this?”
I took a deep breath, unable to come up with a response to settle her. The truth would only make matters worse.
“Is this what happened that night Eli came to get you at my house?”
I shook my head and stared at her shoes.
“Every Sunday dinner, is this what you do after?”
Still I didn’t respond.
Jess stomped her foot on the ceramic tiles, but her shoe didn’t make nearly the noise her voice did when she shouted, “Answer me, dammit! Tell me why you’re killing yourself.” Her fists shook at her sides, but I couldn’t determine if it was anger or disappointment that made her tremble.
The stampede had begun at the bottom of the stairs, closing in rapidly. I tried to push her out of the way, but she latched onto the doorframe and held on for dear life. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“This is why you’ve lost so much weight, isn’t it? And why your parents are freaked out. They just don’t know it’s the catalyst for all the other stuff.” As if she needed each person in the house to hea
r every word she said, her clarity didn’t come quietly.
My defensive walls went up, thick and strong. If she wouldn’t shut up then I’d shut down. Which was precisely what happened when Caden stumbled through the door, followed by my brothers and parents.
Caden spun Jess toward him. The change in his expression gave way the second he had realized she was crying. Chasity appeared confused. And none of my brothers said a word. My parents brought up the tail end, but before either could express concern or question, Jess sobbed into my little brother’s chest.
“She’s going to die, Caden. I’ve told you a hundred times there was something wrong, and you wouldn’t listen.” Jess’s fist beat on Caden’s shoulder as her knees decided to quit holding her weight.
It was a melodramatic performance to say the least. I rolled my eyes as Caden caught his girlfriend’s weight and scooped her up. He sat on the bed with her in his arms, and all I could think of was the way I felt when Eli cradled me.
God, I missed him.
“Colbie, what’s going on?” My mother’s prim yet surprised voice barely made it through the commotion of the multitude of people now hovering in the entrance to my bedroom. She glanced at Jess and Caden and back to me for an explanation.
I crossed my arms. “Nothing.”
“It’s not true.” Jess was a blubbering mess, and Caden needed to get his girlfriend under control. “Look at her face.”
I swiped painful strokes under my lashes to remove mascara residue, knowing it was futile. I hadn’t gotten to wash my face before Jess went into hysterics. The water still ran next to me. In fact, she’d thrown my entire sequence out of order. If anyone took the time to look behind me, I hadn’t cleaned up the toilet, and the seat was still raised.
“Look at her eye, Dr. Chapman.” She sniveled, and I wanted to wring her damn neck. “Just look.”
My father pushed through the group, but before I could slam the door—that Caden had removed Jess from—and hide behind it, he slapped his palm against the wood and forced it open. I couldn’t remember the last time Daddy had put his hands on me, but he grabbed my chin so he could see my face.
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