Eli's POV

I don’t remember much of the walk home.

The streets blur. The sun is warm on the back of my neck, the wind a little too loud in my ears. My hands are still tingling with Rafe’s warmth. I keep replaying it, the moment his lips pressed back against mine—clumsy, soft, almost too gentle to believe. Like he was afraid I might break down if he goes too hard.

God.

I kissed him. I actually kissed him and he liked it. 

I catch my reflection in a car window as I pass, and I look ridiculous—red in the face, lips still parted like I’m expecting it to happen again. I press a hand to my mouth, I can still feel him there. I swear my heart is going to give out. I am going crazy. I am gonna pass out.

When I reach home, the house is quiet. My breath stills.

No car in the driveway.

I immediately sigh in relief. I don't know how long it will last but right now my father's absence feels like a miracle. He is probably at work. And it means he most probably doesn't know that I wasn't home. My hand shakes unlocking the door, and once I’m inside, I take off my shoes and head for the kitchen. I grab a yogurt and a granola bar from the fridge, and shove it in my bag. 

Then I go straight to my room, lock the door, and exhale like I haven’t in hours.

My bag drops to the floor with a dull thud. I pull out the granola bar and unwrap it, chewing on it slowly. The first thing I do is reach for Rafe’s hoodie— from my cupboard, still smells like him. Faintly like clean soap and warmth. My chest tightens and I pull it over my head in one smooth motion, hugging it close, curling my fingers into the fabric.

What are we now?

The question rises before I can stop it.

I kissed him. He kissed me back. He told me I could touch him, hold him, kiss him—anything, without asking. He meant it. I saw it in his eyes. Felt it in his voice.

But… does that mean we’re together?

My brain spirals too fast. I shut my eyes and try to breathe, try to remember what he said—that we don’t have to name it. That there’s no rush. No pressure.

Just... us.

I sit on the bed, legs folded up, hoodie sleeves too long over my hands. The inside of me feels like someone’s cracked my ribs open, and I don’t know if it’s happiness or panic trying to climb out. I feel so many things I can’t hold them all at once for the the first time.

Maybe I don’t have to.

I glance toward my desk. Right, my homework. I don't wanna do it but I have to. I just stare at it like it’s in another language. Eventually, I move. No, eli focus. I take out my math assignment, open my notebook, and try to work.

Time goes slow like that.

It gets dark outside. The shadows stretch long across my room. My phone sits screen-down beside me, silent. I stare at it, wondering if I should message him first. Wondering if he’s thinking about me the same way I’m thinking about him.

Then it buzzes.(Okie, good)

Rafe: “Hey. You home safe?”

A smile breaks over my face before I can stop it. I scramble to type back.

Me: “Yeah. I was doing maths .”

Rafe: “Damn, homework? Was kinda hoping you’d text first, but I’ll let it slide since you kissed me.”

I groan into my hoodie sleeve, cheeks instantly on fire.

Me: “Don’t tease me rafe”

Rafe: “Not teasing. Just… thinking about it a lot.”

Me: “Me too.”

Rafe: “Did I tell you that I love it when you call my name?”

My heart stutters. I drop the phone on my bed, roll over, press my face into the pillow to cool the burn in my cheeks.

The phone buzzes again.

Rafe: “Wanna talk? I can call. If you’re free.”

I barely hesitate.

Me: “yeah”

It rings almost immediately. I answer on the first buzz and lie back on the bed, holding the phone to my ear like it’s something sacred.

“Hey,” I say, voice quiet.

“Hey, Eli.” His voice is soft, like a whisper just for me. 

My mouth is dry. I sit up, then lie back again, like maybe changing position will help my brain work better. Dumb. 

So,” he echoes. I can hear a little grin in his voice. “How’s the hoodie?”

I pull the fabric closer around me instinctively. “h-how did you know?”

“What to say? I am a magician or maybe I just know you”

My cheeks feel red “Warm” I huff. 

“Good warm or creepy warm?”

“Good.” I pause, feel heat climb into my cheeks. “It helped.”

Rafe’s quiet for a second, then, “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I say, more softly.

Another pause. I pick at a loose thread on the sleeve and try not to overthink the silence.

“you doing okay?” he asks. “After… you know.”

The kiss. My ears heat up again. “I think so?”

“You think?” he chuckles, I think.

I make a frustrated sound. “I don’t know, Rafe. I keep replaying it in my head like… was that even real? Did I mess it up? Should I not have—?”

“Whoa, hey—Eli,” he interrupts gently. “You didn’t mess anything up.”

I let out a breath. “It was clumsy.”

“Of course it was. It was our first kiss.”

“Exactly.”

He chuckles, but it’s soft, not mocking. “You’re saying that like it’s a bad thing.”

“I just… I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Well, good news,” he says, and I can almost see the way he’d be grinning. “I don’t either.”

That pulls a quiet laugh from me, and it feels like the air shifts, just a little lighter. “Is that supposed to comfort me?” 

“It should be. We’re both just two idiots trying to figure it out.”

I laugh again, and this time it doesn’t sound as stiff. “You’re not an idiot.”

“You kissed me and I forgot how to breathe for a full ten seconds. I’m pretty sure I am.”

I bury my face in my arm, groaninginto the sleeve. “I didn’t mean to make you forget how to breathe.”

“I didn’t mean to kiss your chin the first time,” he says, deadpan.

“You didn’t!”

“I did. Just a little.”

“Oh my god.” I groan, dragging the hoodie over my head like I can hide inside it. “Kill me.”

“No,” he says, still smiling. “Because then you wouldn’t be here to kiss me again sometime.”

I freeze. Does he do this intentionally? Saying something so easily? Hopeful.

“You want there to be a next time?” I ask, quietly. Anxiously.

His voice loses all its teasing when he answers. “Yeah, Eli. I really do.”

I chew on the inside of my cheek, heart thumping. “Even if I get all weird and overthinky about it?”

“Especially then,” he says. “I like when you’re weird.”

I exhale, letting myself sink into the mattress. “I just… I don’t know what this is yet. What we are.”

“I know,” he says, no hesitation. “We don’t have to know yet.”

“But I kissed you.”

“Yep.”

“And you said I can touch you. Hold you. Kiss you. Without asking.”

“Still true.”

“What if I mess it up later?”

He’s quiet for a beat. “Then we talk about it. Or we try again. You don’t have to be perfect, Eli. Not with me. No one is perfect. Not me. Not you.”

I bite my lip. “But I want to be.”

“You already are. To me.”

That’s it. I roll over, crush my face into the pillow, and let out a strangled noise. “You can’t say stuff like that. I’ll fall for you.” Did I just say it?

“I’ll catch you if you do,” he says.

Silence stretches for a moment. It’s not uncomfortable. It’s just… thick. Weighted. I breathe through it and feel the way my heart slows a little. Not all the way. But enough to make me break down and go in his arms again.

“I want you here” He just took my words out of my mouth.

“I also want to,rafe.”

“Me too.”

“Can I tell you something?”

“mhm.”

“I wanted to kiss you so many times before but I just… didn’t want to rush you. Didn’t want to scare you.”

“I was already scared,” I say. “But you didn’t make it worse. You made me feel warm.”

Rafe’s voice is soft. “That’s all I want.”

I hug the pillow tighter. “I don’t want to go back to school tomorrow and act normal.”

“We don’t have to act anything,” he says. “We can just be.”

“I don’t know how to ‘just be’ around people. I barely know how to do that around myself.”

“You’re doing it now,” he says.

“Am I?” I pause. “It’s easier when I’m talking to you.”

He doesn’t say anything at first. When he finally does, it’s quiet. “Same here.”

We fall into silence again, both of us hovering on the edge of something we haven’t named. And maybe we don’t have to.

“Rafe?” I whisper.

“Yeah?”

“You’re not gonna change your mind, right? About… me?”

“Never,” he says. No hesitation. No falter. Just that one word, and it’s enough to still the anxious beating of my heart.

I close my eyes and exhale. “Ok.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll try to stop freaking out.”

“You don’t have to,” he says. “You can freak out all you want. I’ll be right here.”

I close my eyes. The tension in my chest begins to ease. His voice is like gravity, pulling me back down to earth.

“Sleep soon?” he asks.

“Stay with me”

“As long as you want,” he says.

And I believe him.

I fall asleep with the phone pressed to my ear and his breathing soft in the background, Rafe’s warmth still wrapped around me in the fabric of his hoodie.

.

.

.

.

I must have fallen asleep.

Darkness. Sudden, electric. A door slamming. The floor shaking under my bed. A voice—no, a roar—ripping through the quiet.

“ELI!”

I shot upright before I was even fully awake, chest seizing, body already reacting, already shrinking in on itself.

No.

“ELI, GET YOUR GODDAMN ASS OUT OF BED!”

The door banged open so hard it cracked against the wall. Light spilled in, harsh and cold, and then my father was there. Towering. Rage incarnate. His eyes bloodshot, his jaw clenched so tight I could hear his teeth grind. My eyes fell on my phone. Rafe wasn't on line anymore.

My voice broke before it reached my throat. “W-what—?”

“You lying little piece of shit!” he snarled, and the next moment happened too fast.

His hand. My cheek. A crack that echoed in my ears and sent my head snapping sideways.

Pain bloomed white-hot, stinging and sharp. I gasped, clutching the side of my face, too stunned to cry, too afraid to even breathe.

“You think I wouldn’t find out?” he spat. “You think you can sneak off to some filthy faggot’s house behind my back?”

I froze. Everything inside me stopped.

No. No, he couldn’t know. He couldn’t know about Rafe. About us. About the hoodie hidden under my pillow, the late-night call, the kiss.

“You disgusting little shit,” he hissed. “You embarrassed me. You made me look like a goddamn fool. The neighbors saw you walking with some little friend of yours—Jesus Christ, what are you trying to do to me?!”

“I—I’m sorry,” I stammered, barely able to hear my own voice over the sound of my heartbeat. “I just—I went to a friend’s—just a birthday—”

My apology never finished. His fist collided with my shoulder, knocking me sideways. My body hit the floor with a thud, breath catching in my lungs.

He didn’t stop.

A kick to my ribs. A slap to my back as I tried to crawl away. Every word he yelled was a hammer, a hot nail driven straight into the softest parts of me.

“You’re a goddamn failure.”

“An embarrassment.”

“A freak.”

I curled into myself, arms shielding my head, tears streaming down my cheeks—not because of the pain, though it was everywhere—but because of the shame. The fear. helplessness. The way his voice reached into every corner of me and made me feel small and ruined and wrong.

He kept going. Kept shouting, hitting, pacing. Tearing the room apart. Clothes thrown, drawers pulled out. The hoodie—Rafe’s hoodie—was yanked from my pillow and thrown against the wall like it was something dirty.

“What the hell is this?” he demanded, lifting it with two fingers like it disgusted him. “You’ve been hiding this? Wearing this crap? It's his?”

I couldn’t answer. My jaw trembled too hard, my ribs aching too much to speak. My whole body was screaming, but I didn’t make a sound. I knew better.

The silence made him angrier.

Another kick. A shove.

“Answer me, you worthless whore!”

But I couldn’t.

I wasn’t even there anymore.

I was somewhere else. In a softer place. A safer place. Rafe’s voice in my ear. Rafe’s fingers brushing mine in the hallway. His laugh. His hoodie. His kiss.

I held onto that with whatever strength I had left.

At some point, my father’s voice became a blur. He stormed out with one final slam of the door, shouting something about “getting rid of all this shit in the morning” and “sending me to hell where I belonged.” The house fell silent again. Too silent. Like even the walls were holding their breath.

I didn’t move for a long time.

Couldn’t.

I just lay there on the floor, curled around the ache in my stomach, my cheek pressed to the cold wood. My whole body shook, but I barely noticed anymore. The pain had turned dull, distant, like I was watching it happen to someone else.

My face was wet with tears I didn’t remember crying. My lip was split, and every breath made my ribs throb.

But none of that hurt as much as the shame.

The shame of being caught. Of not being strong enough. Of being something he couldn’t even look at without disgust.

Slowly, I reached out for the hoodie where it had landed on the floor, trembling fingers dragging it close. I buried my face in it, breathing in Rafe’s scent—clean and warm, something like comfort and rain.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to no one, over and over. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

I don’t even know who I was apologizing to.

To Rafe, for dragging him into this? For loving him? For letting him love someone like me?

Or to myself, for hoping things could ever be different?

The warmth from the hoodie was the only thing I had left.

I clutched it like a lifeline, holding it tight to my chest, heart cracking wide open beneath it. I wanted to text him. Call him. Hear his voice again. But I couldn’t. I didn’t want him to know. I didn’t want him to hear me like this.

I couldn’t let him see me like this—broken and bruised and pathetic, curled up on the floor like a worthless dog.

And yet all I wanted was for him to hold me. To tell me I wasn’t all those things my father said. That I wasn’t disgusting. That I wasn’t wrong. I am not worthless.

But I wasn’t sure I’d believe him.

Not tonight.

Not after this.

I stayed like that until the trembling stopped. Until the numbness spread enough to let me breathe again. Until the weight of my father’s words settled somewhere deep inside, where I knew I wouldn’t be able to dig them out.

Still, I pressed the hoodie to my face, and broke down.

______________________________________