Page 122 of Raspados & Regret

Elías

I know.

Fabián

Do you? Because I feel like you don’t and you’re just saying you do.

I mean, you are allowed to feel however you feel. I can’t control that… but all I’m saying is that I need to figure out myself… before I come out to the world. You know?

Elías

Yeah. Trust me I get it. But not regretting me isn’t the same as choosing me, and what you mean and how it reads over text are two different things.

The message is sent, and my whole body goes cold because it was too honest and way too fucking soon. Fabián doesn’t respond for fifteen minutes, and all I do in the time between is smash my face in my pillow and try not to cry.

I’m so stupid for feeling this way. It’s not like I actually thought we’d end up together, right?

Fabián

Lalo…

Maybe this would be better if we talked about it in person.

I close my eyes, knowing that he’s right. Text can make things messy, and I really don’t need messy right now. So I get out of bed because if I stay there, I’ll drown in sheets that still smell like him. My legs protest immediately, and I hiss through my teeth.

Great.

Sore and emotionally bruised.

Very sexy. Very mature.

I grab my towel and head to the bathroom, phone in my hand like an idiot because apparently I want front-row seats to my own bad decisions. In the mirror, the hickeys are still purple at my throat, and last night, I wanted everyone to see them.

Today, they look different—loud in a way I am suddenly not so sure they can survive. I touch the darkest one with two fingers.

Fabián was here. Don’t touch.

I laugh under my breath, but it comes out wrong because maybe the sign was never for other people.

Maybe it was for me.

The warnings he kept giving me.

He can mark you.

He can want you.

He can kneel.

He can beg.

He can even stay, but that does not mean he knows how to be seen with you.

Fabián

I promise you this isn’t me trying to bitch out or anything.

I stare at it for a long time. Of course he would say something like that.