Xavier (Sugar Baby 2) ✔️

twenty-two: sinner

"Xavier?"

I stayed quiet. Hoping and praying for the world to end.

"Xavier?"

Why hadn't it ended already anyway?

"Xavier?"

I felt a hand on my shoulder, squeezing it gently. "Xavier, you've been like this for two days straight. You have to eat something."

I curled into a ball, pulling the bedsheet over me. "Go away."

I felt the mattress sink as Jeremiah sat on it. He sighed softly. "Xavier...if you die I'll be the prime suspect."'

"I won't."

Hard luck.

"Xavier, please-"

"Can you bring me some weed?"

Jeremiah fell silent. "Dude...I literally went to jail for selling that stuff."

I sighed, shutting my eyes. I had strayed away from intoxicants like that my entire life as I had watched my other waste away in front of my eyes. With my chest hollow now, it didn't seem to be a bad idea after all. 

I sighed. "Please...I can't..."

I bit my lip. I couldn't go on. He sighed and I let out air from my mouth in relief when he stood up and I felt the mattress rise again. "I'll...see you, man. In case you need to talk about it-"

"I'm fine."

I answered shortly. Thankfully, Jeremiah didn't say anything and after a while, I heard the door shut gently behind him. I sighed and turned so I was laying on my back. I gazed at the ceiling, my senses numbed.

I felt a sob rising up my throat. It was Monday evening and Grayson hadn't called. I couldn't believe it. Had he ended things with me? Just like that? Why had he let me go?

I turned around, gazing at the ceiling. How could he? After everything, we had been through. Never in my wildest dreams and most terrifying nightmares had I thought we would come to this. Our love had felt perfect. Perhaps, too good to be true.

I closed my eyes. My lids were burning. My heart was inconsolable. I had never lied to Gray. Never hidden any part of myself from him. All my ugliest bits. He had accepted me. He was the only person to have ever loved me. To ever have seen me so vulnerable. He had been my home. And now, I had nothing.

I didn't know how to deal with the pain.

I turned around, burying my face in the pillow. I could drink the strongest absinthe, and I knew it wouldn't be enough to make me not feel. My insides felt hollow. I didn't know how to live without him. How to wake up each morning without listening to his voice. How to go entire months without seeing him. Without feeling his warmth. Without being with him. And the most hellishly agonizing thought that made me wish I could instead be damned for eternity to purgatory.

To watch him grow old with someone else. Build a family with someone else. To watch him fall in love with someone else. To watch him fall out of love with me.

There was a gentle knock on the door as it opened a split second later. I gazed warily at it.

"Hey."

I sighed softly, fixing my gaze back on the ceiling as I spoke in a hoarse voice. "Go away, Kingsley."

Caleb walked over to me, shutting the door behind him. I turned away from him, facing the wall. He was quiet for so long that I turned to see that he was lying on Jeremiah's bed, his gaze fixed on his phone.