Through the Screen novel Chapter 102

noah watches distractedly as abel rubs a towel through his damp curls, the loose sweatshirt on his body doing absolutely nothing to hide the bruises that climb from the base of his neck up to the right side of his jaw. his cheeks are pink and his lips are bitten and his eyes are wandering everywhere except from the bed where noah is.

noah sinks further into the bed, drawing the covers upto his chest and breathing out a deep sigh, letting his eyes fall shut, letting the exhaustion of today take over his chaos of a mind. it works, for a moment he can forget about the sins of the chilled air, forget about the ragged breathing and hushed cursing and the small whimpers leaving abel 's mouth--and it's back again. he shuts his eyes tighter than before, little white dots making an appearance for a short while but it does nothing to mute the picture, to erase the feeling, to do anything except replaying it again and again and again, each time being more vivid than the last.

the picture playing behind his eyes does not coincide with the bitterness of his thoughts--as if the war between his mind and soul wasn't enough. he opens his eyes, his vision jarred just slightly, the patterned wall in front of him swirls the shades of black and gold in opposite directions and he shakes his head before pushing the mass of windblown hair back off his forehead.

when the bed dips next to him, he can almost feel his heart contract, can feel the air filing out his lungs, the taste of bile making an appearance under his throat and he tries to push the feeling away, tries to block out the sudden sight of abel with someone else rather than him--but just like all the other times, it's completely useless. he pushes himself up on his elbows and presses his back firmly against the headboard, breathing out a sigh and wrapping the loose end of the duvet around his right fist to keep sane.

"are you okay?" abel 's voice would have been reassuring at any time other than this. right now it's the ugliest thing, it's something so revolting that it makes noah's head ache and he just really wants everything to stop for a moment so he can run away from this feeling.

he needs the air to stop being so cold with silences that need confrontation, so heavy with words full of hate and denial and so unbelievably blue with sadness. he needs the light to stop being so bright, bringing attention to all the things he wants to avoid and burning his eyes with a harsh glow of the reality that he doesn't want to face. he needs the time to stop being so cruel to him, moving slowly enough to make him lose his breath and fast enough to leave everything unsolved. he needs himself to stop thinking, eating, crying, drinking, breathing, breaking, because he just can't take this anymore.

"noah?" and he needs abel to stop existing in the same air as him because he doesn't want to see his face and he doesn't want to hear his voice and he doesn't want to feel his touch and he just doesn't want his presence around because getting over his betrayal is so much harder than to stop loving him.