Chapter Seven

"What're we going to do, Az?"

"We? Vik, she's in this state because of you. If you think for one moment either she or I will allow you to help her, you're mistaken."

"Okay … I completely understand that I've disappointed you all because of what I did. I'm disappointed in myself too. But I want and need to help her in order to forgive myself for what I did. I don't want to feel this guilt forever, even if I do deserve to. She means a lot to me, Az. And my anger got in the way of my friendship with everyone. Yes, I know you've done nothing except love and protect her after everything that's happened in the war, and I'm sorry for being the reason the flashbacks of her parents dying came back to her. Believe me when I say I want nothing more than to try and help her forget everything she's felt since then. It's not my duty to do so, but I feel as if I'm obligated to do so after yesterday." Tears kissed his cheekbones and created a dull shimmer that shone as the light touched it. He was desperate - Azyriah could see it in the way he carried himself, and in the way his eyes searched for him with nothing but guilt within them.

He sighed heavily - the pressure of having to choose whether or not he could trust Viktor enough to let him near Jordeyn again was crushing his chest like concrete. He wanted to believe Viktor, but the only thing he could promise were lies. They didn't have a meaning to him like they did to everyone else around him. They didn't mean anything because he had hurt her beyond anyone - or anything - being able to help her trust another human again. That's what he didn't understand. He didn't understand the damage he had done and caused until it was too late and everyone pushed him away because they didn't want to get hurt by him again. Yes, he had his ways of manipulating people into giving him a second chance or gaslighting them after 'leaving' him, but Azyriah himself knew that he wouldn't allow himself to watch Jordeyn go through that.

He would allow herself to go through that.

"I don't care. I can't, Vik. You know that. No matter how much you believe that she, Blayne, Cayden, or I can try and forgive you, we can't. She's become forgetful lately. I haven't asked her about it and I don't think she's noticed that I've seen it happen yet, but I want to keep it that way. I don't know if you made it worse somehow, but if you have I can guarantee that your head will be the next one on the gate post in the school yard. And for whatever you said to me before any of this happened, fuck you. You're a dick and you really don't deserve anything we have given you. You think of yourself as some sort of savior and to be quite honest, Viktor, it's vile and only pushes people away." He turned to face the door and studied the grain: the soft dark lines wrapping around one - if not several - ovals. That was Jordeyn: the closed oval. Her soul was blocked from everyone around her and the lines surrounding it were her defenses against the world. The world that threatened to tear and eat her alive if she didn't have them up at all times.

He heard drumming against the sink. He stole a glance over his shoulder and saw Viktor glaring at his reflection with nothing but hatred and regret. He gripped the edge of it tightly - knuckles white and veins prominent - the sound of metal from his rings against the marble top created a mocking sound of the Devil's laugh in his ears.

"Az, I don't know what's happening to me." His jaw was clenched and his face was paler than usual. His eyes had lost whatever life was in them yet there he stood hunched over the sink looking as alive as he always did.

Azyriah walked towards him softly putting a hand on his shoulder causing a shudder to escape through his body. "I know you don't Viktor. And I ultimately regret what I said to you … somewhat. Not completely, but not all at the same time. I want to help you with whatever you're going through but I can't when you lash out and hurt the ones that we both love." He wrapped his arms around Azyriah's neck and a dry sobbed left him; muffled by his chest. He was taken aback by his action, never having seen him express emotions before. He wrapped an arm around his shoulder and put his other hand in his hair, massaging his scalp ever so slightly and clutched his head against his chest feeling the tears leave his eyes and soak into his sweater. He wasn't able to hold him up on his own as Viktor's knees buckled beneath him and they collapsed in a mess of Viktor's tears and tangled limbs.

Both of their chests were cracked and hollowed. They felt nothing and were crying at the mere fact that neither of them could. They felt as if they did feel something when it came to the lives of those around them, and they did. But after a split-second it was gone. It was as if their feelings were playing hide-and-seek with them. Hiding when they needed to feel something the most and found once again at the dark hours of three a.m. causing both boys to lay on their backs staring at the ceiling with tears dripping like candle wax down the sides of their face collecting in the soft materials of their pillow near their ears as no one around them could hear the gut-wrenching sobs of their numbness.

"I don't know what's happening though. I don't know what's happening to me and it's scaring me, Az. I'm not going to hide it from you 'cause I know that you go through the same thing from time to time and don't even try denying it. I just can't comprehend things around me when she's around me."

"Who's she, Viktor?"

"The one person who understands me, and the one person who would most likely do anything for any of us. She loves everyone around us - maybe a little too much - but it's what makes her her, you know? She just has that delicate yet rebellious glow about her. It's admirable."

"Viktor Frazier, do you have a crush?"

Viktor pushed away from Azyriah avoiding eye contact and shook his head. He didn't want him to know who the person was, "It isn't a crush, Az. I'm not kidding."

"Do I know this person by any chance?"

"Mhm …" His voice was low and quiet.

"Sorry, I couldn't quite catch that." He smirked at Viktor loving how he squirmed for once in his life rather than it being the usual opposite.

"Yes, Azyriah, you know her."

He chuckled and mockingly made a confused face wondering who on earth it could possibly be. "Well, there's a few options. Blayne is with Cayden although you could go along with the 'forbidden love' and 'we can have a polyamorous relationship' but I don't think that that's quite your route—" Viktor softly slapped him across the face, no hint of amusement as apposed to Azyriah clutching the cabinet door under the sink to keep from laying down with laughter.

"I'm being serious, Az."

"Oh trust me. So am I." He rubbed his now rosed cheek and thought about it all. There was the waitress at their local diner they always hung out at, but they never exchanged the words except the usual 'please,' 'thank you,' 'I'll have a water,' and 'keep the change.' There was the young attractive librarian but Viktor had never opened a book in his life let alone step foot in a library. There were the girls on the football and cheerleading team, except he never watched them. Only her. And that's when the pieces clicked. His eyes grew wide, the oxygen left his lungs completely, and he stared at Viktor as if he had just shot him out of cold blood. "Viktor … Please don't tell me it's her."

Viktor's face fell paler if it was even possible and he knew that Azyriah knew who it was from the expression on his face and shock in his voice. "Az, I know. Now you understand why I can't do anything about it."

"Viktor for fucks sake. She's younger than you. Do you know what her brother would think about this?"

"He's not going to have to think about it, because he isn't going to know about it."

Azyriah rubbed the back of his neck in thought and whimpered slightly as he hit the tender spot at the nape. "I don't know what to say, Vik. This is a shock. Not even I would think that you could possibly—"

"Yeah, me neither. Yet here I am desperately in love with Jordeyn Matthews."

The shock on his face was apparent and he didn't know how to process the information he had just received. He knew that Viktor cared for her despite his actions, but he didn't know if Viktor was mistaking the way he cared for her for love.

"It's the way she smiles. Her smile, Az, my God. I've never seen something quite like it. It's like when you're sitting in math class staring at a question on a test you didn't study for and have no idea how to begin the problem, but when you finally re-read the problem a few times it all of a sudden clicks. That feeling of relief and happiness is what her smile does to me, Az. Her smile brings me the slightest sense of comfort that I know I don't deserve.

"Her eyes, too. They're like a dark, mysterious, shadow in the dark, but in the light …" Viktor shut his eyes and leaned back against the sink cabinet and sighed in deep thought. "Her eyes in the light are my sun and joy. They give me clarity the darkest of times. I could look into her eyes for all eternity and it burns when she moves her face and avoids my gaze. Her gaze is all I need to feel calmness. But it's when she cries and has that glaze of hurt and distrust in her eyes that cracks away large chunks of my heart from my chest. It's the pain I see in them that makes me want to kill everyone that's hurt her, including myself." He lifted his shirt to reveal a pattern of burn marks along his ribs, abdomen, chest, and slid the waistband of his pants down slightly showing faded cuts along his hip. "This is what I do when I hurt her, Az. Each mark is another time I've hurt a part of her soul that makes her the person she is. That's another time she puts up a barrier to protect herself against the world instead of having her emotions on her sleeve."

"Vik …" Tears streamed down Azyriah's face as his fingers grazed his burns. There was a cluster of recent ones just under his ribcage which he had assumed were from the events earlier in the day.

"Az, let me finish. Please." And pulled away from Azyriah's touch and shuffled so his back was to him. He lifted the hem of his shirt over his shoulders and let it hang in front of him. The sound of Azyriah's palm slamming against the cabinet was his only indication that he saw and knew the reason for these ones. "These were from after I hurt you. I had Jay—"

"Don't finish that sentence."

" … Do it for me."

"I said don't finish the fucking sentence, Viktor." Both boys had tears streaming down their faces in disbelief in what one confessed and one witnessed. "Viktor I want you to continue what you were saying about Jordeyn. I want to have the hope that love does exist and that one day I can find it. Please."

Viktor chuckled, his voice hoarse. Clearing it, he continued. "Her hair. You've seen it: raven colored. But it's more than that. It's the color of the deepest blue to exist … almost like a midnight blue in the light. I just cannot describe it to save my life. But I do know it's extraordinary. In the shadows, however, it's a black that sucks all the light from the world letting her eyes shine and twinkle like the stars on a summer's eve."

He stole a glance in Azyriah's direction and saw his eyes closed and a smile playing on his lips. Then, just out of his peripheral vision, he saw someone at the doorway.

Her.

There, Jordeyn stood leaning against the doorframe with a thick blanket around her shoulders protecting her from the winter breeze that escaped through the ajar window. A deep blush kissed her cheeks, eyes open wide, and mouth agape. Viktor stared at her with terror at what she had heard, praying, hoping, pleading with his eyes that it wasn't what he thought it was.

"Viktor Frazier, did I hear you describing a crush? Oh please, enlighten me, who is it?"

"Well … Uhm … I can't exactly uh, well, say who, more or less show …"

"I didn't ask to see her, smartass. I asked you to tell me who she is."

Azyriah leaned against the cabinets a smug smirk across his face as he watched Viktor writhe under the pressure of Jordeyn's stare. There was nothing more he would like to see than witness Viktor confess to Jordeyn herself.

"I can't tell you who she is Jordeyn. You know her and I don't want you telling her."

Mockingly, Jordeyn raised her right hand and pledged, "I, Jordeyn Matthews, swear over my doc martens and rings and that I will not spread the confidential information that contains the person Viktor Frazier has feelings for." Azyriah chuckled softly, covering it with a forced cough.

"No."

"Yes."

"I said no."

"And I, Viktor, am saying yes."

"Jordeyn, Viktor can't tell you who he likes because it's you, okay? He's in fucking love with you. If you heard how he described you, you would know. And considering you were standing there all wide-eyed and shocked, you knew who it was too. You just wanted him to admit it himself, but it's too late for that now, isn't it? And for you, Viktor, learn how to grow some balls and tell her herself next time." Before either of them could say anything in return, he pulled himself up and walked out the room, taking a second to turn behind Jordeyn and wink at Viktor. The two were left alone after hearing the door click shut behind them.

She shuffled into the bathroom and replaced the spot Azyriah was in. She took a corner and offered it to Viktor, but instead of accepting it he opened his arms indicating that she move into them. Hesitantly, she did. Her body was tense but once his arm wrapped around her shoulders and head as his other snaked around her back and drew small circles along her spine, she relaxed into him and smelled the cologne and toxicity that radiated off of him.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"I wanted to, Jordeyn. I wanted to tell you from the moment I saw you. I don't believe in love at first sight, but you made me believe in it. I wanted you to be mine from the moment you confided in me to comfort you in the hospital. But my gut told me not to, and you can see why. All I do is hurt you - continuously - and it ruins me to see you that way. You don't deserve the pain anyone - including myself - force upon you. That, Jordeyn, is why I couldn't confess what I felt for you to you." She stayed there, her head against his chest and stared blankly at the tiles in front of her.

"I forgive you, you know? For hurting me. I know you didn't mean to, and your anger got the best of you. So, I forgive you. I don't want to, but I do."

"Jordeyn you can't."

"But I can. And I did—"

"I said no. I won't let you. No matter how many times you tell me that I can be better, you believe in me, or you forgive me for hurting you, I can't let you forgive me. I might not show it, but I care too much to let you forgive me. It's because I know that if you forgive me, I'll end up hurting you again expecting you to forgive me again, and again, ang again."

"Can I forgive you partially?"

"No. You can forgive me in your mind, but I can't hear you say it out loud."

"Okay then. Viktor Frazier, I do not and will not forgive you for hurting me."

"Thank you."

Staying there together, cuddled under the blanket, they listened to each other's quiet breaths and the rustle of curtains in the next room from the wind engulfing everything around them.

A few moments later, Jordeyn heard Viktor's soft snore and looked up. His eyes were closed, lashes brushing his cheeks painting a soft shadow beneath them, and his lips were parted slightly. Kissing them softly as not to wake him, she spoke the words he damned her not to say.

"Viktor Frazier, I forgive you for every ounce of pain you have caused me."