I choose the bed. Alone. I leave Justin with a blanket and the comfort of exceptional Italian leather.

My ribs sting like a son of a bitch. The beginning of a headache is spiking its way across my skull.

I gingerly remove my jeans before sliding beneath the sheets. Just the thought of lifting my arms to take off my shirt is enough to set off mental alarms. ‘Danger, Will Robinson’ and that fucking shit. So I stifle a groan as I pull the sheet up, and vaguely wonder how long it’s been since I’ve gone to bed wearing this many clothes. It had to be freshman year. And that only lasted a month, once I decided that I didn’t give a shit what the repressed little roomie thought. And two months after that, he was down on his knees worshipping my cock like the rest of them. Straight, my ass.

I can hear Justin moving around in the other room. I close my eyes and breathe shallowly around the pain.

My ribs ache and my head pounds. And if the fine buzz of Beam and beer from Babylon hadn’t been dwindling about the same time I found myself down on the pavement, sucker-punched and getting the shit kicked out of me, or if it hadn’t been knocked out of me completely as I listened to Justin screaming defiance at his asshole of a father, I could say that the headache and the throbbing in my side are the only reasons I don’t want Justin in my bed.

But I’m sober -- ridiculously fucking sober -- so I can’t pretend.

I steel myself for the inevitable, and I’m not surprised to feel the slither of the silk sheets against my leg. The mattress dips subtly with additional weight. And I carefully roll over, open my mouth to send the kid away, he takes too many fucking liberties as it is, and he freezes when he sees me, hope and fear and pain and trust all tangled together in his eyes, and I’m sober, fucking sober, and I can’t deal with this shit. So I just pull the duvet over him. Pull the duvet over him and turn away.

I blink into the darkness. I hug my arm to my chest, cradling my ribs. Why the fuck do we do that? Everyone does it, as though we can hold the pain inside. As though we can grit our teeth and push it down deep, stem the tide before it seeps out and spreads.

Maybe we do it because we know there’s no way to make it stop. Because the woman who could prevent it is too busy praying for the souls she can save to bother with the one who should have been aborted anyway. Or because our best friend is fourteen too, and scared shitless, and it’s easier to filch a fifth of whiskey from the old man and get wasted than to deal with the pain. Or because his mother thinks that everything can be solved with a cuff to the head and a tuna-macaroni melt instead of a call to Child Services.

Maybe there was never anyone who was willing to risk it all. No one who would simply say, “He was hurting you,” and make it stop.

Christ, I need a drink.

The mattress shifts again and velvet slides across my skin. I feel the moist warmth of Justin’s breath at the nape of my neck. His hand creeps beneath the duvet to rest on my hip, and I hear his breath catch in his throat. Then he settles, close enough that I can feel the heat rising from his skin.