"What happened to your hands?" Mom asked, and Hawk looked up from his spaghetti.

He swallowed his mouthful and met Mom's eyes over the table where they were having dinner - just the two of us, like most nights. Dad was on a business trip - he had left the same day Mom had gotten back from her trip - which meant Mom hadn't seen Dad's cut lip or the bruises on his face.

She had, however, seen Hawk's healing bruises and asked about them. Hawk wasn't all that sure that she had believed his lies about a training accident, even if he was a pretty decent liar.

He glanced at his knuckles that were bruised and scraped and a memory of Rickenberger spitting blood to the floor tiles flashed through his mind, making him suddenly lose his appetite.

"Must've hit the punching bag a bit too hard, I guess," he said and shrugged.

"That looks really painful."

"It's nothing, Mom. I'm fine."

Hawk took another forkful of the spaghetti and flushed it down with lemonade, trying to act as if everything was okay, as if he wasn't dying inside, as if the tomato sauce on his plate didn't remind him of the bright red splatters of Rickenberger's blood.

He had avoided Mom the best he could lately - there were so many things he hadn't told her that it was hard to keep up with all the lies and the secrets. He hated the guilt it made him feel, the cold stone in his stomach, even if he knew that the lies were for Mom's own good. What she didn't know couldn't hurt her. Hawk could only imagine how upset she'd be if she knew what he had done to Rickenberger.

"I'm worried about you," Mom said softly, cradling a glass of red wine in her hands. "All these bruises you've gotten lately–"

"Mom, please–" Hawk muttered, his eyes on his food. "It's nothing. I told you, I'm just training hard, that's all."

"It's not just that. You're out almost every night, and I don't even know who you're with."

"I'm at the dojo, you know that. And I'm hanging out with the guys."

"Yes, but I don't know those guys. Your life is changing so fast that sometimes… I feel like I can't keep up. I don't even know who you're friends with, nowadays. Why don't you invite them here so that I can meet them–?"

"Mom, come on–" Hawk groaned, trying really hard not to sound disrespectful. But seriously - what did Mom think? That he was still in pre-school and wanted to build Legos with Demetri in his room?

Mom seemed to understand his meaning, and she looked down, a faint, embarrassed blush rising to her cheeks. She sipped on her wine and stirred the spaghetti on her plate for a while, clearly deep in thought. Hawk decided not to care, and trying to ignore the knot of guilt that was forming in his gut, he took a forkful of spaghetti. He didn't really have an appetite tonight, but he didn't want Mom asking questions about that too. This conversation was awkward enough as it was.

"Eli, I haven't seen Sky in ages," Mom noted, making Hawk almost choke on his food. "Why don't you ask her for dinner one of these days? Maybe her Dad too? It would be so nice."

Fucking Hell—!

Hawk felt like the floor vanished under his feet and he was sucked into a black hole.

He should have told Mom ages ago, of course, but first Mom had been on her business trip, and he hadn't wanted to tell her over the phone, and then when Mom had returned home, it had never felt like the tight time, and now—-

Well, this was just another one of his secrets that came punching him right in the face.

He let out a long sigh and stuffed his fork in the pile of spaghetti on his plate. There was no way he could go on eating now that his guts were climbing up his throat.

"Yeah, that's not gonna happen," he noted, keeping his eyes down.

"What do you mean?"

"We broke up."

Fuck, how much it hurt to say it out loud. He hated those words, hated how they felt on his tongue, all cold and sticky and wrong.

"Oh, Eli—" Mom replied, and Hawk heard the pity in her voice, the softness, the same tone she had used when Hawk had still been Eli and had come home from school with torn clothes and bruises on his face and it made his stomach turn.

"It's okay," he managed. "I'm fine."

Mom was silent for a couple of heartbeats, and the silence spoke louder than a thousand words. She didn't believe for one second that Hawk was fine.

"Honey, I can see that you're hurting, you don't have to pretend it's all fine when it clearly isn't." She waited a short moment to give Hawk a chance to say something, but when he didn't, she continued. "I didn't know you were having problems. What— what happened? Why did you break up?"

Hawk let out a desperate groan.

Well, there was no way he could tell her the truth. It had been embarrassing enough to wake up at Miguel's place last Sunday morning with dried tears and vomit stains on his face and remember what he had blabbered to Miguel the night before. He hadn't seen Miguel since, and he wasn't going to. He didn't want anyone to know how deeply this breakup hurt, how he wished every night that he wouldn't wake up the next day, how his heart kept bleeding, bleeding, bleeding inside the cage of his ribs.

"It was never gonna work out between us," he said, stirring the pasta with his fork. "I don't care. It's better this way."

"Eli—"

"What?" Hawk looked up, anger suddenly breaking through his voice.

"I'm sorry things didn't work out. It's okay to be sad about it, honey. I know how much you loved her."

Loved. In the past tense. But that was false. Hawk still loved Sky, it wasn't over for him, it never would be. His heart was still Sky's, she was holding it in her hands and his life was hers, his soul was the other half of hers, they were meant to be, she was his endgame and Hawk knew with breathtaking clarity that he would never stop loving her, not as long as he lived.

But it didn't change anything.

She had texted him a simple thank you today, two words that Hawk had read two thousand times, but nothing more. And it was over, it was over between them, even if it never would be over for him.

He gripped the fork hard in his hand, his bruised knuckles turning white. It took all he had not to start shouting, not to throw this fork into the wall, the plate in the air so that the pasta and Mom's home-cooked meatballs smashed on the carpet.

"Mom, just let it go," he said, his voice dry and dark. "I don't wanna talk about it."

"But sweetie—"

"I said let it go!" he snapped and stood up in one, swift motion, slamming his palms on the table.

"Eli–!"

But he didn't reply. He left his plate and his half-eaten meal, left the fork on the table and his glass of lemonade unfinished, left Mom sitting at the table with tears in her worried eyes, and walked out, rushed up the stairs and into his room, slamming the door behind him.

He hated it, hated Mom's questions and his own reactions with a fiery passion. He was just like Dad, consumed by his temper, raging and throwing things, making Mom cry. He was the man he had sworn not to become.

There were tears in his eyes when he threw himself onto the bed and buried his face in his arms, but he forced them down with all his might. He was done with crying, it didn't help, it only made him feel worse, like he was drowning in the darkness and no one was coming to save him.

Beating up Rickenberger was nothing. It had fixed nothing. The pleasure it had caused had been short-lived, it was gone now, and all that was left was the hollow ache in Hawk's chest, the hole Sky had left behind, and the tears that burned in his throat no matter how much he tried to swallow them.

Groaning, he rolled to his side and pulled his phone from the pocket of his sweats, and flipped it open, finding Sky's messages on Whatsapp.

Thank you

He kept staring at those words for a long time, a minute or an hour, desperately waiting that Sky would text him again, that she would tell him she forgave him, that she still loved him, and—

And what? It's over. I fucking ruined it, and she's never gonna forgive me.

Almost angrily he closed the app and opened his photo album instead. He couldn't go to Sky's Insta anymore, because she had blocked him, but he still had a year's worth of photos of her, and they were his most guarded treasure, the one bittersweet thing he still let himself have of her, even now that everything else was gone.

He started scrolling through the folder that was dedicated to Sky alone. There were the first pictures she had ever sent him, some silly selfies, and then a couple of screenshots he had saved from her Instagram when he had still been Eli and dating a girl as hot as Sky had been nothing more than a dream. His heart ached when he moved on through the year he had known and loved her. There were the photos of their first date when they'd gone to have tacos at that great Mexican place that was now Sky's favorite. Sky stuffing a fish taco into her mouth, looking silly and super happy. Sky sucking the straw of her coke. Hawk laughed through the tears when the photos of their date in the Golf n' Stuff popped onto his screen - Sky had kept the original ones they had taken in that photo booth but had sent shots of them to Hawk. They were making out in the last one, lips locked in a passionate kiss, too enthralled with each other to notice anything else.

Looking at the photos felt like carving out his heart, but Hawk couldn't stop. It was torture, but the pain was sweet, and he craved more of it, like he still craved more of Sky, more of their love which should have lasted forever.

There were photos of Sky in her hot, pink bikini by the pool in Florence. She was lying on a sunbed and smirking at Hawk through the screen of his phone, her lips were in a cute pout, and her beautiful body was in full display under the blazing sun—

Jeez, I really shouldn't be looking at these photos anymore. If she knew, she'd fucking hate me.

But she already hated him, and quite rightfully so. Looking at these photos would make no fucking difference to her, Hell, she wouldn't even know because who the fuck would tell her?

So Hawk moved into the next photo, where Sky had turned onto her belly and was reading a book on the sunbed in her bikini, her perfectly round and smooth ass beautifully in the center of the phone screen, and Hawk felt the effects of that picture in his veins.

His sweats were beginning to feel a bit tight, as the heat spread through his core. He hadn't had sex in a week, not since that time in the Janitor's closet - and as he had been too fucking heartbroken to even jerk off, he couldn't fight the sudden arousal that hit him like a bolt of lightning.

Jesus Christ, I'm a fucking creep—

But he couldn't stop now. He scrolled through the photos he now had in mind, his personal favorites, the couple of nude shots he had of her. One was taken here, in his room, after an especially steamy sex session, when he had made her come three fucking times. She lay on the bed on her back, the post-orgasmic haze still in her eyes, her cheeks flushed and her lips pink and swollen. The photo showed her from the waist up, there were red and purple spots on the skin of her boobs, where Hawk's hungry lips had feasted on her—

Groaning, Hawk brought a hand down and palmed himself through the sweats, as he imagined sucking those breasts into his mouth, first one, then the other. He remembered the taste of her skin, the softness of her tits, the hardened nipple on his tongue, and it drove him nuts.

He flipped to the next photo, which showed Sky on the bed on her knees, looking at the camera with a seductive grin on her lips, wearing nothing but tiny little panties. Hawk had come on this image a dozen times, if not more, and he didn't give a crap how fucking creepy this was, he wanted to forget the break-up, he wanted to imagine they were still together, he wanted to know she was still his, as he was still hers, he needed to feel her love—

He shoved down his pants and grabbed his dick, beginning to pump himself while looking at the photo. Sky's perfect boobs, the curve of her hip. He imagined those were her hands on his dick, bringing him closer and closer to total oblivion. He imagined he was running his tongue down her neck, his lips finding her tits. He was licking her boobs, he was sucking that hardened nipple between his lips, so fucking deep and hard it grazed the roof of his mouth. I love you, Eli, she was sighing, she was moaning his name, Eli please, I need you—

"I love you–" he breathed, unable to keep completely quiet. "Fuck, Sky—!"

The orgasm was fierce and strong, his cum shot out of his cock and covered his belly, his hand that was still stroking his dick fast and hard. It felt like it went on forever, it was a week's worth of cum, it was the first moment of release, of relief, of not wanting to die since the moment Sky had walked away from him in the Janitor's closet.

Slowly his heartbeat calmed down, his dick turned soft in his grip and the coldness of the empty bed began to crawl back onto his strengthless body. The cum was sticky and wet on the skin of his stomach, Sky was looking at him through the screen of his phone, but it was just a photo, it was nothing but a memory, nothing but pixels on the screen and he was an idiot.

The bed was still cold, and he felt even worse than before when he returned to his room after quickly cleaning himself in the bathroom and changing into a clean T-shirt and boxer shorts.

All the euphoria of the orgasm had left him by now, his heart was just as hollow as it had been before, and on top of it, he felt like a fucking creep. Sky would hate him if she knew what he had done. He had no right to think about her like this anymore, she wasn't his to lust while he touched himself like some fucking loser who couldn't get a real girl to sleep with him.

In a whim of shame and guilt, he opened his phone and started deleting the photos, one by one. In a matter of minutes, they were all gone, and nothing remained of them except the hollow ache in Hawk's chest.

I swear this chapter was supposed to be the one where Hawk opens up to his Mom, but I guess he just wasn't ready to do that just yet. Maybe one of these days...