killer instinct - || h.s. ||

65

" plus, i'm pretty sure i'd miss you "

---

aurora astor.

Fuck this shit.

My fist collides against the harsh vinyl of Lou's gym at this ungodly hour, blasting nothing but the 1975 in this limbo state of existence at the current moment.

My chest harshly contracts and expands to the momentum of the rock, drowning out the thoughts from my mind attempting to keep up with the rough frustration I've been expelling onto this poor punching bag before me.

My limbs ache out, crying out for me to stop internally, but this was the only method of sanity I could place into use for the moment to quell this ache radiating through my insides.

Sweat drips down my brow with every harsh breath I puff from my parted lips, exuding every bit of this pent-up anger until my skin breaks at my knuckles to spill crimson down the backs of my hands and forearms in distress.

I could practically sense the tangible tension hung in the air of his hollow loft, bathed in light morning filtering in through the colossal skylight above. I could sense the lack of words left to say these past few days, more so the lack of words to string together to process all of this novel information crawling through my skin like a parasite deep into my system.

Nevertheless, as much as the thought of never leaving the warmth of his bed tethered me into its comfort for days, I managed to roll myself out of his lonely bed on day three with Leo wandering where I went.

After days of tiptoeing around each other with unspoken words, thick tension, and various meals set on the table for me without the very person I missed smiling with.

I had stumbled into the bathroom to clean myself up in some kind of melancholy routine without the typical company beside me, making me blush just by his smirky smile wrapped around his pink toothbrush and god-awful dimple through the reflection in the mirror we shared.

But this morning, I just stared down at the ruby ring I left resting on the marble without the compelling tug to wear it to subtly be his these days.

But here I am, caving to the final of my punches into the vinyl sand-filled heavyweight punching bag dangling before me. And my irregular breathing consumes me whole with the abrupt stop, leaving me leaning my slick forehead into the punching bag to regulate my breathing once more with a scorching heat rising off my overworked skin.

I grit out a groan under my breath, hissing at the fresh sting of my sweat seeping into my shallow wounds on my ringless knuckles. My mind whirls, so much so that my stomach lurches at the exertion.

I clamp my lips shut at the rush of saliva to my mouth in nausea, rushing to the bathroom in the back to hunch over a toilet and empty out the banana and peanut butter toast in my stomach.

I whimper as sweat drips down my temple, heaving unsteady breaths as my knuckles cast white with my rough grip on the toilet. Coughing slightly, I force myself back upright while nearly falling back down with the instant drain to my system.

I flush the toilet, ridding evidence of my own fucked-up coping mechanisms and overexertion this morning before heading out.

I practically trudge myself to the sink, unable to bear meeting my own eye through the reflections of mirrors surrounding me in the gym, rinsing off the fresh scarlet blood dripping down my reddened skin.

And my mind ... my mind felt worse than my body did at the moment, and that only made matters worse.

So I gradually walked myself through my typical routine of cleaning the place up for Lou later. I allow the buzz of the music to thrum across my skin, continuing to drown out the voices in my head to every conflicting side of this fucked-up story. I simply slide my cotton, gray nike shorts over my black spandex set with my oversized maroon zip-up hoodie.