Written in the Stars (W.I.P.)

Chapter 15

Five months later...

Dean
I had skipped the entire day of school.
Again.
And apparently, this time, Glorion had enough of me not doing good in school, like he cared anyway. Or maybe, that wasn't it at all. Maybe it was because I was gay, or because I hated him and called him Glorion instead of dad, or because of the whole ordeal with Rhys that he still couldn't let me live down.
Sometimes, I just knew what I was in trouble for.
Other times, I never found out.
I think sometimes, it was just because he wanted something to take all of his anger out on, and he couldn't touch my mother because he'd feel too bad after. He told me one time, when I was younger, that I reminded him a lot of himself.
Maybe that's it.
As I stepped into the house, I braced myself for what was to come, and put on a blank face to go against his furious one.
"I am going to kill you, boy!" He said, taking four steps toward me, snapping his belt dramatically in the air. I didn't question what I had done to make him like this again, and I definitely wasn't going to ask.
Plus, he said that a lot.
I stood here and took it, letting him scrape and rip my chest, arms, face, and abdomen. When he was finished, he said nothing and I walked away, not letting myself stumble or stagger. I made my way up the stairs and walked as steadily as I could toward my bedroom door, slowly opening it and stepping inside.
I kneeled down in front of the bed and reached down beneath it, searching slowly with my hands until I felt something sharp touch against the tip of my finger. I pulled the silver blade out from under the bed and opened my bedroom door, a familiar feeling of nausea waving over me. I made my way to the bathroom, threw the door open and closed it behind me, hunched over the toilet, and threw up everything I'd eaten that day. I stood up, wiped the edges of my mouth, and walked over to the back wall of the tiny bathroom. I shut my eyes hard, holding the blade closer and closer to the base of my neck, a sense of fear overpowered by extreme anger, the one thing cheering me on in this moment.
As the sharp tip of the blade touched my skin and opened a semi-deep slit in my neck, I opened my eyes slowly and saw myself in the mirror above the sink.
The blade held up to the olive skin of my neck, a small drop of sticky, scarlet liquid dripping down to where the collar of my shirt concealed my chest.
"I can't do this," I said, putting the blade down on the sink and picking up my phone that sat beside it a moment before.
I didn't know why, or what happened to my mind during this time, but I felt very lightheaded as I scrolled through my contacts. I tapped on Rhys's name and typed the first thing that came to my foggy mind with shaky, numb fingers,
'I need your help.'

Rhys
When I pulled into the driveway, I sat in the car for a moment, contemplating what I was about to do.
"I haven't spoken to Dean in years and the first thing that he says to me after all this time is, 'I need your help'. Should I trust this?" Images of me and Dean from the past slipped into my mind and I couldn't stop them.
"Ok, this is Dean Silvers we're talking about. He wouldn't hurt me for anything... right?" I stepped out of the car and shut the dark blue door behind me, gazing up at the large crumbling house in front of me. I adjusted my black-framed glasses and knocked on the door, white paint chipping off as the skin on my knuckles connected with the wood on the door. When the door swung open, I had expected to see a tall, six-foot-five man towering over me with piercing blue eyes made of blade steel, but instead I got a six foot, 'definitely leave me alone' version of Dean.
"Hey," Julian said, looking me up and down with a specific look in his eyes that would've made Dean angry a couple of years ago.
"Hello, is Dean home?" I asked, acting as if I hadn't seen his suggesting look.
His smirk seemed to deflate as he nodded his head.
"Yeah, he's upstairs," he said defeatedly.
"Ok, thank you."
"Yeah..."
As I walked around him, he placed his hand on my arm gently and I stopped, turning my head to look at him again. When I really focused on his face, he really did have some attractive features on him.
"Please be careful."
"Wait, why should I be careful?" I tilted my head slightly with confusion.
"I'm not saying he's dangerous, I just want you to be careful with your words and what you do. Anything could tip him off the edge again, and I really don't want that." He slowly raised his hand from my arm and I nodded, continuing on my way up the stairs.
When I reached the door to his bedroom, I hesitated when I raised my arm to knock. What if he doesn't want me here? No. He wouldn't have texted that if he didn't. I thought, knocking on the door.
There was shuffling inside the room, and in moments the door had opened and Dean stood there, looking down at me with those beautiful blue eyes that sent a ripple of electricity throughout my body.
My skin tingled with longing and my head crowded with memories, but I needed to pay attention to the issue at hand.
Something in the way that Dean looked changed when he saw me, and he gestured me to come into his room. I felt my heart rate spike and memories of the last time I'd been in this room flashed through my mind.
"Rhys... I still love you, and I long, body and soul, for you every day."
I told him I loved him on that very bed, I asked him if I could kiss him on that very bed.
This should be a form of torture, because it's very effective.
"So..." I looked around as I stepped into the room, my efforts in the past couple years of trying not to think about this place completely crashing down now. "What do you need?"
He shut the door and looked up at the ceiling, displaying a small opening in the first or second layer of skin on his neck. I studied it calmly for a moment and then asked, "What happened?"
"I did this." Was his only reply, and he looked at me, observing my face for a reaction.
"Dean..." It took me a moment to realize that this was a suicide attempt.
"Dean."
His eyes looked as if they could start sparkling at any moment at the sound of his name coming from my mouth. He tilted his head slightly to the right as if asking 'what?'.
"I'm sorry that I wasn't here to fix all of this."
Dean shook his head, sitting down on his bed and gesturing for me to sit beside him. I gave in and did exactly that.
"It's okay, Rhys. I'm not your priority anymore and I shouldn't ever be. You had college to focus on, and I'm happy for you. I... I don't really know that I expected you to do about this. I guess I just... wanted you here with me," he said, meeting my eyes.
It wasn't a secret to me at this point that his gorgeous gaze did something to me, because the moment that he locked eyes with me, my face grew hot and I felt my heart rate spike again.
"Well, I'm here now," I said, almost suggestively.
He looked at me, laughed a little, and rolled his eyes. "Stop trying to tease me, I don't want to burden your beautiful self with my presence."
Beautiful?
"I'm not teasing you," I said playfully, placing my hand on his chest.
He looked down at my hand, and then back up at me.
"Rhys, you don't want to do this."
I backed away only slightly, taking my hand back a little from his chest, holding it in the air between us like a barrier.
"Why don't I want to?"
He looked at me with a look that had "seriously?" written all over it, and he suddenly went serious again.
"Because for the past couple of years, I've been trying my hardest not to even think twice about you, and this whole thing is destroying all of that. I love you, Rhys, but I don't want you to go through the same thing twice. All I ever do to any person I ever like is destroy their lives and themselves with my depressed, broken self and I don't want the same for you," he avoided my gaze and I began to long almost desperately for those gorgeous, shimmering blue eyes to take residence back on mine, "So, Rhys, are you going to help me, or not?"
I felt a little caught off guard, as Dean usually did to me, and I took my hand back completely.
"Ok, I'm sorry," I said, trying my hardest to continue to look him in the eyes, despite his hesitance to return my persistence.
"Don't be." Is all he said in reply as he continued to trail his eyes everywhere but me.
I pulled out my phone and we spent the next few hours researching and checking out different therapists for him, including the one that I go to.
After a long time of researching and avoiding conversations and/or looking at each other for too long, I checked the time and realized that it was way past time for me to head back to the college campus. Abi was definitely going to wonder where I am.
"Dean, I need to go," I said, looking up at him.
This time, he looked at me too, and his eyes held a pained look that was almost too much for me to handle, but he quickly turned it into an "I don't care" kind of look, almost matching his twin brother's, that made me hurt even more.
"Oh, right. I almost forgot that you go to a college that feels a million miles away from here," he said, standing and grabbing his phone from the nightstand and sitting back down on the bed, scrolling through something and trying his best not to look at me or give into the sad feeling of being alone once again.
"Well, bye," I said.
"Bye." His blank tone killed me, and I knew I had to get out of there as soon as possible before my walls broke down again.
I laid my hand on the door handle, but before I could leave, a powerful set of hands cupped my shoulders and the next thing I knew, I was facing Dean and he was nearly pinning me to the door by my shoulders.
"I'll... miss you," he said, letting go of my shoulders, his face pink.
He didn't mean to pin me. The thought made me laugh a little under my breath, a combination of nervous laughter and just normal laughter.
"I'll miss you too, Dean." I gazed into his eyes for a moment, the familiar thumping of my heart and sweating of my palms coming back in that moment.
He took a few paces backward and I turned and opened the door again, walking out and descending the stairs toward the front door.
Suddenly, I heard another door down the hall open and Glorion stepped out into the living room, his tall, semi-muscular silhouette looming over me.
My palms started sweating again, not in a good way this time.