Unloved (The Unlucky Ones #2)

by Marley Valentine

There is beauty in being bruised. There is beauty in being brave. There is beauty in being. MARLEY VALENTINE

“The truth is, there is no magic fix,” she says. “And the definition of happy is different for everyone. Do I believe being sober will make you happier? Controversial take? No, I don’t. But do I believe that your addiction is robbing you of all the ways you could be happy? Absolutely.”

I am Samuel Hart, in love with his best friend, living in denial and so fucking full of regret.

I know well enough it’s all a front, and for every photo where someone is smiling and living their very best lives, there is a version of them that is imperfect and sometimes struggling. I know that, but I still crave the normalcy of it all. I don’t want to stand out or be different; I want to blend in with the crowd any way I can.

They are the complete opposite of one another—Samuel like the sun and Rhys reminding me of the moon.

They’re night and day. Samuel’s eyes are bright and completely transparent—what you see is what you get. While Rhys’s are overshadowed by the dark circles surrounding his eyes, hiding as many secrets as I had been.

I thought it would be something that would bother me, but I’m so stupidly in love with Samuel that an excuse to stare at him is more like a prize than a problem.

I leave out the part where I deserved to die, and that almost every day since, I’ve woken up wishing he finished the job.

On one hand, hope keeps you going, but on the other, nothing hurts more than the loss of it.

In therapy and NA meetings, people always thank you for sharing your story, but it never felt like this. It always seems like an expectation that in order to move forward, you need to split yourself open and let yourself bleed for others to acknowledge your suffering. Having Samuel be grateful to have my trust makes my heart thump wildly against my chest.

“She does it because she’s a single mom,” he says. “My dad committed suicide when I was ten.”

It never ceases to amaze me how easy it is for life to pick right back up after tragedy. Your heart could break. Your life could change. Your dad could die. And yet everything just keeps on going.

I want to kiss him. I want to cradle his face in my hands and finally press my lips to his. I want to finally tell him how I feel about him, without saying anything at all.

If there was any more proof I needed that I was brought into this world unloved and uncared for, this is it.

He’s breathtaking when he smiles, and the ability to bear witness to it is the only thing that soothes the sting of knowing I’ll never know what his laugh sounds like.

I want to stay in this exact moment, and I want to move us to the bedroom and let our bodies lead the way, but I know I need to take it slow. Enjoy the build up. Respect the pace. Listen to the needs of my sobriety.

Where Lennox’s mouth gave, Samuel’s mouth takes, and I will forever be content to be whatever they need me to be.

“Tell me what you want,” he murmurs. “I can touch you. I can suck you. I can fuck you too.”

Samuel isn’t the protective bodyguard in the bedroom; he listens to each and every one of Lennox’s instructions like a good fucking boy.

These feelings I have for you, have always been there. Before I even considered the possibility of being bisexual, there was you. It has never felt wrong. You have never felt wrong.

“That’s not an option, Rhys. I need to sell your apartment because I’m tying up loose ends here.” He referred to me as a loose end.

“We’ll be in Japan indefinitely,” he says. “Make it easier on yourself and pretend we don’t exist. And we’ll do the same. Live your life the way you want, without a care in the world for anyone else.” He squeezes my shoulder. “You’re really good at that.”

Holy shit

For Samuel, old wounds are reopening. A ten-year-old boy, in a twenty-two-year-old man’s body, processing childhood trauma through the eyes of an adult.

They’re holding on to one another, and as always, happy or sad, they’re the most beautiful whenever I see them together.

Lennox loves his control, and usually I love finding ways to make him give it up, but right now I will do everything his mouth tells me to do. I want to be under his thumb. I don’t want to think. I don’t want to move. I don’t want to breathe unless he tells me to.

There is no doubt they had this planned, Samuel wrapping his wet lips around my cock while Lennox spreads my ass cheeks and chooses this moment to feast on my hole. I can’t move. I can’t think. I can’t breathe.

And it’s not just sex. It’s the way we feed off each other, the way we bleed for each other.

It’s the perfection from the very beginning of seeing someone for the very first time and not needing any reason or any rhyme to know in the marrow of your bones that they were made for you. It’s the heartache. It’s the tragedy. It’s the downfall. Mine is theirs and theirs is mine.

This time I’m the one who follows it up with the sign, making sure Rhys feels it, making sure he knows that my love for him is unconditional. That my love for him is everywhere and in everything. It’s as permanent as his pulse, beating every second of every day. The three of us love differently. The way we show love and the way we receive it. But it’s the presence of love in its entirety that makes any of this possible at all.

I smile at Rhys and Lennox before the words leave my mouth.

samuel and lennox*

I think they’re perfect for one another, and it is as easy as breathing loving both men, but it’s what it feels like to be loved by them that is the real treasure. I am loved unconditionally. I am loved more for every flaw I have. I am loved for my mistakes, and I am loved for my mishaps. I am loved for my sins and my scars.

For some, it’s till death do us part. For others, it’s through sickness and health For us, it is to hell and back.

“I love you,” he says, reading off the screen. “I love you both. I love you individually. I love us all together. All my todays are for you, and all my tomorrows are because of you.” “You’re killing me here,” he says, his voice cracking. I chuckle softly as he continues. “I’ll love you when it’s desperate and dire. I’ll love you when it’s beautiful and boring. I’ll love you from this breath to the next, and for every breath after.” Lennox lifts his tear-filled eyes to meet ours, and the three of us raise our hands and sign it at the same time. The first sign I taught them. The only sign that matters. I love you.