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Worry crossed his brow.
The way he sleepily blinked at me and how his dark curls fell all tangled over his face like that was enough to make anyone’s heart melt.
But not mine. Not now when it was suffocating in a thick fog of anxiety.
“I have to go,” I mumbled, rolling off the bed.
My dress. Where was my dress?!
“What?” He asked, his voice all crackly and heartbroken.
A lump formed in my throat. “I… I need—” my gaze darted across his floor with a surge of adrenaline, looking for my dress.
I was naked. Oh God, I was naked in front of a stranger—!
Something warm touched my shoulder.
My gaze snapped down and saw his hand there. But every touch on my skin in this state felt like too much; too sensitive. All my nerves under his hand were on fire, so I twitched away.
“Grace,” he said, his voice alert now. “Did I do something to upset you?”
“N-no,” I said, running my hands through my tangled, sweaty hair. “I just—”need to get out of here. Need to run. Need to get somewhere private so I can unpack all this and analyze it and punish myself for the imperfection of what I’ve done. “—I just need space.”
“Stay.”
“What?” I whipped my head around, hardly daring to look in his eyes again.
They were full of pleading, but hard with command. They flicked to my damp forehead, then traced my arm down to my fingers and lingered there.
I stopped fidgeting.
“I want you to stay. I don’t know what might be going on in your head right now, but I know getting yourself alone in the dark corners of your mind isn’t going to help.”
My mouth dropped open. “How do you…?”
“Like I said, I have experience being around people with anxiety,” he reassured me with a weak smile.
But that smile didn’t reach his eyes. He wasafraid.
Afraid that I’d leave him alone.
“If you don’t feel comfortable with me here in the bed, I’m fine taking the couch. But I want you to stay the night.”
I blinked at him, unsure of what to do. No one had ever said something like that to me before.
Remarkably, my thought train slowed enough to let his words cling to the sides. The train slowed down even more under the weight of their meaning:
I wasn’t the only one in the room with demons lurking in the shadows.
My heart slowed as the realization dawned on me:
I wasn’t a burden.
I was needed.
I let out a deep breath and my eyes fluttered closed. And just like that, the impending anxiety attack slowed to a halt.
“Stay,” he repeated, his voice a husky whisper. “Stay here where it’s warm.”
