Page 46 of Beautiful Scars

What am I actually doing? The last time I watched a film with a girl I was about fifteen, and it was only because back then it was a sure-fire way of getting a hand job.

This is unchartered territory for me. The whole thing is, but this exact situation wasn’t part of any plan. I guess I just wanted her to have a break, maybe. And take a break myself.

Especially after today. It’s draining having to play the bad guy all the fucking time. And it’s getting harder and harder to play the bad guy with her. When I kissed her earlier, that wasn’t part of the plan either. It just felt… necessary. I did it without thinking. And I know she didn’t hate it.

She wouldn’t be sitting here beside me, cuddled into my chest if she hated it, would she?

And why doesn’t she hate it? She should hate me. She should be terrified of me, but she’s not.

Fucking hell. I’m tying myself up in knots. I need to stop thinking about shit I have no business thinking about. We’re just a man and a woman forced together making the best out of an altogether shite situation. That’s all.

I try to concentrate on the movie.

I’m surprised she has the stomach for this, but apart from a few flinches here and there she mostly keeps her eyes on the television.

Only when we’re about half-way through do I hear her breathing change. I glance down at her, and right enough her eyes are closed and her mouth is slightly parted. Fast asleep and looking like an innocent little angel.

I should carry her back down to bed, but now I’m invested in how this ends. I can’t remember the last time I watched it.

So instead I shift her, letting her lie across my thighs so she doesn’t wake up with a kink in her neck.

I’m almost at the end of the film when she wakes.

Although ’wakes’ is the understatement of the century.

She’s doing that thing again. Fighting in her sleep. Jolting and trembling like Freddie Krueger himself is inside her dreams with a fucking chainsaw. Or maybe that was a different film—fuck knows—but I’m unprepared for how to handle this.

“Meisie,” I say. When she doesn’t respond I say it even louder.

She just mumbles something, I don’t even know what, utter fucking gibberish, and I tap her on the cheek.

Her hands fly up and all of a sudden she’s trying to push me away, but all that’s doing is about to land her on the floor with a thud. I grab her, purely so she doesn’t hurt herself, and try to restrain her but, fuck, she’s stronger in her sleep than she is when she’s awake.

Her eyes open, “Get the fuck off me!”

“You’re sleeping,” I tell her. “You were sleeping.”

Another push. “Stay the fuck away from me.”

She looks rattled as hell, glancing around the room like the walls are crawling.

What do I do? What the fuck is going on?

Is she even awake?

“No, Alex, let me go,” she cries, her breath coming out in huge gasps.

Again with this fucking Alex?

I have her locked down across my knees. I honestly can’t tell if she means that or if she’s about to start flailing like a banshee the second I do let her go.

“Meisie!” My voice is firm now. I’m talking to her like she’s a dog with its teeth clamped around my leg, but I don’t even know if she’s seeing me. Her eyes are open but she looks terrified.

She’s still trying to push herself off the sofa.

Is this because of the film? Fucking hell. Cole used to do this. Watch the 18R DVDs when we were ten and spend the whole night fighting demons.

I do to Meisie what I did to Cole back then.