“But there was no escaping that heat. You found me out there and we spent hours looking at the stars. Talking about nothing. Recipes and rare cold winters in Florida. How I wanted to be a cheerleader at school, but I never quite fit in. You teased me about the little skirts.”
“You never tried out,” he says so fondly that she might cry again.
“No. No, I didn’t.”
He’s quiet while he eats and doesn’t speak again until the apple is gone and another bread roll is, too.
“Was it you the other day? Did I…did I hurt you?”
She winces. “You didn’t know what you were doing.”
“Oh god,” he gasps, doubling over with his head in his hands.
She does something terribly stupid then, knowing she shouldn’t. Seeing him like this is tearing her apart, and she reaches out to lay her hand on his shoulder after explicitly saying she wouldn’t touch him. He jerks away so hard he practically climbs onto the headboard to get away from her.
She sees the exact moment he almost clocks her across the face on reflex. Pulls his arm back at the last second, horrified by his own behavior, but unable to do anything but press his back against the far wall the bed’s shoved into.
He’s been reprogrammed since she last saw him, reduced to the basic instincts needed to survive and trained to assume every touch equals pain. That’s not something that’ll vanish just because he sees her. She should know better. Already did this once before and learned her mistake, yet here she is again, so easily convinced that the man in front of her is the same as she remembers, that she ignores all caution.
She’s fully aware of how badly she fucked up and how lucky she is that all her teeth are still firmly attached. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I forgot. I’m sorry.”
Everything now is so easily broken. She has no idea how they’ll go from where they are back into something that resembles what they had.
Maybe things can never be the same again. She has to begin coming to terms with that and accept whatever he’s able to give instead of wishing for a past they’ve both left behind.
Chapter 6
Wade hurt the only person left that he loves.
The only person he’d sell his soul to protect.
She never stopped looking for him and in return he strangled her in a rage, unable to trust his own eyes. Now, he can’t trust the rest of himself either.
He could have killed her, and that’s enough to have him coming apart at the seams where he sits on the bed, shoved into the corner. Hopes she won’t touch him again but nearly vibrates with the need to feel her hands smoothing over his shattered body, while at the same time being disgusted by the idea of anyone getting close enough…even her.
His emotions form a tangled web, pulling him in opposite directions.
It wasn’t only once that he lost control, but twice. Nearly knocked her teeth out for the sin of trying to comfort him. He can’t be sure it won’t happen again while they’re alone without anyone to pry him off her.
The fact that she’s real, not some delusion, isn’t something he can fully handle either, or give the weight it deserves. What kind of bullshit is that after spending every waking moment dreaming of nothing but the day he’d see her again?
How wrong he was to think it could be as simple as he imagined. There are no movie endings here when he can’t even look at her for more reasons than he can count.
She’s moved back to the chair as the sun starts to set while he slowly melts down into the mattress. Where will she sleep tonight, he wonders, assuming she’ll leave again, and he’ll be alone in this box with his own thoughts.
‘Staywith me.’He thinks, as if she’d want anything to do with him now.
That can’t happen. He’d never ask. Isn’t even sure he wants it as much as he thinks he does. The concept of her slipping into bed with him is both innocently seductive and far too dangerous. Then she shifts in the chair like she might sleep there and guilt pummels him.
He’s used to sleeping on the floor. This one is an upgrade with carpet instead of concrete. He owes her a soft mattress at the very least for everything he’s put her through.
“You can sleep here.” He hates how raspy he sounds, even worse than when he smoked a pack a day before the turn.
He’s halfway off the bed before her protest comes, but she doesn’t leave the chair. She’s afraid of him. Good. Maybe that’ll keep her alive.
She points to the side of the bed like before, silently asking if she can come closer to talk to him.
He hesitates, heat prickling up his neck when he’s forced to meet her eyes, before eventually nodding his agreement. He was never a master of eye contact, even before all this. Grew up looking at everyone sideways to avoid a direct connection. Now, that flaw has only flourished.
