I even try to shake it out of my head.
But it doesn’t go anywhere.
It’s a stupid mantra, but it’s the one I’ve been singing to the tune of worries a child shouldn’t have as far back as I remember.
Everyone hates you. No one loves you. You’re not enough.
Do you remember when you were at lunch with Tia and her friends from her math class?
Your laugh was too loud.
Everyone found it grating.
“Sloan,” he repeats, murmuring into my neck. “What’s wrong?”
Pressing my eyes shut, I give another jerk of my head. “Nothing.”
Bohdan’s hand finds my chin, his fingers gentle. “Zlatícko, don’t lie.”
“Your Czech is so much better when you’re exhausted,” I say through a wet laugh, and I reach one hand up to bat away the tears running down my cheek.
His grip tightens against my chin, his arm tensing around my waist, before he rolls me over to face him.
Bohdan isn’t someone you’d describe as beautiful—he’s too serious, all sharp lines and edges and dark eyes that only ever seem to lighten when he looks at me.
But he looks something like beautiful now, milky light streaming through the window of his bedroom, hitting the planes of his face and those grey eyes in a way that make him look like he should be on a billboard somewhere.
He blinks, thumb brushing across my mouth before his hand wraps around the back of my neck. “Baby.”
He doesn’t repeat himself. He doesn’t ask again.
It’s all he says.
An invitation.
I take it.
“What if ...” I lean down, afraid to look him in the eye when I tell him in case he thinks it’s true, too. “What if ... what if everyone hates me?”
He doesn’t even blink, but his fingers tighten against the nape of my neck. “No one could hate you.” He says it like it’s a simple fact.
“But they might.”
“Did something happen today, Sloan? Or is your brain telling you something that isn’t true?”
It’s another thing that’s so stupid, so embarrassing, and it’s going to seem small to him, but it’s not to me even though I wish so badly it was. “I laughed.”
“You laughed,” he repeats.
I wait for him to do the thing that’s been plaguing me—to tip his head back, expose his neck with all those magnificent lines and cords in laughter that’s not for me, but at me.
He doesn’t.
“Then whoever heard you was lucky.”
I roll my eyes with a wet scoff, slapping at my cheeks now. “But what if it was too loud? What if I was annoying? Do you think I’m annoying?”
“It wasn’t, and no. I don’t. I think you’re fascinating.” Bohdan takes a steady exhale. “What do you need me to do, Sloan? Do you need me to tell you that no one thinks you’re too loud, that no one thinks you’re annoying, that no one hates you? If you need reassurance, I’ll give it. I’ll stay up all night.”
