The words I want to say won’t come out. All I can do is cry, for the pain, inside and out. Eli lifts me up off the floor and walks me over to the bed. He places me down and slowly takes my pants off, unbuttoning them and pulling them down as I wrap my arms around my face. He gently lowers my arms down before he lifts my shirt over my head and tosses everything on the floor beside the bed. Then he scoots in next to me and wraps us both up in the covers.
He places his arm around me and pulls me close to him, whispering in my hair, “I’m sorry, Lydia.” He places his hand on my arm, gently stroking it. “I wish you would have told me what was going on. You made me feel like I was doing something wrong, and I was frustrated that I couldn’t figure out what the problem was. I know how hard this time is for you, and I didn’t even realize—”
How can someone who brings me this much comfort be the same person who keeps hurting me?
I want to scream.
I want to kiss him.
I want to hate him.
I want him to love me.
I want to be good enough to be loved the right way.
I want to be fixed.
Fuck. What is wrong with us?
The smell of alcohol on his breath makes my skin crawl, but his soft, soothing touch calms my mind, making it slow down for the first time since being on this trip.
“I don’t know how to let go of the guilt,” I admit to him. “Sometimes it feels like a fresh wound that I just can’t get to heal. I relive it over and over…all of it, really—my parents, the shitty foster homes, finding Camilla that day, you…breaking my heart…”
Eli turns me to face him, taking my face in his hands. “I broke your heart?”
I nod silently.
He searches my face, trying to find the right words to help. “Let me put it back together, Lyd.”
He says it so gently that I believe he wants to. I stay wrapped up in him all night, letting him soothe the ache he’s partly to blame for. Letting myself get carried away in the only love from a man I’ve ever known.
20
Lydia
It’s the middle of summer now, and all I want to do is soak up as much sun and fun as I can before I start my senior year and Eli starts college in the fall. I also want to sleep as much as possible, too. I haven’t been doing much of that lately.
My phone rings, and I pick up the FaceTime from Simone as I sit up in bed.
“Hey,” I say, still barely awake.
“Hey,” she replies flatly.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“I don’t know, Lyd. You tell me. Did I do something wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve hardly heard from you all summer. I mean, I go from seeing my best friend every day to you not texting me for weeks sometimes.”
This is a lot to take in as soon as I wake up, but it still instantly hurts to know she’s feeling that way.
I don’t really know what to say…Ihavebeen distant…because it feels like Ihaveto be. Every time I’m with Simone, I end up fighting with Eli, and these days, I try so hard to avoid any arguments with him. When we fight, it gets sougly. He says a lot of stuff I know he doesn’t mean, but it hurts just the same in the heat of the moment, and that hurt tends to linger; it stings, and it makes me want to start hurting him back. But I don’t want to become that kind of person, always going tit for tat with the person I love. And when it turns physical…I shut everything out,everyoneout.
Simone has somehow become a sore spot for Eli recently. He thinks that I always act differently when I’m around her, or that I spend more time with her than him, and I’m telling her all these bad things about him. Honestly, I don’t tell her anything about him anymore. I want her to believe that he’s a good guy, so I always paint him in the best light when I’m talking to her, but the lies are starting to burn like acid on my tongue.
I constantly try to avoid anything that I know pisses him off and keep him happy, but no matter what I do or how carefully I walk on eggshells around him, something always ends up triggering him. It feels like we’re starting to spiral, and I don’t know how to stop or fix it anymore.
