Page 121 of Beautiful When He Breaks

“You don’t have to pick one thing.”

“I know people say that.”

“I’m not people.”

That gets another sound out of me, closer to a breath than a laugh. His hand slides from my hair to the back of my neck, thumb pressing gently into the tense place at the base of my skull. I close my eyes despite myself.

“I’m so angry,” I say.

His chest rises under me. “You should be.”

“I love Mila.”

“I know.”

“I don’t regret her, but I hate Celeste. I hate her so much I don’t know what to do with it. I have proof now, and somehow it feels worse even though I needed proof. My body was there, and I wasn’t, not really, and now there’s a video proving it. I hate it even more that you had to see it.”

Julian cups the back of my head again. “Eli, look at me.”

I don’t want to. I do anyway.

His face is close, eyes dark with anger he’s holding back for my sake. I know that anger now. I know what it costs him to keep it from becoming the loudest thing in the room. It both makes me love him harder and hurt worse at the same time.

“I would watch every terrible thing in the world before I let you face it alone. I’m not glad I saw it, but I’m glad you didn’t have to.”

My throat closes, and I kiss him because I can’t answer that any other way.

It’s not soft. I don’t have soft in me right now. My mouth crashes into his with desperation and heat and grief all tangled so tightly I don’t know where one ends, and another begins. Julian makes a rough sound of surprise, but he kisses me back for half a second on instinct, hand tightening at my neck before he catches himself. I feel the restraint come into him. The carefulness. The concern. It makes something frantic in me push harder.

I climb over him before he can sit up, straddling his hips with the blanket twisted between us, both hands braced on his chest as I kiss him again. I need his mouth. His body. His warmth. I need something that feels like now instead of then, choice instead of proof, want instead of a video I never saw but will feel forever.

Julian’s hands come to my waist, but he holds me steady instead of pulling me down, and that makes me whine against his mouth in frustration.

“Eli,” he says, turning his head enough to break the kiss. “Baby, wait.”

I chase his lips. “No.”

“Sweetheart—”

“Jules, please.” I press my forehead to his, breathing hard, hands fisted in his shirt. “Make me forget.”

His whole body locks beneath me. Even as fucked up as I am, I hear what I said and how it landed. Julian’s eyes close for one second, his jaw tightening as if the words hurt him physically. When he opens them again, the want is still there because we’re both alive and human and I’m sitting on him, but worry is stronger.

“No,” he says softly.

The refusal hits me like a slap, even though his voice is gentle. I start to pull back, humiliation flaring so fast it burns. “Forget it.”

His hands tighten at my waist immediately, keeping me from bolting without forcing me down. “That’s not what I mean.”

“You said no.”

“I said no to making you forget,” he says, and his voice stays steady even when mine shakes. “I’m not going to use sex to bury this for you.”

Something in me twists, angry and ashamed and desperate all at once. “I’m not asking you to use me.”

“I know.” His eyes never leave mine. “That’s why I’m still talking.”

I hate him a little then—just enough to be furious that he loves me too well to give me the easy bad answer.