Page 276 of Sorrow & Strangers

“I’m sorry. I’m just really in my head.”

Max nods and leans in, kissing me softly. “How do I get you out of it?” I open to him, and while Max deepens the kiss, he doesn’t try to unclothe me any more than I already am.

I moan softly and relax a little beneath him. Max’s large hand slides down my thigh, and I try to lose myself in him. In the kiss. In his touch. In his weight on top of me. It feels so different from the stranger’s.

Max groans, digging his fingers into my hair.

I drag my nails down his back as he slides the hand on my thigh up to cup my ass. He squeezes the supple flesh, pulling another moan from my lips. But even this reminds me of when the stranger did the same just this morning. How his rings dug into me, and as if the memory summoned them, the bruises the stranger left throb beneath Max’s touch. It feels so wrong.

Seeming to sense my instinctive withdrawal, Max rolls with me so I’m straddling him. I rest my hands on his chest and kiss him for a moment before I pull back to sit up on him, thoughts of the stranger stubbornly etched into my mind, into my skin, into my soul.

“Can we take a break for a bit?”

Max nods, looking up at me, and I roll off him, exhaling heavily.

“I’m sorry, Max. I should go,” I say, standing up and searching for my shirt and blazer.

“Is there something I can do?” Max asks, propping himself up on one elbow.

“It’s me. I’m just in my mind,” I say, shaking my head as I pick up my heels.

“Talk to me?”

I exhale, looking at him. “Can we just watch a movie?” I should go, but I don’t want him to feel like I’ve rejected him more than I already have.

Max nods and rolls off the mattress. He pulls a shirt on, and we settle on the couch. It is his turn to pick, so we sit for a while watching a martial arts movie. His arm is casually draped around me, and about halfway through, I decide to try again. I want to feel normal. I want to feel like I don’t belong to him.

I look at Max. His attention is still locked on the television, so I cup his cheek and turn his face toward me. Max looks at me, his eyes flashing green as I lean in to brush my lips over his. He groans and slides his arm from the back of the couch to wrap it around my waist, pulling me onto his lap to straddle him. I feel how ready he is for me and deepen the kiss, rocking against him. My mind is free of thoughts of the stranger until Max breaks the kiss and slides his teeth over the still-sensitive bite mark on my neck. My entire body goes rigid, and I pull back again. I can tell Max is sexually frustrated, but like the good guy he is, he masks it quickly.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” I say, frustrated with myself, but not at Max. I slide off his lap. “I should go. I’ll text you.”

Max grabs my wrist. “Summer. We are friends.” I glance at him. “It’s not something to feel guilty about.”

“What?”

“It’s okay not to be feeling it. You don’t need to rush out or be weird.”

“Max.” I lean down and brush my lips over his. “That’s not what this is.” At least, I don’t think that is what this is. “I just need to work through some things. Okay?”

“Okay,” Max says with a frown.

I kiss him again before leaving his apartment, and the second I get outside, I can feel him. I can sense his anger, but all I feel is hopeless.

I feel like, since coming to Avalon, I have been a mess, but since Connor died, it’s as if I can’t draw a full breath. I feel at war with myself, and I am struggling to remember why I am even fighting. Ignoring his ire, I start to walk, not really surprised to find myself in the forest, in our meadow.

The emotions battle inside me, and I can’t distinguish between them. What has the stranger done to me to make me think of him like this? After this morning, I feel like I’ve been under a spell, but what changed? I know the answer, and it’s terrifying because the thing that has changed is me.

I stand in the middle of the clearing. I am alone, and it makes everything fucking worse. While his anger was loudly present outside Max’s place, here there is only my anger, my sadness, my confusion, my grief, my fear. I pace up and down until the grass beneath my feet is entirely flat, and then I close my eyes.

I stop and take a deep breath. Closing my eyes and tipping my head back in defeat, I whisper, “Stranger?”

There is a long moment of silence, and I’m just about to give up on him coming when the air shifts and that nugget of his power within me stirs in his presence. “I am not good company at the moment,” he says sharply.

Even his avatar is vibrating with anger, and I take a step closer to him, but he steps back. “I should not be here.”

“Stranger—”

“Do you understand what it’s like for me to hold back and have to watch as you . . . ?” He snarls, and the trees quake under the power radiating from him.