Page 10 of The Intimacy of Finding You

I didn’t know anymore. I thought I did. I’d told Crew a hundred times over that what’d happened to us at camp wasn’t his fault and he wasn’t dirty, and he’d said the same to me. He’d found Price, who loved him no matter what. Price didn’t expect that stuff from Crew, but they still did it. Crew liked it. But it was never expected of him. Crew had found Price.

Yet the only people I’d ever found had demanded it from me. Who did I believe?

Who did I believe?

Who was lying to me?

Was it luck, or was it me? Was it something that followed me everywhere I went? Like a target stuck to my back, demanding it over and over again. Was Callum the exception to the rule, or was he playing me like a fiddle, waiting until I gave it to him willingly?

“Tobi, please.” He whispered, handing my shirt out toward me. “I don’t need that. You don’t have to do that. I like you because I like you. I like you just how you are, not how you think you have to be. Anyone who ever said otherwise is wrong, and I’m so sorry.”

I looked him right in the eyes, slowly taking my shirt from his hand. “Why are you sorry?”

“Because someone treated you wrong, and I can’t change that.”

The silence hung between us, heavy and dripping with regret as I pulled my shirt back on. The cold air in his apartment had thoroughly attacked my skin, leaving goosebumps. There was too much in my mind all at once, and I didn’t know how to sift through it all. I didn’t know whose side to take.

Callum tilted his head, catching my attention once more. “I’ll prove it to you. I promise I’ll prove it to you, and I won’t ever touch you unless you ask me to or you give me permission to. Okay?”

What else was I supposed to say to that? “Okay.”

“Can I hug you?”

I thought about it for a second, wondering just how much I could take. I wondered if my body would fall apart and break if I let him touch me. If I let him do something as simple as hug me with no expectations for more. “Yeah, you can hug me.”

His arms wrapped around me, my muscles automatically going tense. I could hear him sniffling right by my ear, and though I couldn’t fully understand why, I relaxed. Sticking my nose into the side of his neck, I inhaled softly, wrapped my arms around him, and squeezed back.

I didn’t mind it. I wasn’t even scared of it. I liked being in Callum’s arms more than I thought I would, and that in itself was a miracle.

Maybe this was the dream I’d come to Crescent Planes for.

chapter six

Present Day

How desperate would I have to be to do it? The building was so close, all I had to do was walk across the street and open the doors. It was that fucking simple, yet the idea had me trembling where I stood.

People passed by me on the sidewalk, dozens of faces obstructing my view of the restaurant until it was just flashes. Flashes of a life I’d taken for granted mixed with the annoyed expressions of complete strangers as I took up space where I didn’t belong.

I wasn’t drunk enough to seriously consider walking over there, but it was a thought. It dug deep in the back of my mind, making a home where it didn’t belong—just like me. It burrowed between the memories I had of it as a whole. Memories I’d tried so hard to forget, only to fail and remember over and over again, only further reminding me of what I’d never get to have again.

Instead, I started the walk back to the bar I liked–Driftwood Jack’s. It wasn’t usually very busy, so there were never many people, and there was always a lone table for me to sit at. Except for the times when someone from the very past I was running from showed up and took a seat beside me.

Jack had become the only familiar face I truly appreciated. The moment I walked into the bar, he pulled out a bottle of vodka and laid it on the counter. It made me smile—a small tug at my lips I hadn’t felt in ages. It made me wonder if a person could forget how to. If their muscles could atrophy, causing a constant frown. I wondered, as I wrapped my hand around the bottle, if that was going to happen to me.

The first drink always burned. The second burned slightly less. By the fourth, it was hardly a tickle down my throat—a warm tingle I welcomed because at least then I knew I could feel something.

It was odd. I didn’t want to feel anything, but I was terrified of feeling nothing. When would the day come when I was numb to it all? It seemed like I was already over halfway there.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I felt a presence crowding me. I snapped my head up, instinctually moving to the side a bit, getting as far away from whoever it was as possible. Some things—some trauma responses—never changed, it seemed.

Jack stood there, tilting his head and looking down at me. “Are you okay?”

I had to swallow and clear my throat, breaking up tiny mounds of unease that’d built up in it for far too long. When was the last time I had spoken? Probably when I saw Callum. “Sure.”

“That sounds convincing.”

Shrugging, I picked up the bottle of vodka. “As convincing as you want it to be.”