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Tears of frustration stung the backs of my eyes. All I wanted to do was sleep. Just close my eyes and drift off. It should have been such an easy thing to do and yet I couldn't manage it. I couldn't get past my own brain long enough to do something as simple as give in to my body's exhaustion.
The need to crawl out of my skin was overwhelming and my limbs began to jerk involuntarily.
Just as the tears of frustration that I couldn’t control anymore began to slide down my cheeks, I felt the bed dip behind me. Humiliation rolled through me because I knew what that dip meant.
"I'm sorry, Nikolai," I croaked. "I'll try to be quieter."
I waited for Nikolai to speak, to ask me what was wrong. But to my surprise, I felt his big body pressed up against the back of mine and then his arm went around me. Instead of firing questions at me, Nikolai’s soft lips coasted over the shell of my ear. When he did finally speak, the words that came out of his mouth weren’t ones of judgment or frustration.
He didn’t say the words I’d been hearing my entire life like “Get control of yourself, Jude” or “Why can’t you just be normal, Jude?”
No, what he said was worse.
So much worse.
Chapter 17
Nikolai
"It's okay, Jude, I've got you," I whispered into Jude’s ear as I pulled his body back against mine.
I'd been listening to him toss and turn for over an hour and had just assumed he’d needed to decompress after the night’s events. But the more he'd shifted around in the bed, the more anxious he'd seemed to become. I’d told myself just to leave him alone to settle, but then I’d heard the muffled sniffles and whimpers that Jude had been trying to keep to himself.
At that point I’d given up on trying to pretend it wasn't my problem. I was coming to accept that anything and everything about Jude was my problem. Just because I was supposed to remain detached from him didn’t mean I could. I would have probably had an easier time of stopping breathing.
I’d expected some sort of protest when I’d climbed into bed with Jude, but when he’d apologized to me for making too much noise, he’d pretty much broken my heart right there on the spot.
A part of me hoped that his agitation stemmed from the knowledge that someone had been in his home, but the more I held him, the more agitated he seemed to become and I began to understand that the man in my arms had scars that ran even deeper than I could fathom.
My chest felt heavy as I carefully turned Jude over onto his back and said, "Talk to me, Jude." His eyes were squeezed shut and there was enough light from the streetlamp outside to confirm that there were streaks of tears on his cheeks.
"Talk to me, baby. Tell me what you need," I begged as I cupped his face and ran my thumb back and forth over his damp cheekbone.
"My cars," he whispered. "I need my cars."
It was the last thing I expected to hear. I understood that he had some kind of sentimental attachment to them, but it didn't make sense that he would be so completely out of sorts without them.
"Jude, we’ll get them back tomorrow. I know they're important to you—"
Before I could even finish my statement, Jude violently shook his head and choked out, "I hate them." His eyes were still squeezed shut and his entire body was locked up tight. "I hate them," he repeated.
His words made no sense to me. If he hated them, why did he need them?
I opened my mouth to ask him that very question but realized it didn't matter. Jude was beyond exhausted. Whatever was happening to him, it was bone deep. I didn't need to know the why of anything. I needed to know how to help him now.
I thought about when he’d shown me the cars. He’d said that they were out of order. When he’d removed them from his nightstand, he’d done so one at time like they'd been lined up inside of that drawer. I considered some of the OCD tendencies that Jude had. What if the cars were part of that? I’d never seen Jude fixate on things like needing to turn light switches on and off a certain number of times or checking locks on doors, but what if the cars were his fixation, his ritual?
"Tell me about the cars," I said as I slid my hand to the back of Jude's neck and began massaging the tight muscles there. He curled into me so his face was pressed against my chest. He shook his head in response to my request, but I didn’t miss the fact that his hold tightened on me.
