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My eyes widened at the words he spat out so quickly after I told him something about myself he didn’t know. “No, I’m not.”
“I’m not doubting the truth in the situation. What I’m doubting, is that you moved here because of it.” Tapping his fingers on the tile countertop, he said, “You know, I don’t understand why you want to know so much about me, but you refuse to let me know anything about you. You’ve let me see,” he stared into my eyes, recalling our first time together, “that you have things that haunt you, but you won’t tell me about them. How is that fair, Sutton?”
“It’s not like you told me about your past!”
His eyes narrowed to such thin slits that I was surprised he still saw me. “Only because you Googled me. Something tells me Google wouldn’t procure any results on you, though.”
“You’re right about that,” I muttered under my breath.
“You can tell me anything, Sutton. I want you to know that,” he said, his voice and posture softening. “I wouldn’t tell anyone. Anything you tell me, I’d take it to my grave.”
I closed my eyes, my breath faltering as tears pricked my eyes. “It hurts so much,” I confessed.
“I know. Believe me, I know.”
And I knew he did. If I hadn’t found out about his past on my own, he probably would’ve never told me. But then again, watching the way he was looking at me right now, maybe he would have.
“If-if—” My voice shook. “If I tell you everything,” I put emphasis on the word,
“then you owe me the same.”
All the muscles in his body tightened and his teeth clenched. I saw a million thoughts flicker through his mind. “Don’t you know everything already?” He countered.
In a calm tone, I said, “Hardly.” Grasping his shirt between my hands, I rested my forehead against his chest. “I’ve never opened myself up to anyone, not completely at least. If I do this, I need there not to be any secrets between us. I think we both need someone who knows the whole truth and won’t judge us.” Looking up at him a sigh escaped my lips. “I think you’re that person for me, I only hope you believe that I’m that person for you.”
A shaky breath gusted out of his lips. “I don’t know if I can,” he cupped my cheek, “but for you, I’ll try.”
“That’s better than nothing,” I breathed.
We were both two entirely fucked up people, who’d been dealt a bad hand, if we couldn’t trust each other with our sins then they’d stay bottled inside us until one day we exploded.
The one time I had sought help for the damage that had been done to me, the results hadn’t been pretty.
I was going out on a limb here, trusting Caelan with my secret after being burned, but he deserved to know what he was dealing with.
He brushed a piece of hair off my shoulder, his fingers lingering against the bare skin longer than necessary. My eyes closed and years of pain and self-loathing flooded my body.
“Hey,” he brushed his thumb over my lips and I forced myself to look at him, “it’s okay. Take your time. This is hard for me too you know?”
“It is?”
He nodded. “The intensity of my feelings for you scares me more than anything,” he confessed, forcing the words past his lips. “Not caring has become a way of life to me. I keep everyone at a distance.” He looked up briefly, taking a deep and steadying breath before letting it out. “You successfully knocked down every wall I’ve built around myself.” His hand settled at the nape of my neck, his thumb roaming in small, slow circles. “You make me want things a guy like me has no right to have.” He swallowed thickly and tears shimmered in his eyes. Seeing a guy like Caelan this close to breaking down made my insides twist together. I itched to hold and comfort him, but I knew it was best to stay quiet and let him say what he needed to. “I know there might not be a future for us, I mean,” he chuckled weakly, “we’re kind of a mess, but right now this,” he leaned his forehead against mine and lightly pressed his lips to my nose, “is enough.”
My hands shook as I grasped the collar of his shirt. “If there was ever anyone I could trust with this, it’s you.”
“You can,” he assured me, his voice soft—a direct contrast the harshness I was used to from him. “We all need someone in this world that we can trust with our darkest secrets. I didn’t actually believe that until I met you. I didn’t even tell you about my parents, and, well,” he shrugged lightly, “it’s not like I hide my struggles with addiction. Still, though, you never judged me. Not at all. Everyone else looks at me like I’m…tainted somehow. I guess I am,” he let out a soft chuckle. “The way people look at me…it makes me feel…” he paused, searching for the right word, “dirty and useless. Like I’m less because I turned to drugs to erase my problems. People only see addiction. They don’t see behind that, to what drove that person to destroy their life. An addict doesn’t become an addict for the hell of it,” he whispered, his eyes full of pain, “we all have a s
tory.”
There that word was again. Story. First Daphne, then Memphis, and now Caelan had used it to describe life. I truly understood what it meant now. People tend to only look at the surface and see what’s there. If they look at a cheerleader, that’s all they see. Someone happy, peppy, and smiling. They don’t look further to notice the bruises on her arm in the shape of fingertips. If they see a kid shoplifting, he’s just a thug. But maybe he stole that thing to take care of someone. We’re all too quick to think we know everything and pass judgment when we have no right. Humans are selfish like that. We naturally think we know everything, when we know nothing. It’s our fatal flaw and our ultimate downfall.
I stood slowly, shaking all over.
I blocked out all thoughts of possible rejections. After all, if we spent too much time thinking of rejection, we’d never accomplish anything.
I knew that this moment, right here and right now, could be my turning point—if I allowed the dreaded words of my haunted past to leave my lips. The thing about healing is it’s hard. Really fucking hard. Impossible sometimes. But it’s up to us to let it happen. Some of the worst scars we carry are from ourselves and our own self-doubt—we’re our own worst critic and biggest bully. We tear ourselves down over things that aren’t even our doing. It’s pretty damn sucky. I blamed myself for what happened to me—still do. It’s a natural reaction. If I had done this or that, then this wouldn’t have happened. But it’s not true. No one asks to be hurt. And I was hurt in one of the most dehumanizing ways.
I went to the place I always felt the safest—the window. Looking out at the world below, it was easy to pretend that what happened to me was nothing but a distant nightmare.
