AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His brown eyes glisten and he nods. “No. I’m not.”
Frowning deeply, I search his eyes.
“Are you…” he starts to say.
“Am I what?” I murmur.
Again, he gulps, and stares at my chest. “Are you gonna treat me differently now?”
I stare at him for a beat. “Do you want me to treat you differently?”
His eyes spring up to mine, and he quickly shakes his head.
“Then I won’t.”
His lips tighten, and emotion fractures his gaze. His eyes fall shut, shoulders slumping.
I release his arms to cup his cheeks. “But you have to tell me if it’s ever too much. If I’m hurting you, I need to know. I know it’s…different for you, but for me it makes no difference whether you can shut it off or not. I need to know.”
He blinks back at me, nodding in my palms.
I search his expression, unsure how to word my next question. “I just…I guess I don’t understand how eventhis”—I squeeze his face gently—“isn’t too much. Much less…” I let the implication hover between us.
Sex.
He never said touch hurts him, aside from pain of course, but still…when I think sensory overload, I think ofallsenses. And then I remember how he was with the fruit—even other foods, now that I’m thinking about it. I just figured he was picky, or too distracted.
So what are the exceptions here, touch and smell?
His brow furrows with a cute little frown and he shakes his head. “I don’t know. But…”
“But what?” I whisper.
His lip shivers, and he shrugs. “It’s, like, grounding. You touching me. And I...I’ve never had that before. No one’s ever…” His eyes dart away again, and it hits me, spearing me right through the heart.
“No one’s ever held you,” I whisper.
“Not since before I could remember.”
All these so-called storms he’s had, and never, not once, did anyone think to just…comfort the kid. Hold him. Tell him it’s okay.
Not even when hewashurt.
“Even my nanny from when I was little, before I got sent away, was afraid to,” he says. “She saw how I’d react to others, like my parents and strangers. Mother would swat at my hand, or drag me behind her, or-or…” He trails off, glancing away, his jaw quivering against the heels of my palms. “I didn’t like touch, but I didn’t not want it…I just…They weren’t doing it right.”
I scoot myself closer, pulling up my knees to mirror him. Sliding my hands down to his neck, I hold him like I always do, firmly, almost roughly.
He sighs.
“It’s like magic,” he murmurs. “You touch me, and it all quiets. You hold me, and it all stops.”
Tipping his head back, I lean over, giving him no choice but to look directly into my eyes.
I smile sadly. “You don’t scare me,” I tell him.
His expression stills. His eyes glazing over, nostrils flaring.
His mouth parts, and I…
