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“Hang on a minute, baby…” Gwenna sits up. I shift onto my side, feeling unsteady and weird. She’s gone for a moment, and then she’s moving in my field of vision with a big blanket. She spreads it over me. It’s oddly heavy
“That’s my weighted blanket.” I watch her out of the corner of my eye as she pulls it up to my mid-back. My eyelids seem to grow heavy with it. Gwenna doesn’t seem real.
“Okay, now…” She does her best to wrap her hands under my arms and tug me up against her, guiding my head to her soft belly. I can feel her body curl around mine. “Feel that blanket? It’s keeping you here…with me. You’re okay here. Nothing is the matter in this time and place, okay?” She holds me tightly as her whispered words flow through me. Things feel like they’re swirling around me.
I smell the blood. Regret and horror swell like balloons in my chest, until I can barely breathe enough to whisper, “I’m sorry.” I feel my body tremble, and I feel so fucking bad to burden her like this. I shut my eyes. “I love you.”
My stomach plummets as my raspy words make their way to my brain.
I’m off the bed so fast, the room careens; into the bathroom where I lean against the wall and brace my hands on my knees.
Fuck!
My mind is racing, even as my throat feels like it’s closing up. I think of crawling out the bathroom window.
Get a fucking grip. I stand up straighter, scrub the heels of my palms over my eyes. Even as I stop my leaking eyes and regulate my breathing, something hard and cold encases my chest.
It’s not going to work; it’s never going to work. I can’t keep it together…
I hear Gwenna come into the room. Can see the shape of her, but I can’t look at her. My eyes shut of their own accord, but I force them back open. Force them to meet her wide, brown ones.
“I’m sorry.”
I make myself take in the look on her face: kind. I grit my jaw so hard it sends a bolt of pain up my temple.
“Barrett…” Her voice is so soft, I can hardly hear it…but I see her mouth move. I feel her step closer to me.
“I’m wrong for you,” I manage. My voice sounds raspy; weak.
I watch her eyes absorb the words: the way their dark pools seem to deepen.
“Bear…” She steps so close our bodies touch and runs her fingers up my cheek. She strokes my temple. Her eyes flare, demanding things before she even says, “You love me. You said so. And you know what? I love you too.” Her fingers curl against my cheek. Her eyes flash. “I love you too.” Her voice cracks. “It’s scary to say, even though you just said it. Barrett…” She wraps an arm around me, pressing her softness against me, looking up into my face as she speaks softly. “I think I knew I loved you when I brought the wine over that night. I felt scared and kind of…helpless. Like what I was doing was out of control and maybe stupid. And I couldn’t stop.” Her voice goes raspy. “You know why?” She blinks.
I shake my head.
“Because I love you. I love everything about you.” Her hands grasp my wrists. “I like your arms and legs…your hands.” She brings one up to her face, turning my hand so her lips can brush over my palm. “There’s this callous right here—” Her mouth tickles the spot between my left hand thumb and forefinger that used to mark me as an Operator. “I like it,” she murmurs, her eyes burning mine. “I like your long fingers. I even like your little fingernails.” She smiles gently, and squeezes all the fingers with her own.
“You know what I like the most, though?” She sounds breathless.
I swallow.
“The thing you know best, you can’t do it anymore, Barrett. You lost your vision in one eye, you lost basically a life, and what are you doing? Taking time for some random girl next door. Teaching her hand-to-hand. Making her care about you.” She shakes her head as sorrow fills her eyes. “You keep running from me… I knew you were getting up at night.” Her lips press into a thin line as she shakes her head again. “Don’t you think I care?”
“You don’t know me.” The words are hoarse. My jaw aches, referring pain up to my ear. She doesn’t know me. If she did, she’d never love me. She wouldn’t be able to, and in my honest moments, I can see this with terrible clarity.
I feel a clawing sensation deep inside my chest.
“I don’t know you well enough to take care of you?” Her eyes glimmer. She frowns, and I watch her throat move as she swallows. “Barrett—this is when we met. This is how things are right now. I love you because…I do. I want to be here with you. What bothers you about all that?”
I look down at my feet as my eyes throb with building pressure.
“Talk to me, baby.” Her voice is so soft; it makes my chest feel like it’s ripping open.
I look up at her, even open my mouth, but all I see is warm love in her eyes and I just…can’t. I shudder. Gwenna holds me to her, and it’s horrible. It’s wonderful. I want it so much. More than the sum of all the good parts of me.
“All I want is to make you feel better,” she says in her sweet, soft voice, “but I feel like I can’t get to you, if that makes any sense.”
I inhale deeply and let the words inside my head croak out. “I don’t see why you want to.”
