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I pushed against the shower door too hard, and the glass banged against the wall as I fled, the sound snapping me back to the reality that I was stark naked in the bathroom, unable to remember where the hell the towels were, my breaths escaping as stupid whines as I tried to cover myself with my pathetic skinny arms.
“Here,” he said, wrapping me in a dressing gown. His dressing gown.
He turned me around so he could tie the belt. My face was flaming, and I kept my eyes firmly shut as I tried to calm down. Breathe. Figure out howthe fuck I was ever going to live a normal life again. The belt came undone and slid off my thin frame, tumbling to the floor.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
“For what?” he asked gently. “Are you a bit warmer now?”
“I don’t think I ever want to have sex again. I can’t…do things like that,” I blurted out in wild panic.
“Hugo,” he said quietly, reaching down for the belt. Looping his hands around my waist again, tying it into a half-hearted messy knot. I took over and tied it properly. When I was done, he tilted my chin up with his finger so he could look me in the eye.
“Darling, beautiful, gorgeous Hugo. I’m not going to…ever…make you do anything you don’t want to do.”
“I know.” I wanted to look away, and he would have let me, I was sure of that, but I made myself hold his gaze.
“I told you before, and I’m saying it again now. I have no idea what I am doing. All I know is that I want you in my life, however that will work out. You’re in control. I need you to be in control and show me how to do this, because I don’t have any experience here. I have no clue how to be everything you need me to be, and all I am asking is this…”
His voice had lowered to a small, soft whisper.
“I love you. I love you so much it actually hurts my heart. I don’t know how to deal with that, but when you’re not here, I wish you were, and when you are here, I just want to be next to you. Talk to you. Touch you. Just touching you… God, Hugo, you have no idea what you do to me. And the…”
He coughed.
“You didn’t smoke today.” I was deflecting because the lump in my throat was threatening to overwhelm me. “You didn’t even put your hand in your pocket trying to look for your packet. You do that sometimes. Just go to grab your cigarettes, and then you remember and look all embarrassed. You didn’t do that today.”
“I don’t want to smoke around you. I know it’s…disgusting.”
“Itisdisgusting.”
“My mum always smoked. She gave up a few years ago. I don’t know why I didn’t. Had no reason to, I suppose. Then I met you, and I didn’t want to anymore. I want to do better. For you.”
“You’re doing great.” I meant that, and I was suddenly back to being all calm, smiling as he stroked my cheek, his hand coming to rest at the back of my neck.
“The…I-love-you…bit.” His forehead fell against mine. “I mean it. But I don’t mean that you need to say it back or anything. I just wanted you to know how I feel. That all this, it’s not simple, it’s really…difficult for me to handle.”
Ben. Oh, Ben.
“I know,” I said quietly. I got it, I truly did, because the chaos whirling in my chest told me we were feeling the same.
“It’s difficult for me to handle too because…” I had to breathe between sentences. I held out my hand and placed it over his heart. In the stark light with a halo of steam surrounding us, he was so beautiful in his nudity, while I was drowning in his dressing gown looking ridiculous, like somederanged prince in a robe far too big for him. I felt like it. Especially when Ben smiled and leaned in, kissing my forehead.
“I want to say things, but I don’t know how to,” I said, suddenly finding my voice. “My life has been so incredibly…”Breathe.“So fucking fucked up, and I’m so bloody scared that I’ll make the wrong decisions and mess things up and you’ll get tired of me and angry, and things will just start to fall apart, and at the same time…” I wrapped the dressing gown tighter around me as his hands moved down my arms in strong, smooth strokes, trying to calm me.
“At the same time,” I continued, “I’m flipping terrified. I’m scared because of how much I like you. How much I like who I am when I’m living here with you. I want to live this life, but it’s like it’s someone else’s life that I’ve stolen and I’m not supposed to be here, and any minute now I’ll wake up and everyone will be laughing at me, and I will feel like a complete idiot thinking I could have this. I have all these feelings, and they are everywhere you are, and I don’t know how to tell you…how much…I like what you are. How much I want everything you could be to me if I only hold on. If I can just…”
I lost my words and just stood there as his hands moved up and down my arms.
“Then I think we’re both on the same page,” he said softly. “We don’t always need to spell things out, but we need to talk about things that are important to us. And what you said about…you know? Sex? We will never, ever do anything you don’t want to do. I mean that. I’ve lived most of my life without any kind of sex. Apart from the occasional, you know…”
“Wank,” I filled in bluntly. But he smiled.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“I can’t even do that,” I admitted. “Too many…thoughts.”
“Then we will just…be us. There are no rules saying we can’t be boyfriends and just sleep, cuddle and kiss.”
