Natalia frowns, her lips pulling into a quivering pout. “I know, I’m sorry,” she rasps. “I shouldn’t have done that and?—”
“Sweet—”
“No, wait,” she says. “I’m not done.”
I dip my chin and wait for her to continue.
“I’m sorry for the way I’ve been treating you,” she says, her voice hoarse and her lids heavy with emotion. “I’ve been so…shitty to you, Rowan. And I hate myself so much for it. I wish… I really wish I were better at all of this. I really wish Icouldcontrol it, but I’m learning how, believe me. But if you can’t forgive me right now, I won’t blame you. In fact,be mad. Shout at me or something, I can’t take?—”
“I wouldnevershout at you like that,” I say quickly. “I’d never hurt you or touch you in any way you don’t want me to. And I’m not going to yell at you now, either. Or ever.”
“But you’re mad.” She pouts, but she’s visibly trying not to frown at all.
“A bit, but, Natalia, out of everything I feel for you,” I say, “anger is at the bottom of the list.”
“See,” she says. “You say things like that. You make me feel things like this… I was— I was scared.”
“I know you are.” My hand let go of hers to grab onto her hip. “But you can let me be scared with you.”
“You aren’t scared, Rowan,” she says. “You’re never scared. You’re always so sure of everything, I don’t know how to do that. I don’t have as much control over my brain as you do over yours.How?”
I chuckle and squeeze her hips once. “One of us has to be level-headed, right?”
“I guess,” she murmurs, hiding from me again.
“Please, sweetheart,” I beg. “Don’t do that to me anymore. Don’t hide from me like this.”
“I don’t?—”
“After every time we were together, you’d shut down,” I say.
She frowns and lifts a shoulder. Her delicate hands trail up my arms until they settle on my shoulders, resting there. “I’m working on it,” she whispers.
I tilt her chin up, her face level with mine again, and push a curly stray behind her ear. “What are you scared of with me?”
“Everything,” she breathes. “The way you make me feel, Rowan. I don’t know what to do with it. Where do I put it?”
“Give it to me,” I say. “And I give mine to you.”
Her lips twitch. “I don’t know how.”
“It’s easy,” I promise quietly as I pull her in for a kiss. “I’ll show you.”
I feel her small smile against my mouth, and it’s enough to make my chest less sore.
“Have you ever felt—It’s weird.”
“It’s not. Tell me,” I whisper and put my hands back on her hips. “Please.”
“Have you ever felt…a lotfor someone? So much that it’s overwhelming and you feel like you can’t breathe?”
I nod.You.
“Rowan, I can’t breathe,” she says. “And then, suddenly, this person feels the same and you don’t know what to do or how to react? Now you know they feel the same and you feel—confused. Because you’ve spent so much time pining and yearning in silence that it doesn’t make sense that he feels the same way you do?”
Her hazel eyes soften, her brows lowering into a low sad expression.
“I mean,they,” she whispers.
