His thumb stops moving.
I peek at him and find him frowning at me. “That made you pull away?”
I nod. “I’ve never felt it… before.”
Heath watches me, then removes his hands from my body and instead cups my face in his warm palms. His touch so gentle that I can’t help but lean into his touch.
“I know this is all new for you, fuck, it’s all new for me too. We’ll take everything at your pace. So just talk to me, okay. Don’t lie and hide things for me. Not anymore.”
The only thing I focus on is the part. We’ll take everything at your pace.
“You want to be with me?” I ask, feeling stupid, because in my head, I intend to end things with him. But that kiss, the way he holds me and now this. No guy will ever be him. They won’t care about me like he does. And maybe I’m being entirely selfish but I like him so much that I don’t want to end things with him. I don’t want to stop being his friend, and the person he kisses and holds.
Heath stares deep into my eyes as if he can read all my thoughts. “I want to be with you.”
“After everything that happened?” I ask, because I need to sure.
“After everything that happened.”
He doesn’t mean that.
Clearly he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
I shake my head to get out of his hold, but he doesn’t let go of my faceandme. So I give up.
“No! You are confused and you don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, my throat constricting. An ache throbs through its walls and I gulp to keep going. “If you stay with me you’ll only get into trouble. You’ll get hurt. You’llbleed.”
“Hope—”
I look up and meet his intense gaze. “There was blood on my bedroom floor. Your blood. I had to stare at it and think about how badly you got hurt because of me. I was the reason for getting you hurt.”
My voice cracks as I say, “And then I had to clean it. It took me an hour because it wouldn’t come off. So I kept scrubbing hard… really hard… until my hands ached…”
Tears fall down my eyes and damp his palms.
“And I couldn’t stop thinking. No matter what I did, it just wouldn’t leave my head.” I sob.
“Hey, listen to me?—”
I shake my head and sniffle. “And then Dad came into my room… and he tore down my book wall.”
“What?” His voice rises and shock and anger flash on his perfect face.
I nod and cry harder. “He took my books, one by one, and ripped every single page out of them. There were some pages that he just ripped to shreds.”
“Son of a bitch!”
“I tried glue and tape, but the pages… they wouldn’t join together.” A soul-shattering sob wrecks through me and my whole body goes weak. He ruined the one thing I love the most in the world.
Strength leaves me and I crumble but Heath steadies me against him, and wraps his arms so tightly around me that I can’t remember the feeling of being alone—a feeling I’ve felt my whole life but it just goes away.
I cry like a baby in his chest and he lets me.
No matter what I tell myself, the tears don’t stop and I completely embarrass myself in front of him.
At once my feet are off the ground. I pull away from his chest and realize he’s lifted me in his arms.
“Put me down! I’m heavy,” I whisper. My voice coarse.
