“So many people rush into that, and that means they rush into things they should take time to do right.”
Her fingers parted, and she stared adorably through them, and that made me want to do more to comfort her. I wished I could touch her, or hold her, but this wasn’t the moment to risk disturbing her even more.
“There’s a right way?”
I grinned at her, wondering if her decision to start looking at me was a good sign, and if she’d finally stop hiding from me.
“Yes, little lady, there is. I didn’t get it right myself, and I have regrets, but also good things came from it, so I can’t really complain. You though, you can make the right choice, the rightperson. It can be special, not rushed. It can be with someone who understands you as a person, and vice versa.”
She lowered her hands, staring at her trembling fingers, my eyes narrowing in on her left thumb, which looked almost raw, reddened, and had to be painful.
I pointed at it, without touching her. “That looks sore. What happened?” She clenched both hands, pulling them away and out of sight. Okay. Another nerve touched. Another issue raised that made her uncomfortable. Maybe I was just fucking things up here. It was good the way it was, right? We chatted, we laughed, we enjoyed her visits. Why was I suddenly pushing for more?
“Maybe this was a bad idea. Do you want me to leave?”
Caroline gasped, shaking her head vehemently, those dark curls flicking back and forth like they just had to join in.
“I told you I make things weird,” she finally whispered, looking literally everywhere except at me. I’d noticed before that eye contact was a struggle for her sometimes. Not usually when she first walked into my shop, but it often became an issue the longer she was around me. So she started comfortable, and became less so around me? That couldn’t be good.
“You don’t. You really don’t, but I’m worrying that I’m pushing you out of a comfort zone I don’t fully understand. I want to, though.”
“You wouldn’t get it. Nobody does.”
“Try me.”It wasn’t a challenge, far from it, probably closer to a plea at this point.
Her eyes lifted from the table surface, finally settling back on mine. They were a warm brown, which actually kind of brought to mind the idea of coffee, and chocolate, and more things that tasted so good, it made me want to get closer to her.
“Caroline, please.”
She blinked nervously at me, her eyes darting away now and then, like she didn’t know if she could even maintain eye contact while she explained. If she explained at all.
“I…I get overwhelmed easily… uh, sounds, sounds can really take up all my brain-space, until they’re all I can… and they push away everything else. They make it hard to even move, to escape from it, because they’re all there is.”
Damn.
“That sounds terrifying,” I said honestly, nodding at her to continue.
“I don’t know… I don’t like being around people much. They’re too unpredictable. They… they don’t have inhibitions like me. They think it’s okay to get close, to be loud, to… to smell like unfamiliar things, or or… or… to t-touch me. I don’t mean in a pervy way, but that’s terrifying too. Just a… some people insist on hugs and I’m really…” she trailed off, swallowing hard, “I really don’t like hugs, and what kind of weirdo does that make me? Everyone likes them, right?”
I reached out to her, placing my hand palm up on the table, like I wanted an open door for her to touch on her own terms, and she didn’t hesitate, placing hers in mine immediately, maybe because it’d give her strength, or calm the other things around her. I had no idea.
“It’s okay to struggle with stuff, little lady. It’s okay that you don’t like hugs. Many people don’t. Some people tolerate them because they think they’re expected, but you know what? Even I’m not keen on them. I think it’s like some universal fucking secret that people all hate them, but put up with them, because they think it’s normal. What the fuck is normal anyway, right?”
I saw a little smile appear on her face, and her breathing had calmed down a little again. When she’d been trying to explain herself, it had sped up, becoming raspy and panicked. I didn’t know if it was the subject matter, or my potential reaction to it,that had her so on edge, but I wanted to see the relaxed version of her I saw most times.
“You know something? I’m impressed by you, Caroline. You should be proud of who you are and what you achieve.”
“I’m useless! I’m scared of everything, I’m overwhelmed by everything, and… and all I want is to be normal. To be able to talk properly. To walk into a busy space, and not immediately feel like I’ll die just from how noisy and full it is. I want to… I want to like hugs and things. I want to be a proper person.”
Fuck me. How could one person crush my entire fucking heart with one statement? She didn’t feel like a proper person, because she felt differently about some things that really didn’t matter at all? She mattered, but I had a feeling proving that to her was going to be impossible. Didn’t say I wasn’t gonna try though.
Caroline
HOW WASN’T HE LAUGHING at me? Why wasn’t he getting up and walking away because I was… difficult. That was the word that had been thrown at me over the years. At twenty-seven, I was socially awkward, unable to cope with things most people effortlessly did every day, and I was tired. Just so tired.
“I don’t swear,” I said quietly, and Harley lifted an eyebrow at me.
“Ever?”
