“I’m sorry but I’m going to touch you.” Then he shoves my face into his bare chest, holding me against him tightly. For a moment I freeze, shaking and overwhelmed. Then I smell the familiar scent of his pillows—clean and flowery. I feel his heart beating rapidly and the muscles of his chest tensing as he holds me. I meltinto him and cry.
I hear Felix try to approach and for the first time in our entire friendship, Tina tells Felix to leave me alone.
“Baby, I think he needs Aaron right now. Why don’t you come downstairs with me?” She says through tears. “You don’t need to be alone. Come sleep in our room.” I hear the three of them leave.
I don’t know how much longer we stand there, frozen in time.
“Button, can I clean all your cuts and bruises? Wash your hair?” I lean back and look up at him. He’s so handsome—so familiar. I’ve missed him. So much. One night is fine, right?
So I nod.
He walks me to the bathroom where he peels off my shirt, shorts, and briefs. Shoes and socks in the corner. After warming the water, he guides me in. Slowly and softly, he washes every inch of me, holding the back of my neck as he cleans my face. I’m staring at him while he does. Then I say,
“Aaron?”
“Yes?” He keeps his focus on the gash that was hidden on my jaw.
“Your soft is different.” The air in the room changes—a change in atmosphere—as Aaron closes his eyes, gripping the back of my neck a bit tighter, breathing deeper.
“Yeah?” Is all he says.
“Yeah.” I confirm. “It’s odd. Everything you do is so much different than everyone else. My mind and my body reacts to you differently. I think if anyone else would have grabbed me just now I would have hit them.” I try to smile, to make light of it. But Aaron has stopped scrubbing, holding my neck and staring down at me so painfully I can feel it physically. “I’m sorry.” I look away from him.
“Don’t be.”
Aaron finishes cleaning me up and drying me off, then he carries me to his bed and lays me down, putting his sweats on me and tucking me under the blanket. I shove my face into his pillows, breathing deeply. So much weight leaves me—dissipates like it was never there.
“I’ll be in Felix’s room if you need me.” He says, walking toward the bathroom. I sit up abruptly.
“What? You’re leaving?”
“Yeah.” The panic returns—my chest rising and falling faster and faster. Tears prick at my eyes as I stare at his back retreating.Why? Why do you all leave?
“You... you’re leaving too? Why? Did I do something? Did I talk too much?” Aaron spins around, eyes wide as he stands in the threshold of the bathroom in his basketball shorts.
“What?”
“I—” I’m trying to catch my breath, to calm down. “I don’t want you to leave me. Youcan’tleave me—not you. If Drew needs space, then fine. I have no parents to love me—whatever. But you can’t go Aaron—not you.” Aaron sits next to me and pulls me into his lap, cradling me, my face shoved into his neck.
“I wouldneverleave you, Button. Never. I just didn’t think you’d want to touch me all night.” I don’t say anything—I just cry softly into his skin. “Ah, this is so fucked. You have every right to be angry. To be done. I’m not mad or disappointed and I don’t think less of you. If I were in your shoes, I think I’d be a lot less brave than you are.” I grip at his bicep, holding as much of him as I can. “Don’t ever think I don’t know who you are.”
I pull far enough away from him to look at his face. The only light in the room comes from the nightlight in the bathroom, but I can see him clearly. I always see him. His eyes—those calculating, ever intense, green eyes. They stare into mine, trying to make me believe it—make me see.
“You know who I really am?” I really hope he does. That someone does. He runs a hand back through my hair, smoothing my fringe off of my forehead.
“Baby, I could find you in a room full of people blindfolded, deaf, and three bottles deep.” I laugh, dropping my head to his shoulder.
“Good. At least one person does.” His arms tighten around me.
“Button, if they don’t—why are you wasting your time?” I pull away again, further this time. I want to see every little reaction, every thought that flashes through those eyes.
“And what would I do instead?” His eyes fall away from mine. “Aaron?”
“Yeah?” He’s picking at the waistband of the sweats he put on me.
“Will you hold me?” His eyes lift to meet mine again. “You don’t have to stay through the night if you don’t want to. But please—just hold me until I fall asleep.”
Aaron wraps an arm around my waist and turns us to lay down, side by side, facing each other. He pulls me against his chest, throwing a leg over mine, one arm under me and the other wound up to the top of my back, palm pressed onto the back of my head. I wrap my arms around his torso and breathe him in; my face pressed to his chest.
