I feel ratcheted up, wired, half wild, and weirdly exhausted all at the same time.
Fawnie makes a trapped sound in her throat that is so, so soft. She moves, standing in front of me, and then she sits down in my lap. She arranges her legs over mine, hanging them over the side. This bench is basically shit, but I’m able to balance us both.
I bow my head until my forehead rests against hers and let out a sigh that’s more broken than I thought it would sound. Her hands immediately come up, bracketing my face, protecting me, soothing me. They travel to the back of my neck and then her fingers play in the fine hairs there.
Her soft, slow touch feels like heaven.
“Sorry.” My voice is even scratchier than normal.
Fawnie caresses the gold chain, brushing her hand around to lift it out of my shirt. She strokes the metal, warm from my body, and somehow seeing her do it gives me comfort. I’ve done the same thing, with intention in the past, or absently.
It was Preacher who gave me the crucifix back in Ohio, just before he left. His father had given it to him. At the time I think he was starting to question his calling, but that’s not whyhe gave it to me. I guess it was a gesture, he knew how much comfort it had given him and wanted me to have it. Stroking that worn, warm metal always somehow made me feel better. I suppose it was the methodical habit that did it. Another small thing I could control and focus on when everything else was spiraling out of control.
I swallow loudly. “I hate feeling like this. I hate being stuck and trapped and angry and hurt. I… want to talk to Lockwood.”
Fawnie seems to stop breathing, but then her lips find mine and she kisses me gently, with no real heat or intent other than to silently communicate with me her pride and relief and wonder at that decision.
There’s more. I’m worried I won’t get it out. When she stops kissing me, the words rush out before I have a chance to lock them back inside. “I’m tired of being ashamed. I don’t want to keep telling myself that I’m unlovable. I don’t want to be unloved, or hard to love.” I stare right into her wide, shining cobalt eyes. “I’m sorry that all I do is push and push and shove everyone away. I can do so much more than I’m doing right now to help myself. I’m not a monster. Iknowthat. I’m a person. Not a very nice one, but so what?” I see the bright light of hurt pass through Fawnie’s eyes, with a thousand other flickering emotions. “I don’t want to hide anymore. I want- I- I’d like…”
Her hands are back on my neck, stroking little circles, making tiny little paths that make me want to gasp against her. I do shiver. More than once. I want her to keep going. To keep touching me. To never stop.
“What, sweetheart?” she coaxes gently.
I startle a little at the term of endearment, but don’t correct her. Fawnie lifts my hands away from her and laces ourfingers together. She holds onto me tightly, a silent way of telling me that she’ll never let go.
“You,” the word is a whisper, but it’s loud in the room. “I want to be able to tell myself that I deserve to be with you. I… deserve is the wrong word, but I can’t think of one better. It’s just the thousand things that I coulddobetter that are cluttering up my mind.”
“I’m here. There’s no special benchmark you have to reach.” Her lips part, but she changes her mind, closing them, and then she slides off my lap. She pulls me up to standing, keeping our hands locked together to assure me that she’s not pulling away. “You’re exhausted. It’s really late.”
I’m such an asshole. Time doesn’t have a lot of meaning for me, but regular people operate on schedules. In the daylight. With purpose.
You could learn to do that too.
My brain not being a total asshole startles me more than anything. “Will you stay?” I blurt, needy as fuck and even more pathetically, I can’t bring myself to hate it.
She smiles at me so easily, so openly, that it makesmefeel shy. “I’d love to stay.”
“Will- uh- will Bubby be okay?”
“She’ll be fine. I made sure she had all her food and water before I left. I used to go to class sometimes for ten-hour days. She’ll be fine.”
I’m still not done yet. I want to tell her the rest of what I need to get out. “I’d like to come clean with your dad. I can’t talk to him if he doesn’t know that we’re more than acquaintances,and I’d really like to do that. He knows me better than Lockwood ever will.”
She kisses me. It’s gentle and sweet and maybe even a little bit shy on her part too, but then my fingers tangle in her soft, silky hair, changing the narrative. I kiss her deeply, stroking her tongue, hungry for her. She’s already heard so much. Too much. I’ve dumped all my shit on her over and over and she’s been strong enough to bear up to it, but I want her to have the whole truth. Even the ugliest parts.
I break away, breathing raggedly, and guide her to the kitchen. We need sleep more than we need caffeine. She laughs when I take out the box of peppermint tea. I have no idea what it’s doing in my cupboards, but when I moved in, the old ladies brought around a bunch of groceries. Her laugh is a lovely sound, filled with mirth and gentle teasing.
My kettle isn’t fancy like hers. Nothing is. I have the barest amount in this house. I haven’t added one thing that the club didn’t supply when they furnished the place. I’ve done nothing to make it a home.
While the black plastic kettle heats up, I lean my ass against the counter and cross my arms. Fawnie’s hands rest lightly on my hips, like she can’t bear to not be touching me. I don’t mind. I really, really don’t mind. I love the idea that I might have something that she needs. Not just wants. Needs.
“I- there’s something else I want to tell you.” She tenses, but studies me bravely, already knowing that she’s not going to like what it is, but shoring herself up to be strong enough to take it. “I think that talking to Lockwood is a good idea. He’s supposed to be good with trauma. I- it’s just taken me this long to be able to get to the point where I’d want to relive it, sharing itso I could deal with it. I thought shoving it down was the way to get past it.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“No. I don’t mean the fire. I mean long before that. I’ve been fucked up since I was a kid. I’ve always known that my mom blamed me for my dad leaving. They were never married. She’d say it was before she was religious and found God and she lived a life of sin and hedonism, but her decision to have me was the reason he left. He never wanted kids. She never let me forget that I was the reason he left. I guess when you’ve had a childhood of being made to feel unwanted and damaged then you start to believe it. She was sitting beside my hospital bed when I woke up after the fire. She looked me right in the face and told me that the burns were a punishment for my sins. Now I was as ugly on the outside as I was on the inside. She… made it clear that her home was no longer open to me.”
After the words pour out of me, I do feel a little bit better. If I was going to open up to anyone, it would be Fawnie, but guilt churns my gut. She needed to know this, but I hate the destroyed expression on her face. Her family life was a little bit fucked too, but in a completely different way. Her parents both adored her and loved her and tried to do what was best for her, even if it wasn’t best at all. My mother had me, but she never trulywantedme. She never knew how to love me. I never wanted to open myself up to that kind of cruelty and disappointment again, but Fawnie has stripped me bare.
