“I don’t know,” I say, messing my hair with my hands. “I was having a panic attack.” I sit down and Liam passes me a cup of coffee.
“So, it wasn’t just a night of sex,” he asks me, on edge.
I look at him sideways before taking in a sip of the dark liquid.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Liam says, looking at me very seriously. “You’ve found something that’s made you weak at the knees, haven’t you?”
“His knees? What does that mean?” Jay asks for an explanation.
“Have I got it right?” Liam adds.
“My knees haven’t been weak… it’s more like my legs have been cut off at the knees, making me fall flat on my face.”
That’s the effect she’s had on me. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get up and walk again. Not after her invasion.
That girl—that woman—has overturned my entire cursed existence and now I don’t even know what color it used to be before she stuck her fingers in the pail and started coloring its walls with her infinite shades.
“And now what?” Jay asks. “She didn’t look too happy as she was hauling ass away from the house this morning.”
“I fucked it up. I told her it couldn’t work out between us, that I’m not right for her.”
“And why the hell did you say such a thing?”
“Because it was the right thing to do.”
“Right for who?”
“For the both of us.”
“Aaron…”
“I’m confused, alright? I need a moment to put it all into place.”
“Don’t take too long,” he says with unnerving calmness. “Or you’re really going to lose her.”
Why does this guy always have to be such a know-it-all?
I jump off the stool and leave the kitchen without another word, I go up the stairs to head to my room where I lean my back against the door and slide down it. I look at the unmade bed in front of me and an acute pain pushes against my chest.
I cannot believe what happened in this room, between these sheets, in my shower. A woman’s body,herbody… I had forgotten what it felt like, I’d removed every crumb of emotion and had set aside my heart.
And now, after having opened this Pandora’s box, after having allowed it to come out of its cave and grab a breath of fresh air, it doesn’t want to go back down into the darkness.
Idon’t want to go back there.
I can no longer go without the delicate perfume of her soft skin, to imagine her hands caressing me, to dream…me, dreaming. I can’t believe the thoughts that are running through my own head.
I had given up on everything and now the only thing I am sure about, is that I absolutely cannot give up on her.
