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He wants me to squeeze him. Hard enough to suffocate? Probably not. I test out tightening my arms around him, not sure if I’m doing this right.
“Harder.”
I move my arms some more.
“Harder.”
Any harder and I’m likely to cut off his airways. I have no idea what he wants from me, and being this close is creating that same conflict that his proximity always does. Clammy hands, racing heart, a system in complete dysregulation.
“Would you fucking squeeze me already?”
Screw it. I stop trying to be gentle and crush Sasha so tightly to my chest I’m surprised he doesn’t snap in two. My arms swamp his thin frame, pinning him to me like lichen wrapping over a tree trunk.
His warmth seeps through my clothes, this heavy weight that’s pulling at something familiar in the back of my mind. Sasha’s hands are on my back, face turned into my neck, and as I stand there, as I hold him to me, it feels like something is being torn open inside of me.
My arms around a soft middle, a steady heartbeat thumping under my ear, the echo of laughter and strong arms …
My mom used to hug me like this.
I wrench myself back out of Sasha’s hold, breathing heavy and uneven. “That’s enough.”
His eyes are wet as he watches me. “It helped.”
“Don’t ever expect it again.”
“Why?” He steps forward, and I back up. “How do you not know how to hug someone?”
“Because I block out unpleasant memories.”
“Hugging is unpleasant?”
“Undeniably.”
“That felt good to me.”
Then why does it feel like my chest was just torn open? “I’m leaving.”
“Lynx—” His hand lifts between us, like he’s reaching for me but knows better than to touch me. And maybe his self-preservation is strengthening because I can’t handle being touched right now. “I missed you today.”
His words are like a step in the trail, slipping out from under me. Sasha holds my gaze like trying to pull something from inside my head, but I can’t even pull a coherent thought from there.
All I know is that lost feeling, the sense of everything being too big and empty and quiet, isn’t something that I liked.
But now I have a name for it.
“I missed you too,” I mutter. “And I hated every second of it.”
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
SASHA
Iwant to gloat over the fact that Lynx missed me, but I’m still dealing with echoes of fear from my dream last night. Maybe I shouldn’t have stolen from him. Especially not something that could ruin his life.
In my nightmare, he hunted me down and was convinced I swallowed what I stole, so he tried to cut it from my stomach.
I shudder with the memory of how real it felt, and try to focus instead on Lynx being here for me. On his hug and the way that freaked him out. On him admitting he missed me, even if he hated it.
