***
“Did you always sleep with a shirt on? Before me?” I ask Josh when we get into bed. Asher hates sleeping in a shirt. He insists that all guys hate sleeping in clothes but I don’t know if it’s true. Josh always sleeps in a t-shirt and boxer shorts, which is usually what I’m sleeping in, too. Josh won’t let me fold his underwear, but apparently he doesn’t have a problem with my wearing them.
“Before you, I didn’t sleep with anything on,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice, even if I can’t see it.
“Oh.” I feel my face get hot. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he laughs. “It’s a good trade off.”
His hand finds its way up to my cheek. He leans down and kisses me and his lips are an invitation I’m going to have to accept sooner or later. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were blushing.”
But the fact is that he doesn’t know me better. He doesn’t really know me at all.
***
For the first time in weeks, we’re not spending half the night in the garage. It’s still early, but I tell him I’m tired and I want to go to bed. I’m not tired. I’m just hoping he’ll follow me. After about fifteen minutes, I hear him come out of the shower and then he climbs in next to me. He kisses the side of my head and says good night and then laces his fingers through my mine like he always does; like he’s reminding me that he’s still here, or maybe vice-versa.
I slide my hand under the fabric of his t-shirt, up his stomach until it’s flat against the skin on his chest and I can feel his heart beating against my palm. I can just hear his breath hitch because he didn’t see it coming. He’s warm and solid and I want to touch every part of him. I should stop this, because I know where it’s going. But I’m the one who started it, and really, I just don’t want to.
“Sunshine.” It’s all he says.
He rests his hand on top of mine through the fabric of his shirt. “You can take it off if you want to,” I tell him.
“I’d rather take off yours,” he jokes.
“That, too,” I say, but I’m not joking. I feel him tense just slightly under my hand, but he doesn’t move to do anything, and we lay there for a minute, just breathing and trying to read each other’s thoughts.
“You have my permission,” I whisper.
It isn’t like I’ve never touched him and he’s never touched me. Just never everywhere at once. I’m in one of his t-shirts, like always, and he pulls it up over my head and I let him because that’s what I want. I want him to touch me. Here. Now. Everywhere. Always.
“I wish I could see you,” he says.
“I’m glad you can’t,” I admit. Too many scars. I can blame them even if they aren’t the real reason.
I’m more at peace with Josh than anywhere else in the world and I want to run away before I ruin us both. But then his shirt is off, too, and his body is pressed against mine so that there’s no space between us. He pushes my hair away, muttering something about “stupid hair always in your face,” but he keeps his hand tangled in it, and then he kisses me, and that’s what we do for a long time.
Somehow he leaves my body just enough to reach his nightstand to get a condom which I think about telling him he doesn’t need. Then he’s leaning over me and kissing me again and I let myself focus on just that. Because it’s real. It’s true. One, real, amazing, true thing. And then his knee slips between mine gently pushing them apart and a moment later I can feel the pressure of him. I know the exact moment when he realizes—realizes one of the thousand things I never told him. Because he stops right there. Suddenly eerily still. He’s not kissing me anymore. He’s staring at me and his face is so close to mine that I think he can read my mind.
I know he’s going to say something, but I don’t want him to, because it will make me tell him things. He’ll make me feel safe and safe is something I should never feel again.
There are a thousand words in his eyes but all he says is, “Sunshine?” It’s not my name. It’s a question. Or maybe it’s more than one, but I don’t let him say anything else.
I reach around him, though I’m not sure this will even work, and I tilt my h*ps up and shove him towards me. And, for just a second, there’s tearing and burning, and then it’s done. I squeeze my eyes shut because pain is familiar and grounding and I’d rather give myself to that. I’m used to pain and this really isn’t so bad. It’s the look on his face that I’m not used to – awe, confusion, wonder and please, please, please don’t let it be love.
“Are you okay?” He’s inside me but he still doesn’t move. His hands are on either side of my face and he looks like he’s scared of me.
“Yes,” I whisper, but I don’t know if it comes out. I don’t know if I’m okay. It shouldn’t be possible to be this close to another person. To let them crawl inside you.
CHAPTER 46
Josh
When it’s over, we’re both shaking, and for a moment I’m confused and comforted and loved and then I’m lost. I don’t know what happened. Just that it did. And she’s here, but she’s not. And I want to be happy, but I can’t, because she’s crying underneath me. At first, it’s just soft and barely there and I hardly recognize what’s happening because I’ve never seen her cry. Then her body starts racking with it and it’s so jagged and wrong. There’s still barely any sound coming out, but it’s the shaking that’s almost worse and it steals every undeserved ounce of joy I felt just the moment before.
I need to get away from here. I wish she would stop crying, because I don’t think I can take it for one more second and it’s not like it’s loud or melodramatic. It’s not. It’s just heartbreaking.
I don’t know what I did, so I just hold her and whisper I’m sorry, because I don’t know what else to do. I’m sorry. Again and again and again against her hair. I don’t know how many times I say it or for how long, just that I can’t stop. But she doesn’t stop crying and I know that it’s not enough.
***
She’s gone in the morning and I don’t know if she’s gone from the bed or the house or from everything.
She isn’t at school. I called her phone three times, even though I’m not supposed to, but she didn’t answer. I didn’t expect her to. I wanted to text her but I couldn’t think of any words that wouldn’t sound desperate.