“Feel better now?” he asked.
She didn’t know why he even bothered. Wasn’t it obvious? Her limbs felt like syrup. She could well have fallen asleep like this, if it wasn’t for the little hum of something else, in the background of her body.
It would probably always be that way now, she suspected. Whenever she saw him or felt him, all she could think of were the things they’d done together. How he’d looked, when that thick glut of pleasure had gone through him.
“Much,” she said, and wriggled closer to the curl of his body. He’d wrapped a blanket around her too, but it was the warmth of him she craved.
“Can’t believe you biked all the way here.”
“It really wasn’t that far. After the fifth mile I hardly felt it.”
“Is that why your legs are like noodles now?”
“Hey, my legs aren’t at all noodle-like. They’re perfectly workable, look.”
She lifted her right one about an inch. Felt him laugh deep and throaty, against the top of her head.
“Yeah, you’re ready to run the marathon, there.”
A silence fell, then. It didn’t remain for long, however.
“He find something I left? The wallet, maybe? I thought I dropped it outside the bakery down the street, but maybe…”
Again she thought about not saying anything—or maybe even lying a little. But then later she’d have to give him what she still had in the pocket of her trousers, that now lay on his bathroom floor.
“Yeah. The wallet,” she said, and felt him go tense behind her.
“Fuck.”
“Don’t. It’s okay. I’m okay—”
“Yeah, how close did you come to not being okay?”
She didn’t mean to pause, as though thinking it over. But pausing and thinking happened anyway.
“He didn’t even react, once I’d pulled away from—”
“Wait. You pulled away from him? He had hold of your hair and you kept going?”
She didn’t know what to say then. The way he put it just sounded so…not the way it had happened. It sounded bigger, coming from him, and sort of like she’d made a really strong move, when really she’d just done the whole thing out of fear.
And she wanted to say that to him, she did. She even had the words poised on the tip of her tongue, ready to spill out—I was just frightened, that’s all.
But they dried up in her throat, when he next spoke.
“I love you,” he said.
Just like that. Just like nothing at all, after some weird thing about getting her hair pulled out and running away. She’d found it hard to speak before, but after those three words she didn’t know what to say on any level.
It made her so very grateful, when he just carried on talking.
“Never said that to anyone before.” He paused, obviously struggling with the concept. But that was okay, because she was too. “Not even my parents.”
Of course, the moment he said it she knew. Normal people—they said I love you to their parents all the time. They laughed and hugged and told each other how much they cared, and no one ever got smacked around or turned to ash inside.
But then, he wasn’t normal. Like her. He’d always been like her, and she just hadn’t seen it because of the clothes and his composure and how brilliant he was, in every single way a person could be brilliant.
She hadn’t understood how it felt, to see yourself reflected in someone just like you.
“What were they like?” she asked, even though she kind of suspected he wouldn’t want to answer. She never wanted to answer, and he’d seen evidence of what her parents were like all over the place.
He could see it right now, in the way she’d laid against him. Back pressed against his chest, head decidedly not pressed against anything.
“Wealthy. Vain.” He paused, though she knew a third word was coming. “Cruel.”
“Do you ever see them?”
Again, she knew the answer. If she’d had the choice, she wouldn’t have seen her parents ever again.
“No. Even if I wanted to, it can’t happen. My father barred me from the house.”
She swallowed thickly. Squeezed the hand he’d laced with hers tight, tight.
“For what?”
“For not wanting to be a doctor or a lawyer, I guess. For being…I don’t know. Different.”
“You’re not different. They’re different,” she said, the words so suddenly fierce they burned the back of her throat. “You’re…amazing.”
“Really? I never tore hair out of my own head, just to get away.”
“That’s not amazing. My mother found the guts to take off, so I did it too.”