I gasped. I'd had hands here before—too many hands—but none of them had ever elicited so much heat. Still, I froze, unsure of what to do.
"Is this okay?" He whispered. As I looked at him, I saw that those deep blue eyes were serious and watchful. He was paying attention to what I liked, what I didn't.
He wasn't going to go further than I wanted to.
I nodded, then pressed my cheek against the curve of his shoulder. It was damp, and I inhaled the scent of his skin.
Slowly, so slowly, he rubbed his fingers between my legs, over the seam of my blue jeans. I bit back a moan. It felt so good.
Too good.
I didn't want him to stop.
I widened my stance to give him better access. The movements of his fingers were slow and sure, and I felt tension coiling up in my belly.
I traced a finger over the tattoos on his biceps as he stroked me, my head tilted back. I frowned through the heat when I felt a pucker marring the otherwise tight satin of his skin.
There... and there. Those were... scars? Yes, small, round scars that pulled tightly against the surrounding skin. They'd been hidden so skillfully by the tattoos that they were impossible to see from anywhere but this close.
He had scars. So did I.
I wondered what secret he had, that he was hiding from me.
Unbidden, the suffocating sensation rose up and began to siphon away my air. I stiffened, tried to fight through it, to stay in the moment of pleasure, but the second I tensed Alex removed his hands from what they were doing, clasping me loosely around my upper arms.
He pulled back to look at me.
"What's wrong?" I shivered for a second, looking away.
"Serena."
I couldn't help but look at him when he used that tone. His face was serious, but I knew he wanted an answer. "What happened?"
"Nothing." The lie rolled off my tongue as it had so many times before. Awkwardly, I scooped my breasts back into my bra, then tugged my sweater down. I was mortified, and with the mortification came the dark shame that had dogged me for years.
"All right." His voice had cooled, and I couldn't help but cringe at the change in his demeanor.
"Alex..." I trailed off. The look on his face was blank, and sent a pang through me.
"I can't make you trust me." He was... could he be hurt? I was puzzled by the notion, by the idea that I had enough power to do that.
"I do trust you." I whispered, looking down at my fingers.
"You trust me with your body." His voice was matter of fact. "But not with anything else. And that's fine. We haven't known each other very long."
But it wasn't fine, and I could hear it in his voice. We may not have known each other very long, but there was a connection that linked the two of us tightly, one that I had just railed against with my reluctance to share.
"I'm sorry." The last thing I expected was for Alex to chuckle. Bewildered, I looked at him, and found him leaning back, both frustration and bafflement evident on his features.
"You're complicated." He was matter of fact, not hurtful, but I flinched regardless. Slightly irritated at this comment from the guy who had just had his hands between my legs, I stood, shaking the loose strands of my ponytail into my face.
"You have no idea." I stood still for a long moment, unsure. "I should go." I had been stupid to pretend I could do something as normal as this. My throat felt thick, but I bit my tongue to prevent tears. No. No way.
I was stronger than that.
"Serena." He sounded frustrated. I peeked through my golden curtain to find Alex running his fingers through his hair, the thick strands sticking straight up from his attentions. "Sit."
I shook my head and stayed right where I was.
He heaved a sigh, then stood. "Don't go anywhere." He disappeared through the entry to the kitchen, then returned with a small drawstring bag.
Opening it, he began to pull out items, placing them one by one on the coffee table, naming them as he did.
"Blood glucose monitor. Test strips. Finger poker. Syringes. Fast acting insulin. Slow acting insulin. Glucagon." Having emptied the bag, he sat on the couch again, this time perching on the edge, his hands clasped together.
I squinted at the pile of items. I wasn't familiar with most of them, but one word had caught my attention.
"Insulin? You're diabetic?" I eyed the man who was at least six foot three, most of it muscle. He was one of the healthiest looking people I’d ever met, and I told him so.
"I have Type 1 diabetes. Insulin dependent. For diabetics, it’s something that’s going to happen from the moment of conception. When you’re diagnosed is just a matter of long your pancreas holds out.” From the way he spoke, what he was telling me was very important. "And I'm healthy right now, but I haven't been for very long."
“So... what do you do with all of... that?” I furrowed my brow and gestured towards the equipment he’d strewn across the coffee table.
He picked up the thing he’d called a blood glucose monitor. It was sheathed in a bright red rubber skin, and looked a bit like a small iPod.
“Basically, the word diabetes means sugar in the urine.” He rolled the monitor in between his palms. “Insulin is made by the pancreas, and it helps the body use foods that are broken down into sugars—basically anything with a carb count. Pasta, bread, cake, fruit. You with me?”
“Yes.” Despite my discomfort of moments before, I was interested.
“A type 1 diabetic doesn’t make insulin. When we eat something with a carb count, we have to inject ourselves with enough insulin to take care of it.” Grasping the monitor between his thumb and forefinger, he waved it in the air. “This thing tells me how good I’m doing. It tells me if my sugars are too low and I need to eat some carbs, or if they’re too high and I need some extra insulin.”
“How do you know when to use it?” The idea that this big, ridiculously masculine man in front of me had to do something like this was so strange. I thought of how he’d been measuring his portion of casserole instead of just dumping it onto the plate, and wondered if he had to do that with every meal.
“I prick a finger and use the monitor at least four times a day, sometimes more.” He placed the monitor on the table, picked up a syringe and a vial of clear liquid. “That, along with the amount of carbs I’m going to eat, tells me how much insulin I need. It’s injected into the arms, the stomach, the sides, or the ass.”
I thought of how he had been rubbing his side when he’d come to the table. He’d just injected himself.
“So... it’s controllable, right?” I felt like I was asking the dumbest questions on the planet, but I didn’t know anything about diabetes.
“It is, if you’re vigilant.” He put the syringe and vial back on the table.
“Is everyone as... vigilant... as you are?”
“No.” The word was flat, and I blinked, wondering if I’d asked the wrong thing. He forced a smile when he saw my expression, rubbing his hands on his knees.
“I’m healthy now, Serena. But... I wasn’t always.” He paused, and I knew what he was asking without words. He'd shared something with me... it was my turn.
Diabetes sucked, clearly, but I couldn’t think anything badly of him for it. It wasn’t a fair trade of information. The darkness I held inside of me... he might never want to talk to me again.
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. Something about him made me want to share, so badly.
The secret was stuck in my throat. The only person I'd ever told was the one who should have believed me no matter what. And she hadn't.
I opened my mouth to try to spit it out, but said something else entirely.
“The injections. Is that what the scars on your arms are from?”
Alex reeled back as if I’d struck him, his hand rubbing over the place in question as if the skin hurt. “No.” His voice was flat, and colder than I’d heard it.
He said nothing else.
My gaze faltere
d under his challenging stare. I took a step backward, then another, then turned and made my way to the door, emotions churning inside of me in a big, nauseating stew.
I didn't look back.
Chapter Five
I ran faster than I ever had, pushing myself until my lungs burned and the muscles in my legs quivered and threatened to give out. Heaving in great lungfuls of air as I turned into the MacKinnon parking lot, I lifted the hem of my T-shirt to mop the sweat from my forehead.
I wasn’t stupid. I’d tried to go faster because running made me feel like I could maybe leave my problems behind, if only I got up to the right speed. I would never be swift enough to outrun them completely, but I’d gotten quick enough to get here to college, out of that house and away from my misery.
Slowing once I reached the side of the dorm, I braced myself against it with one hand and balancing on one foot, bent the opposite knee and tucked my foot behind my butt. I savoured the stretch, trying my best not to look at the battered car against which Alex had kissed me senseless nights ago.
I winced as I switched legs, trying to ignore the sinking sensation in my gut. I’d royally fucked things up with him. The one guy who’d made me forget all the darkness, and yet the darkness kept me from giving him what he wanted.
“Idiot.” I berated myself as I pulled my key card from the zip pocket of my running shorts and entered the dorm. In all the years since my life had so drastically changed, I’d searched for that one person who could make me remember what it was like to be me—just me. The me that I’d been before any of it had started.
Even when I’d given up hope that such a person existed, I’d never thought that someone would want more from me than I was able to give. The boys in high school, they’d all been easy—I’d given them my body in exchange for a few moments of secret affection.
Alex was harder. He wanted more.
I wanted him, but I couldn’t give him what he was demanding.
I was in a foul mood by the time I reached my room. The grumpiness turned into discomfort when I opened the door and found that Kaylee was awake, sitting on her bed with her massive art history textbook in her lap.
“Hey.” I knew that my smile was more reserved than it had ever been with her, but I couldn’t seem to help it. Ever since our conversation the other day, in which we’d admitted a bit more about our pasts than we’d wanted to, things between us had been stilted.
The fact that she was sitting here studying without an imminent exam told me that Kaylee was feeling like things were off too.
Knowing it and changing it, though, were two entirely different things.
“Ugh. How can you do that?” Kaylee wrinkled her nose as she spoke. Relief was a fresh breath of air as I gathered my towel and shampoo. Kaylee asked me the same question every time I went for a run.
I usually shrugged and told her that I liked it. This time I found the truth slipping out of my mouth before I could stop it.
“I was big when I was a teenager.” No matter my size, I’d still been able to draw the wrong kind of attention from boys with the promise of what lay between my legs, but the fat had been a layer of insulation for me, a way to keep myself apart from the inevitable hurt that the rest of the world could bring to me.
“Lots of people are chubby until they hit puberty.” Kaylee seemed to be choosing her words carefully. I turned the bottle of shampoo over in my hand, and then back the right way again, weighing my words now that I’d let part of my secret slip.
“I was long past puberty. And... I wouldn’t have minded chubby, if I was healthy. But I gained the weight on purpose.” Daring her to argue with me, I looked right at her, my chin stuck out defiantly.
The Kaylee I knew was caring, but liked things to be light and happy and fun. I was more than a little bit shocked that she looked right back at me, her expression deadly calm.
“You’re not heavy anymore.” She turned a page in her textbook, and then another, though she wasn’t looking at the book at all.
“No,” I agreed. “I’m not. And I won’t let myself be ever again. That’s why I only take skim milk in my coffee, why I watch what I eat. That’s why I got into yoga. And that’s why I run.” Not waiting for a response, I pushed out of the tiny dorm room and made my way down the hall to the girls’ bathroom, my heart beating frantically against my rib cage.
Mechanically, I moved into one of the shower stalls and stripped out of my running gear. Sliding my feet into my rubber flip flops, I turned the shower on and stepped beneath it.
I turned the heat as high as it would go, hoping to burn away some of the sudden vulnerability.
I’d never before told anyone that I’d gained the weight on purpose. I’d never wanted to.
Swallowing hard, I tilted my head back and let the scalding water run down over my face. I tasted the salt from my sweat and shuddered.
My mom had known that something was wrong with me almost as soon as my problems had started. But she hadn’t pushed, hadn’t tried her hardest to get the answer from me, the way I thought a mother should. Instead she’d packed it away neatly, as if it wasn’t real if she couldn’t see it.
I’d always wondered if she’d known, if somehow she’d guessed the truth, but hadn’t been able to face it. Regardless, by the time I’d told her, I knew that she truly either didn’t believe me, or that she’d talked herself into believing that it couldn’t possibly be true.
She thought my weight problems, the way I hid behind long locks of hair, the rumours about me and so many boys were simply my way of expressing teenage rebellion.
I wasn’t sure I was ever going to be able to forgive her for that.
As I mechanically lathered citrus scented shampoo into my hair, my thoughts turned back to my roommate. My best friend.
I’d thought I’d known Kaylee inside and out, but the last couple of days had told me that I wasn’t the only one with demons in my nightmares. That meant that she’d understand if—and this was a big if—I wanted to talk.
As the shampoo suds swirled down the drain, I wondered what it would be like to tell someone who really cared. But if I told Kaylee, then I’d have no real reason not to tell Alex.
The disgust and disbelief on my mother’s face were seared into my brain forever. I didn’t truly think that Kaylee would react the same way, but I knew it would alter her perception of me forever, and I didn’t want that.
Alex, however...
I couldn’t let him think I was dirty.
As I towelled the moisture off of my skin, I looked at the silvery lines that striped my upper arms. Most of the time I was able to forget that they were there, but from time to time I caught a glimpse. The scars were like ghosts that could be beaten into submission, but never fully exorcised.
Unlike Alex, I hadn’t hidden my scars with tattoos. I needed the visual reminder to keep me from doing something self destructive.
Something like getting involved with a beautiful boy who would be disgusted if he knew how dirty I really was. And if I saw that disgust on the face of the one who made it all better, I wasn’t sure I could live with the subsequent emotion.
I heard the hiss of the spray, saw the steam as someone in the next stall over started their shower. A moment later the scent of lavender hit my nose, soap or shampoo or something else innocuous, but it was enough to make me gag.
Suddenly miserable, I pulled my robe around me and scraped my sopping hair back into my hair elastic, then ran from the bathroom—from the cloying smell—as quickly as I could.
Alex was a great guy, and I wanted him, wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anyone or anything in my life.
I wanted him enough that I didn’t want to taint him with my darkness.
My mind was made up. I wasn’t going to see him again.
***
The hoots and catcalls of Saturday night on campus were in full swing outside of my dorm window. I lay on my bed, my Social Psychology book balanced above me.
It had been t
hree days since I’d spoken to Alex. He’d texted, and he’d called, and I’d ignored both.
It was better this way.
My room was deadly silent, apart from the noises that filtered in from outside. Kaylee was at another frat party, not with Joel this time, but with some guy Joel had introduced her to. Normally I would have rolled my eyes and teased her good naturedly about being a man eater, but the joke didn’t seem so funny to me now.
Kaylee clearly had a problem that she wasn’t ready or willing to share with me, and that was fine—no one understood the need to keep a secret better than me. But at least she was living with it, was out having fun.
I’d moved away from home, stopped my self-destructive behaviour, but was for all intents and purposes stuck in the mind of the teenage girl I’d been.
I thought of Alex and groaned. My hand crept up to run over my lips. They tingled with just the memory of his kiss, of the way his mouth had played over mine.
I wanted more. I wanted him.
I couldn’t have him unless I got my shit together.
Scowling, I tossed my book aside and sat up straight. I grabbed my cell phone, unlocked the screen, and opened my list of contacts.
Tentatively I scanned through the list until I found my mom’s. Felicity was the entry label—not Mother, certainly not Mom.
Feeling as though a great stone was lodged in the base of my throat, I pressed the number, then fell flat back onto the bed. As I listened to the rings on the other end, I pulled my hair in front of my face, and also arranged my two pillows so that one was on either side of my head. I was cocooned, hidden away.
Safe from harm.
“The prodigal daughter deigns to call.”
I should have hung up the moment I heard the derisive greeting from my mom. I hadn’t been worried that Bob would answer the phone, because I refused to call the house, for that very reason. “Hi, Felicity.” I made sure to keep my voice calm, though the very sound of her voice made me want to scream. “How are you?”
There was a pause, and I imagined that I’d caught her off guard. I rarely called her, and I certainly never asked how she was doing.
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