He nods as he hangs my coat over another chair and goes into the kitchen. “You want some water or something?”
“I’m good.” I sit down on his couch. There’s a little TV in the corner and a few DVDs stacked on the floor. Atop an old desk sits an equally old desktop computer.
He gets himself some water and falls onto the couch next to me, fatigue etched on his features. For a second, I wonder if he’s starting to fall asleep, but then he sips his water from a plastic cup and sets it on the floor.
“Why are you here, Romy?” He opens his eyes and nails me with that wolf-gray gaze. “And you said we weren’t playing games, so I’m going to keep that in mind.”
I swallow. Caleb doesn’t seem like a dangerous guy, but sometimes his eyes are so intense. “Daniel was waiting by my car when I left class tonight.”
He lifts his head. “What?”
I hold my hands up, mentally apologizing to Daniel. “He said you’d had a bad day, and I saw enough during class to know it was true.”
His smile is bemused. “So you thought you’d rescue me again?”
My cheeks get warm. “Did I rescue you last time? I wasn’t sure.”
He shifts a little closer to me. “I’m not sure what I’d call it. But I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.”
He’s only a foot away from me. Close enough for me to see the red mark on his cheek that’s going to be a bruise tomorrow. Close enough for me to see the dark stubble on his jaw, the tiny dent in his chin, the brilliant blue dot of pigment in his right eye. “I won’t either. I don’t … I don’t do things like that. Not usually.”
“Do you care about what happened between me and Claudia?”
My heart skips. No games. “Yeah. I think I do.”
He sighs. “You won’t like it.”
“Daniel said it didn’t mean anything,” I say quietly. I don’t think I can bear hearing details. Not right now. Not while I’m looking at his handsome face, not while his body is this close. I don’t want to think about Claudia running her hands over him.
Caleb touches my hand, skimming his fingertip along one of the blue veins beneath my skin. “Daniel was right. And it’s over.”
I feel my lips trying to pull into a smile, and I fight it as I say, “Good.”
His gaze lingers on my mouth. “I’m going to say it.”
“What?”
“The thing I wanted to say to you a few weeks ago.”
“And it is?”
“I want to know you.” His eyes rise to mine. “That’s it. I’m not great with words.”
I stroke his hair away from his face. It’s like something I might do for Jude, except every time I touch Caleb, my heart flutters. “Not like you are with images and color,” I murmur. “But you know how to express yourself.”
He looks away. His jaw is tense. “Why do you say stuff like that?” he asks. “Is that some language only therapists know?”
“I’m not a therapist, not yet.”
He gives me a sidelong glance. “You’ll be good at it, though. You know how to … I don’t know how you think of those things you say.” He pushes himself up and turns back to me. “All I know is that once you say them, they hit me so hard, and I can’t forget them.”
“Is that a good thing?” I ask, but it comes out wavering and broken. Being this close to him is messing with me, like it always does.
He shrugs. “I don’t know yet. Right now it feels pretty okay.” His smile is sad, like he’s already missing me even though leaving is the last thing on my mind. “So will you?”
“What?” I breathe.
“Let me know you?” He brushes the backs of his fingers over my cheek, like I did to him. Testing, maybe.
And I react the same way he did, letting my eyes fall shut and dwelling in the caress for a moment. “What do you want to know?”
His thumb strokes along my jaw. “Tell me why you stopped painting.”
“I just got busy…”
His touch disappears. “No. Please, Romy. You said no games, so tell me you can’t talk about it if that’s true. But don’t lie. I’m too tired for that.” And he does sound tired. So weary that he can’t bear the weight of a single ounce of pretend.
My eyes open. I have a choice. I could push this away, or I could give him what he asked for. And for some odd reason, I feel like he has a right to know. “When I moved here for graduate school, I met a guy. He was really charming, and even though I wasn’t looking for anything serious, he changed my mind.” I stare at Caleb’s hands while I speak, because looking at his face would steal my courage. “It was really romantic at first. He bought me flowers and all that stuff.”
I fiddle with a loose thread on the couch cushion. Caleb starts rubbing at a smear of black paint between two of his fingers. His skin is turning red.
“I don’t know when I first noticed it didn’t feel quite right,” I continue. “I actually think it was when I realized I hadn’t seen Jude for two months, except in class. Jude finally got so pissed off at my excuses that he called me out on it. So I tried to plan something with him, and Alex got so mad.”
“Alex,” Caleb says, almost a whisper.
“Alex,” I confirm. “He accused me of cheating on him.” I laugh. “And he didn’t calm down, even after I told him Jude is gay.”
“He was the jealous type.”
“I guess you could say that.” I pull my knees to my chest. “But I let him treat me like that. I let it happen.”
Caleb moves a little closer, but he doesn’t touch me. “You’re being too hard on yourself, I think.”
“That’s what my therapist said,” I say with a smile, finding the courage to look him in the eye. “See? You know the language, too.”
“I’m just halfway decent at stating the obvious,” he replies, leaning his head against the back of the couch. “But you’re not with Alex anymore.”
I shake my head. “I left him in January.”
“And he was the reason you stopped painting.”
“He thought it was a stupid hobby, and he was mad because it meant I wasn’t available for him.”
Caleb winces. “So he was trying to put you in a little box to keep for himself.”
I pause, caught by what he’s said. Really, no one’s ever captured it quite so well. “Alex did it with words. They were his weapons, and he’s very good with them. But it wasn’t enough for him after a while. He ended up using his fists.”
Caleb goes completely still. It’s like he’s not even breathing. And in that space, my confession hangs, ugly and unreachable. I can’t take it back or make Caleb forget he heard it. I don’t know what makes me feel more pathetic—that it happened or that I’m telling him about it now.
My flight instinct takes over and I start to get up, but Caleb’s hand shoots out and closes over my wrist. Not hard. I could pull loose if I wanted to. But it’s enough to make me sink into the couch cushions again.
“You got away from him,” he says. “In January. You got away.”
I look at his fingers curled over my forearm. “I left him the night he hit me. I ran and didn’t go back.”
“And now you’re getting back everything that belonged to you. The things he took away.”
“That’s the idea,” I say, my voice catching. When I saw Alex at Sammy’s, it felt like he took everything from me all over again.
Slowly, so amazingly slowly, Caleb lifts my forearm and pushes my sleeve to my elbow. With the gentlest of touches, he turns my wrist and looks at the inside of my arm. He’s reading my tattoo. Out of difficulties grow miracles.
I watch the sweep of his gaze across my skin, and I can tell he’s reading and rereading, that once wasn’t enough for him. His expression melts as he stares. His eyes flicker with a thousand emotions.
“Do you really believe this?” he says, his voice little more than a rasp.
“Enough to have it inked permanently into my skin,” I say. “It’s what I say to myself when things get r
eally bad.”
He lets go of my arm and stands up quickly, grabbing his cup and taking it to the kitchen. He takes his time washing it and putting it in the dish rack, and I get the sense he’s trying to hold himself together.
I rise slowly. “Do you want to talk about what happened to you today?”
He laughs as he dries his hands and comes back into the living room. “You heard me say I was no good with words, right?”
“Do you want to draw me a picture then?” I say it lightly, with a hint of humor, and he smiles.
“Would you mind …” He sighs. “Would you mind if I didn’t do that tonight? I’m not trying to hide or anything, Romy, I swear. I just can’t. Not tonight.”
“That’s fine. You don’t have to,” I say, unwilling to push him, not when he looks so weary and sad. “Do you want me to leave?”
He grits his teeth. “No. But you—”
“I don’t want to leave,” I blurt.
He raises his eyes to mine. “Really?”
“Really. I’m not ready to go.” I walk forward slowly and put my arms around his waist. My head fits snuggly into the curve of his neck. And I hug him, a simple hug, an I’m here hug, a you’re not alone hug.
His arms hang at his sides for a moment, like he’s too stunned to react. But then they wind around my back, and he leans his cheek on my head, tentatively, like he’s trying it out. He’s wordless for a full minute, but as the seconds pass, his arms around me grow tighter. “Okay,” he finally whispers. “I’m not ready for you to go, either.”
Chapter Fourteen
Caleb
Out of difficulties grow miracles.
It’s the kind of saying that usually makes me roll my eyes. Bullshit, the me of this morning would have said. Out of difficulties grow more difficulties.
In fact, I would have said that right up until about thirty minutes ago. After Katie stormed out with the guy she’s screwing, I called her a few times. She’d turned her phone off. I texted her to say she could come home at any time, no questions asked.
I called Katie’s psychiatrist, who gently reminded me that she’s an adult, and that if she hasn’t made a threat to harm herself or others, there’s not much he or I can do. He reassured me that going cold turkey on her meds wouldn’t be medically harmful but said I could call him if she needed an emergency appointment. Then I tried to track down this Dr. Lancaster who Katie said she’d been seeing, but I couldn’t find a single listing for a therapist by that name. So now I’m wondering if she was lying about seeing a therapist in the first place.
I cleaned the apartment after that little revelation. Like, really scrubbed it, because if I hadn’t done that, I might have gone apeshit and thrown furniture out the windows or something. By the time I had to leave for the co-op, I was actually calm again.
Katie’s an adult. She makes her own decisions.
It doesn’t ease the guilt crushing me from the inside out, though. If I hadn’t freaked out and acted like a psycho, she wouldn’t have left. Once again, it’s my fault, and I’m helpless to fix it. It’s killing me. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get through the night without going insane.
And then Romy came along and nearly killed me with her car door. My ribs are still aching. But now she’s here, in my apartment. Even more puzzling, she’s in my arms. I don’t know what to say to her, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She guides me back to the couch and pulls me down. “What if we parked ourselves here for a bit?” she asks. “Since we’re not going to talk.”
She holds her arms out, and my heart squeezes. I’m such a fucking mess tonight, and it’s all I can do not to break down. I’m good when I’m being beaten on, but when Romy is nice to me? I nearly fall apart. What the hell is wrong with me? I clench my teeth and sink onto the couch. She puts her arm around my shoulders. “Come here,” she says, stretching out her legs.
This feels dangerous. Like one wrong move could spoil the best thing that’s happened to me in a while. I move cautiously, lying down next to her, but my feet hang over the edge, and she notices. “That doesn’t look comfortable.”
I stare up at her, those somber green eyes peeling off every layer of armor I have. “I’m fine,” I say.
“But we both deserve to be comfortable.”
“I … um … there’s my bed, but—”
She pushes on me and sits up. “Lead the way.”
Is she serious? But as I squint at her, I see she is. She’s got this determined air about her, like she’s in charge, and hell, I’m not going to argue. I am going to be on my best behavior, though. I head down the hall, completely relieved that I engaged in a fit of obsessive, trauma-driven cleaning this afternoon. I even made my bed. So when we get into my room, it’s easy; I sit on top of the covers.
She walks in, looking around, and I feel naked. Not in a sexual way. Just bare. Her eyes skim over my old textbooks, my closed sketchpad on my old, scarred desk, my walls … which are covered in images I’ve pulled out of newspapers and magazines, leaves and flyers I picked up off the street, pictures I took during this mad photography phase I went through, during which I mostly photographed abandoned and rotting buildings … things I like to look at. Things I can relate to. Things I love. Things that mean something to me.
And to my horror, I remember one thing that I’d forgotten until she walked in here.
“Is that me?” she whispers, her gaze landing on my sketch, which is pinned right next to the door. All by itself. Nothing else around it.
Shit. “Yeah. It’s you.” Because I’m good enough that it’s obvious. She might as well be looking in a mirror.
“You made me beautiful,” she says quietly, moving closer.
I laugh. “You are beautiful.”
She turns around quickly. My fingers curl over the sides of the bed. I don’t know what she wants, and I’m scared of what I want. She stands in front of me, and my eyes are at the level of her breasts, which is just … God, I want to … I spread my legs so she can get between them. She takes my face in her hands. “I think you’re beautiful, too.”
No, I think as we sink together onto my bed. You don’t understand. I don’t think you’re beautiful. You are.
I lay my head on my pillow, and Romy lies beside me. She puts her head on my shoulder and her arm over my chest. She can probably feel my heart beating frantically against her. “Does this feel all right?” she asks.
I close my eyes. “It feels so perfect that it almost hurts.” The words rush out of me, unfiltered and too honest.
“Almost.”
“Almost.” I inhale, drawing in her scent, warm, maybe some kind of flower, light and sweet. I could get used to this, maybe, but right now it’s almost unbearably intense. Almost.
She raises her head, and I feel the tickle of her breath on my cheek. “What would make it better?”
“There’s nothing that could make it better. Almost hurting isn’t the same thing as real hurting.” And it’s because she’s being kind. She’s not blaming me for anything. The shock of it, the goodness of it, pushes at all my walls. But it’s only like this because she doesn’t know anything. About Katie, about what happened to her, about my role in all of that. She doesn’t even know Katie exists. I should tell her, but I like the way it is now, the way Romy’s touching me, the way her voice sounds. “It’s a big feeling, Romy. Big enough that I’m not sure where to put it. But it’s good.”
I’m making no sense at all, but she doesn’t call me out on it. Her lips touch my cheekbone, the place where Katie hit me. It feels amazing and aches like hell, all at the same time. I have to bite my lip to keep from making some pathetic sound. I think Romy sees it, though. I think she sees nearly everything. “Almost hurts,” she whispers.
My body’s starting to operate on its own, and I try to calm it down. Romy is a warm weight on my chest, one of her legs draped over mine, her hair soft against my face as she lays her head on my shoulder again. Have I ever done this with a girl? Just … laid here?
I haven’t. Never had a girlfriend, not really. My foster parents were strict and had all sorts of rules, and I followed every single one because I was terrified that they’d decide they didn’t want me around, that they’d give me back to the State, or worse, back to my folks, and I couldn’t let that happen. But once the first girl did corner me in a dark basement closet at Daniel’s graduation party, I discovered that girlfriend is a pretty meaningless word anyway. Some girls are like guys. Some girls like to fuck and walk away. Those girls and I got along fine. Those girls didn’t stick around long enough to notice how completely and chaotically and astronomically messed up I am. It made things much easier.
I’m twenty-four years old, and tonight is the first time I’ve actually laid on a bed, fully clothed, and … what am I doing? Am I cuddling with Romy? Snuggling? I don’t even know the word for it.
But goddamn, it’s nice. I turn my head and brush my jaw against her hair. Her hand slides along my ribs and ends up on my chest, over my heart. She nuzzles into my neck, which makes my body roar to life with frightening speed. Instantly, I’m hard as a rock and praying she doesn’t notice. I stare at the ceiling and count the textured curves in the plaster.
“The Sojourner House is having a charity auction,” Romy says, her voice quiet and maybe a little sleepy.
“What?”
“Sojourner House. It’s the place I’m doing my internship. It’s a shelter for women who’ve been abused. They’re having an auction at the beginning of November. The house manager was talking about it today.”
“That’s nice.” Is that what I’m supposed to say?
She giggles. “I think your paintings … maybe you could donate one to the auction.”
“Donate? Like, so they could auction it and get the money for the shelter? I …” No one would want it, and then it would be disappointing for me and for the shelter people. “I don’t know ...”
Romy raises her head again and looks me right in the eyes. She stares at me long enough to make me squirm, and then she lowers her head again. “It was just an idea,” she says, mildly, like it’s no big deal. Her hand has been over my heart the whole time. She doesn’t move or pull away. In fact, she scoots closer. “Tell me when you need me to leave, Caleb. I won’t be hurt.”
Heat Up the Fall: New Adult Boxed Set (6 Book Bundle) Page 50
