She took my arms and made me look at her. “You are more than enough. Don’t make me cry because I’m about to. It makes me so sad when you think that you’re not all I want. It’s not true. IT IS NOT TRUE.”
I felt the tears coming and I hated them.
“Stop,” I said, needing her to let go.
“I don’t- I don’t know if I can. I-” She released me and sank back, closing her eyes and breathing. “You make me crazy when you do that.”
“I’m not trying to make you crazy,” I said quivering. My throat felt sore all of a sudden. I let my body fall into hers. I didn’t want her to be rough right now. I wanted her to be kind with me. “Will you just hold me, please?” I asked.
She wrapped her arms around me and held me tightly to her. “Of course, I will. Always. You don’t have to ask.” Her arms were so tight like I was going to run away and she was trying to keep me. “I love you.”
“No,” I said, shaking. “I do have to ask.” I’d asked her not to touch me and then I was touching her. I wasn’t being fair.
“Well, okay but I always want to be touching you so that’s not a problem.”
I rest onto her and felt how strong she was, how strong she held me. I couldn’t stop weeping and I hated that. I don’t think she knew though. Not really. I was hiding my face.
“Will you sing to me?” I asked. I needed to calm down.
“Sure. Any requests?”
“No,” I said. It was an exhale more than a word. I just needed her loving me and I needed it to have nothing to do with sex because apparently I was shit at that even though that’s all we’d been doing for days now with barely any rest.
She couldn’t just tell me things like that and expect me not to have doubts.
What the hell was she thinking?
That wasn’t a little thing.
That was a really big thing.
And she said it so casually and then followed it up with all that hallmark crap.
Every time she touched me I ached for her. Every time she touched me she satisfied me in different ways but every time she DID satisfy me and she did take me somewhere else, somewhere no one else could take me, that was why I proposed. That was exactly why. No one made me feel that way. She made me so sure.
And she just told me I hadn’t taken her there.
Those were her words. She’d said them.
I was inadequate.
I wasn’t enough.
I was just fine.
My eyes burned and I tried not to move but it was hard because I really wanted to cry. Not simply weep, like I was, but cry hard, like really cry.
If there was one thing I couldn’t take it was not being enough to the only people who were supposed to love and want me.
Avery couldn’t understand that. When she excelled she excelled for herself.
I was different. They built me wrong.
I couldn’t take not being right.
I disappeared into myself.
And I couldn’t do that with her. She was supposed to be the only one.
My tears came faster, my chest moving despite my not wanting it to.
I thought I was hers.
“There’s a song I love and I used to never think I’d find someone who would make me feel like this but then you happened. I’m not telling you stories or saying what I think you want to hear. I’m just telling you how you make me feel. I hope you listen.”
She cleared her throat and took a deep breath.
When she sang to me she was so so sweet. I calmed halfway through. My confusion settling. The words sinking in. It was a song about wanting forever with me. Digame, digame...
I turned my lips into her neck and kissed her, running my hand through her hair.
When she finally stopped singing all I wanted to do was understand but I didn’t understand and questions scared me right now.
“I can feel you freaking out right now and I know you don’t want me to ask so I won’t. I just want you to hear me say that this isn’t what you’re thinking in your head. I know that probably won’t mean much but I can’t keep freaking out when you feel this way. It doesn’t help either of us. Even though I’m feeling all turmoil inside I just want to be here and hold you and tell you it’s going to be okay because I know it is.”
“I’m not trying to freak you out,” I said. “I don’t act this way because I want to.”
“I know you don’t. You feel what you feel. I know you’d rather be perfect and whole but I love you like this.” She kissed my forehead and slid her hands up my shoulders to cradle my face. “I love you all the ways.”
“You love me bad at sex,” I cried, breaking.
“Oh NO. You are so not bad at sex.” She shook her head, pulling back from me eyes wide and incredulous. “You are… I don’t even have a word. I’m not sure what I can say that’s going to convince you because I know what it feels like to have those doubts cycle around in your head but you are beyond great at sex. I’ve seriously never felt as much with anyone. Ghosts. They were all ghosts. You are flesh and blood and make me see color.”
“But you want to go farther. I haven’t done what you wanted. You want to go somewhere else, somewhere I haven’t taken you. I’m just telling you your words,” I choked.
“Babe, I didn’t mean that you don’t make me feel amazing and crazy and awesome. You misunderstood me. I just happen to have a few… kinks is all. Like I said, they’re NOT required for you to make me feel amazing and whole. They’re just things I’d like to try with you. Just to see if they’re good.”
“So what? All this sweet stuff… Has this all been just practice? And then today that was something else? A test?”
“No. There are a lot of different ways to have sex and we are just having different experiences like every couple does. Every single one has been amazing and different. Sometimes I like to have you slow and sweet and sometimes I like it hard and fast. That’s all. It’s about mood not one thing being better than the other. When you’re sweet it just makes me all hot and liquid inside. It makes me feel so loved and wanted. When it’s more rough it makes me feel just as good but if I’m feeling a little like being claimed or I want to know you own me that’s what happens.”
“But what if I can’t do these things you want? What if I can’t make you feel that way. We don’t know. You’ve been keeping things from me,” I said nervously.
I felt so stupid. I was still clinging onto her so hard.
What if I couldn’t...
“I honestly don’t think you couldn’t do them. Even if you couldn’t it would be fine. They’re not things I have to have from you. They’re things I’d just like to try.”
There was that word again, that word she rarely said but I could see her thinking.
“I don’t want to be fine for you Avery. I want to be everything.”
“You’re more than everything.” Now, she was tearing and desperate. No longer able to stay completely level. “I wish I could make you see. If I lost you then I’d lose me. You’re the entirety of what I need. You give me more than everything. Sometimes I think I’m going to smother you I need you so much.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking. I didn’t want to break her. I always did this. “I just don’t understand. The other stuff. I don’t understand the other stuff.” And I hated that I had to tell her that. I hated to not understand. I always got her so worked up with my stupid questions.
I’d have to keep it separate and hope one day it clicked but it wasn’t clicking.
Everything else with us clicked.
Everything else with us made sense.
And up until now I thought this…
I thought this made sense.
I didn’t feel good right now. I felt lost. And she was holding me. But I felt like I didn’t deserve it now like it was- halfway- a lie.
Avery deserved to feel good about herself. She deserved to feel as good as good can feel. If I couldn’t do that for her we had a problem, we really
did.
“I want to make you feel good like I feel good,” was all I could say. “I feel better kissing you than I feel when you do what you did. And I loved what you did. So that’s saying a lot.”
I tried to find some way to talk about it. “Sex with Nat was a little like that,” I said. “But you made it different. Better.”
I didn’t know how to explain.
“For me you make everything better.”
Which was stupid to say while crying.
Stupid to feel.
“Now I’m scared,” I said. “Of not being enough. And I know you don’t want that but I don’t know how to not feel that when you say… I dunno,” I said. Trying to fall away in my own mind.
Maybe things with Ben had been too complicated.
Maybe she didn’t want sweet.
Maybe she wanted bad…
“Do you want to hurt me?” I asked. I was scared to ask her, really scared. “Physically. Like really hurt me?”
I think I’d asked her before. I was pretty sure she said no but that wasn’t why I was asking.
“I’m not sure how many times I can say this but I’ll keep trying until I get through. I don’t want to hurt you. That’s the last thing I want. It scares me beyond belief that I could hurt you. I’ve been hurt and I know what that feels like. It’s not about that. If I hurt you I would not deserve you. But you said… you said-”
She choked on the words, her hand fidgeting on my body. “You told me you wanted me to use you like I wanted to and I thought it was okay to do what I did. Was it not? Was I hurting you?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No baby, you didn’t hurt me. Not with that. With this,” I said, shaking her head with my hand. “What you did upstairs was great, more than great,” I whispered forcefully. “But you’re making me think I’m not…” I stopped myself. I had to say it right. “I want you to use me,” I said. “But I don’t know what you really want and apparently you haven’t been telling me, not really. And I thought you wanted…” I stopped. I was getting confused inside my own fucking head. “You can’t tell me I haven’t taken you somewhere else Avery. You can’t tell me that. It means something different to me. It meant something different.”
I didn’t know how to say how I felt. And now I’d just hurt her.
“I’d been wanting you to fuck me like that since I met you…” It was something good I could say, something that was true, something I hadn’t yet said. “When I asked you if you wanted to hurt me, I only asked because I didn't want you to hate me when I ask you if you want me to hurt you. And not like this. Not emotionally. Which I didn’t mean to do and I never mean to do. I mean like he did but different. I don’t understand what you want. You haven’t exactly told me and I don’t understand.”
Sometimes I did want her to hurt me. That was the problem. What she did upstairs was something I’d been wanting. Sensitive, as I am now, I wanted that, I really did.
Sick as I am, I want her to tear me up sometimes and make me really ache. I don’t know where that comes from but that’s always been something I’ve been interested in, even with Nat.
“I’m sorry.” She pressed her face into my chest, ducking down. “I never ever wanted to hurt you in anyway. I didn’t mean it that way. What I said about going places. I didn’t tell you some stuff because it was soon and I didn’t know if you would think I was too fucked up. Sometimes when we’re having sex I imagine you-” She stopped, taking a breath, trying to work up to saying something. “Putting your hand on my throat and pressing. Just a little, not much. Just so I know you’re there. Just so I feel like you can control me, do whatever you want to me. It’s not all the time. Occasionally, and it’s not a big deal at all. I just like it when you show me how much I’m yours.”
“And you like when I bite you,” I said, remembering.
I wasn’t strong enough.
If Ben did…
I had to stop thinking about Ben...
“He never did that,” she whispered, reading my mind.
I gasped.
How…
“I’d never ask you to do what he did to me.”
Now I really started to cry. Like really bad crying.
My whole body hurt and she held me.
“I’m so sorry,” I cried. “I know you hate when I say that. I’m so sorry though, really. Avery…”
Fuck!
This was so hard to talk about and it was like we’d been just dancing around it and hoping things would be fine.
I needed to stop thinking about Ben and asking about Ben but she didn’t talk to me and I didn’t know and it was hard.
We’d been having a lot of sex. A lot.
Every time she wasn’t telling me she wanted me to control her.
I’d been telling her that.
And I was bad at controlling. I was bad at being strong.
“I’m not strong,” I said. “Physically.” I’m not strong either way but this conversation demanded clarification.
With Nat it was always her controlling me, never the other way around.
I brought my hand up to Avery’s neck to show her. “I can’t press too hard. I don’t have strength,” I said, demonstrating. Even doing it though felt surprisingly intimate. I felt myself calm.
Her eyes closed and she swallowed. I could feel it as she did. “You’d be surprised how little strength it takes.” She put her hand over mine and gave me a ghost of a smile. “This is perfect.” When she saw that I at least got it she leaned down and touched our lips together, still holding our hands to her throat.
I felt myself breathing lighter now. She gave me her strength.
“Don’t be afraid to ask. I’ll talk about it with you.” She was talking about Ben… What he did. “I don’t because I feel like it hurts you to hear it. I’m not afraid with you anymore. I can say it.”
“It hurts but I want to know,” I said, floating on ruin, my whole life beneath me now tortured and secretive. She hadn’t been telling me because she was scared about me? “And you’re gonna tell me.” I decided.
I wanted to throw myself in a room and lock myself up.
I wasn’t worthy of her.
I couldn’t be.
“I love you so much,” I said angrily. I was so mad I could fucking scream. My voice was already sore though from trying to breathe for so long.
In every sense I was too sensitive. In every situation it was me she was worried about and not the other way around.
What happened to needing to be brave?!
That’s what I used to tell myself.
How did I not know about her and Ben? How was I just finding out?
Two days from now we’d be in a room and it’d all come out anyway. Only then she’d be having to tell me, then she’d be forced. Or she’d have an excuse.
This was my fault.
It all was.
“I know if someone did those things to you then I’d not be able to hear it without wanting to tear them apart with my hands. I wouldn’t hesitate,” she said.
“I need more wine,” I said, pulling myself up out of the tub and walking away.
She let me have the space to recover. She didn’t follow me. “You’re coming back, right?”
“You’re having wine too,” I said, bringing a bottle out and waiting at the edge of the hot tub, looking down on her. “Where do you want to do this?” I asked.
I was sick of not knowing things about her. Especially about her pain. I was the kind of person who needed a lot of time to mull over a simple detail. All these truths from Avery, one after another, they were giant bombs but there was no way to avoid them and I wanted them blown now.
“Are you hungry? Do you want food?” We could go to the room. We could stay here. I could pull her up to the treehouse again, no one would overhear us there. No more accidents could be had.
“Let’s go to the treehouse. That feels like a good confessional.”
“Are you sure you want to? I don’t want to p
ush you. I just feel sick,” with myself. “I feel sick with myself.” I said it OUT LOUD. And I probably looked about as frustrated as I felt.
No more thinking the important things. No more keeping them inside.
I needed to be as open as possible. My not doing so was making things harder for her.
“I don’t want to be too weak to handle your pain. You’ve had to take it. I need to know what you’ve had to take,” I said simply. “It might kill me. And I know I suck at it. But you need someone strong for you. I want to be strong.”
Paper Dolls [Book Three] Page 9
