I wished he did. But he cared. Enough to come over at midnight when I didn’t respond to a text.
On a night when I was falling apart.
“Thanks,” I said, finally. “For coming. I must not have checked my phone in—God, I don’t even know where my phone is right now. I’m kinda having a shitty night, to be honest.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Connor asked after a moment’s silence.
I cocked my head to the side. “I don’t know. Do you?”
He gave me a lopsided smile. “Do you think you could let me in, first?”
It took a minute. The screen on my window stuck at first, and it was only after Connor had half-climbed, half-fallen into my room that it occurred to me I could have just sent him around to a door. When he stood up, he brushed his hands off on his jeans and gave the window a rueful look.
I wondered if he was fending off ten-year-old memories, too.
I felt awkward, staring at Connor in the pale golden light. I wasn’t a teenager any longer. No more ratty blue carpet, or twin bed. Not a textbook or bible to be seen. But I couldn’t shake the sudden shot of nerves that coursed through my body, or the way my heartbeat sped up at having a boy in my room again.
I was about to suggest moving to the living room, just to give myself some relief from the memories, when Connor sat down on the edge of my bed. Gretchen immediately crawled into his lap.
“So why was your night so shitty? That’s what I’m supposed to ask, right?”
“Something like that,” I said faintly.
I sat down on the bed as well. A few feet away. It probably looked like I was avoiding him, but that was better than letting my body get the wrong idea. I shot Connor a quick look, saw him circling his right thumb with his forefinger. He used to do that when he was nervous.
What did he have to be nervous about?
“So.” Connor nodded in my direction. “Tell me.”
I opened my mouth to say it wasn’t that big a deal. To downplay it. To thank him for asking, but beg off having to explain. Instead, I found I couldn’t speak.
It was like my dream all over again. Except not, of course, because Connor was here, sitting on my bed, petting my cat, looking right at me. Worrying about me.
It was the opposite of the dream, actually, because it turned out that Connor being kind was way, way harder than Connor ignoring me. It was everything I needed and nowhere near enough.
My breath hitched and those tears I’d felt minutes before started to leak out. I shook my head. Squeezed my eyes shut. I did not cry in front of people. Especially not people who had hurt me before. And Connor—
God, I’d just missed him.
I hadn’t understood how badly until right now, when I got a taste of all the memories I’d locked away for so many years. I’d missed him like the sun. Like a heartbeat.
Connor leaving had severed an artery and I’d been bleeding out ever since.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my eyes still shut. I didn’t want to look at him looking at me. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Was I apologizing for crying, or just existing? I wasn’t sure. Maybe for needing, because I felt thick with it. It coated me like tar, sticky and grasping. Connor was finally giving me what I’d asked for, and it still wasn’t enough.
Need was ravenous within me. I’d tried to starve it out for so long. Hoped that if I ignored it, it would wither and blow away like a husk. Instead, it metastasized. Grew even stronger in the dark.
I hated the shame of it.
I didn’t realize I was clenching the blanket until Connor laid his hand on top of one of mine. His touch was tentative. Like he didn’t want to scare me.
I drank it in. All he wanted to do was make sure I was okay, and I used that concern for my own desires. I disgusted myself.
“We don’t have to talk,” Connor said. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not that I don’t—I just wish I could—Dammit.”
I couldn’t even form a coherent sentence. I ached to say something. To put boundaries on this longing. Fence it in with words. But need wrested control away from me. Left me a passenger in my own head.
Connor shifted. Slid closer to me on the bed. My eyes were still closed,