He exhaled toward the ceiling, his arm pressed up against the length of my spine. I could picture him lying there, flat on his back, staring into nothing. Waiting. Waiting for what, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know what he wanted. All I knew was I wanted him to want me.
I couldn’t take it any longer.
Slowly, I turned. His arm dug into my ribs as I rolled over it, before I settled into the safety of his side. Tonight I erased the physical space that had always been left between us, but somehow I knew the distance to what I wanted – to what I needed – had never been greater. I buried my nose at the juncture of his shoulder and chest, breathed him in the second he gave in and pulled me into his arms. My hand twisted in the collar of his T-shirt, and the other burrowed beneath his back.
Every nerve in my body fired, my muscles straining as I clung to him, as I did everything I could to bring him closer.
Nothing had ever felt better than being in Jared’s arms.
Nothing.
Under my arm his heart beat fast, and I slowly uncurled my fingers from his shirt and slid my flattened palm down to feel it pound beneath my skin. My stomach flipped and turned, pooled with desire and need and the affection I’d held for him for so very long.
And I wanted to tell him how much he really meant to me, but I knew saying it would only force him further away.
Jared held his breath, then brought his right hand up to settle on top of mine. He pressed my palm harder against his chest, as if he, too, couldn’t stand the thought of letting me go. His voice was raspy, low, and so incredibly sad. “What are we doing, Aly?”
“I don’t know,” I answered with my mouth hidden in the fabric of his shirt. I loved the way he smelled, his shirt thick with the crisp scent of fresh laundry, mixing with the essence that always surrounded him – peppermint and cigarettes. It was the aura of the man that each second sucked my spirit deeper into him.
The fingers on my back found their way into my hair. Gently he tugged, like he’d done so many times before, only this time it was a fistful. “Christopher is right, you know. You were always my favorite.” The words came out in a murmur, his face focused on the ceiling, though his fingers soothed into my scalp.
Tingles spread along my neck, then rocketed down my spine.
“I don’t know what it was,” he continued with a soft reverence. “I guess I liked the way you followed us around. I liked that you couldn’t keep up and that I had to take care of you. I liked standing up for you. Protecting you. I liked the way you looked at me like I really mattered. I liked that when I thought back about you and Christopher after I was gone, I was thinking about the good times I had in my life.” He squeezed me closer to him and pressed his mouth to the top of my head.
“But I don’t get to have this, Aly.”
I shifted to lay my cheek on his chest. Sadness crashed over me in a breaking wave. I knew there was nothing I could say that would sway him, that there was no convincing him otherwise. He’d already promised me that last night. Instead I just held on to him, told him through my touch how much he meant to me and that he deserved happiness, too, whether he found that with me or someone else.
“I ruin every fucking thing I touch, Aly, and I refuse to ruin you.” His hold increased. “Fuck,” he groaned under his breath, tipping his face down toward mine, grief striking like a match in his eyes. “I shouldn’t even be in here with you.” He squeezed my back in emphasis. “Hanging out with you like this has absolutely been the most selfish thing I’ve done in a long time.” A short breath filtered from his nose. “I can’t do this with you anymore… this whole friend thing. I can feel it coming, Aly, that something bad is gonna happen and I’m going to hurt you, and I refuse to do it.”
“You’d never hurt me,” I said. This time I couldn’t keep myself from refuting his words.
Dry laughter filled my room. “You’re right… because I won’t ever let it get that far.”
Pain fisted in my chest. I was wrong. He could hurt me. He already was – hurting me and hurting himself.
But I guessed hurting himself was what he knew how to do best.
I laced my fingers through his right hand, lifted them so our hands shone in the dim light. My skin looked so pale woven with his, his skin darkened with the sun and his fingers marked with the year of his birth: 1990. Life.
I squeezed his hand, willing him to hang on to it.
He pulled our twined hands to his mouth and pressed gentle kisses to my fingers. He ran his lips along the back of my hand, brushed them over the puckered scars on the outside of my thumb. My throat constricted, and I was struggling to hold back tears.
“I need to go, Aly.”
Panic rose in me, and I struggled to hold him tighter. “Please,” I begged, trying to tug him down, “just lie with me. Just for tonight.”
His sigh was heavy and filled with sadness. But in it was his surrender. His arms tightened around me, and he pressed his lips to my forehead. His warm breath filtered all around me, wrapped around and cocooned me, and I shuddered as I fell completely into his embrace.
Maybe if I lay here and never closed my eyes, I’d be able to hang on to him forever.
And I tried. But inevitably they drooped and fell because there was not a safer, more comfortable place than resting in the security of Jared’s arms.
In the morning, I woke to an empty bed.
I hadn’t expected anything different. It didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. For a few seconds, I held my eyes closed because I didn’t want to face the wedge Jared had driven between us last night.
Rolling to my side, I pulled the sheets with me as I sought some form of comfort. Something crinkled on my pillow as I moved.
I lifted my head. A small piece of parchment paper sat folded on my pillow. My throat constricted, and I turned onto my stomach, eyeing the washed-out tan piece of paper, one side tattered from where it had been torn from some sort of journal. My fingers trembled as I reached out to take it in my hand. Slowly I unfolded it.
Tears welled in my eyes when I saw the simple statement written in a strong-handed scroll.
When beauty sleeps.
Turning onto my back, I held it against my chest, cherishing the words that Jared otherwise didn’t know how to say.
Two weeks had passed since the last time Jared left my room. He’d become distant. Withdrawn. Rarely was he at the apartment. I’d hear him creeping in at ungodly hours of the night and he was usually gone before I got up, as if he could hardly stand to be anywhere in my space.
And I missed him.
The hardest part was in those moments when he was in the apartment and I’d catch him looking at me.
Looking at me as if he missed me as much as I missed him.
Just as quickly, he’d look away, drop his gaze, and pretend all those nights he’d spent lying with me in the sanctuary of my room had only been figments of my imagination.
As if they didn’t matter.
As if they hadn’t changed who we were.
But I didn’t push him. The last time it had backfired. He’d panicked and had driven this unbearable space between us.
Somehow I knew if I pushed him any further, I’d never see him again.
Sighing, I forced myself from bed. Exhaustion dragged my feet. Restful sleep had been scarce for the last two weeks. There was always that hope, this little flicker of anticipation that he might come back, slip inside my room, wrap me up in his arms, and whisper that he’d made a mistake.
But he never did.
It didn’t mean I didn’t spend most nights awake trying to will it to happen.
Now I crept out into the hall. Stunned, I stilled when I found Jared sitting silently at the bar, sipping from a mug of coffee.
Motionless, I indulged, appreciated his beauty in a moment when he had no idea he was being watched. He wore a pair of jeans and a thin white V-neck tee. His bare feet were propped on the footrest, his elbows heavy on the marble bar. He seemed consumed in his thoughts, a million miles and a hundred years away. His hair was all unruly, and it appeared as if he hadn’t shaved in at least three days, this coarse stubble shadowing his strong jaw.