Page 46 of Creep

She let out a deep exhale as I grabbed the other blanket and wrapped it around us.

“Don’t you think this position is much too intimate for two people going on their first date?” she asked.

“Is it?”

“Are you this forward with all the girls you’ve dated?”

“What other girls?” I asked.

It might make me sound bad, but I didn’t date. I fucked around a lot in my late teens years and early twenties, sure, but dating? I never really thought it was for me. A byproduct of my childhood, perhaps.

“What do you mean?” she asked, sounding confused.

I tightened my arms around her. “There’s no one else but you.”

She turned and took me in. The look on her face told me she didn’t quite believe me or know what to make of my statement. She cleared her throat and looked away.

“Did you grow up here?” she asked.

“No, Boston.”

“Boston? You don't have an accent.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve been back,” I said, explaining.

“Oh. I have an uncle who grew up in Boston.”

“Yeah?”

She was talking about Leo Briggs. The fucker started all of this in Boston. So did her father, even if he had lived in New York for most of his life.

“Yeah. He has a Boston accent though.”

“Guess I’m just better at leaving my past behind.”

She looked at me. “That’s a strange thing to say. Is your past something you want to leave behind?”

“Can you ever really leave it behind?”

She shook her head. “Not really. It stays with you.”

“Sounds like you know that from experience,” I said, trying to sift through everything I knew about her history, wondering which one she was referring to.

“My little brother grew up addicted to pain pills. A bad car accident from when he was little really messed him up. He was on painkillers for most of his life. He wasn’t trying to kill himself,” she said quickly, her eyes meeting mine briefly as if she was afraid I might think badly about him. “At least, I don’t think so. The pain just got to be too much, you know?”

“You don’t have to explain it to me,” I said.

She looked down at her lap. “I know. Habit, I guess. I spent most of my life trying to explain Caden’s actions to other people. I guess it doesn’t go away just because he’s gone.”

“And you feel guilty about that?” I asked, knowing I guessed right.

“I just… I always thought there was something more I could have done.”

“There was nothing you could have done, baby. You’re not responsible for other people’s actions. You know that, don’t you?”

She shot me a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

I grasped her chin and turned her attention back to me.

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