Page 22 of The Truth About Love

“That’s completely separate.” He sighs, shaking his head. “We all have baggage, some people’s just come with a label.”

“But I don’t want to add to yours.”

He rubs a hand across his jaw as he gazes down at me.

With him standing so close, it’s the first time I’ve really been able to appreciate his height. Standing about a foot taller than me, he could comfortably rest his chin on the top of my head if he wanted to.

Perhaps if it were someone else, I’d find it intimidating. But around Auden, I’ve never felt anything other than safe and our vast height difference only adds to that.

“Mental illness doesn’t make you a burden. Only a weak person would think that of you.”

His words whittle away at the ice around my heart, making my eyes heat. I blink before tears have the chance to form, but pull my gaze away from his anyway. I’m too vulnerable right now, too exposed. It’s like Auden can see every insecurity I have. And although he’s saying all the right things, I can’t help but doubt the truth of his words.

I don’t doubt for a second that hethinkshe means them, but would he be saying the same thing if he saw me at my lowest? If he saw what my monsters are truly capable of?

Would he still not consider me a burden then?

“You don’t believe me.” He cups my cheek, bringing my eyes back to his. “That’s okay. I’ll just have to prove that you can trust me.”

“You’re trying to prove a lot of things to me at the moment. Maybe you’re taking too much on.”

“Nah.” He smirks and I melt under the heat of it. “See, I realised tonight that you don’t need me to prove to you the existence of love, or anything else. You already know it to be true, you just don’t want to admit it to yourself.”

How can he see through me so clearly?

It’s as if he knows what I’m thinking before I even think it.

“I think you pretend that it doesn’t exist because it’s actually the very thing you crave and that scares you.”

God, I wish he’d stop looking at me like that.

Instinctively, I feel my defences rise. My heart beats frantically and my palms sweat at my sides, so much so that I have to wipe them dry on my denim skirt.

“I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable, maybe I should’ve just kept what I was thinking to myself.” I huff in agreement. “But, Summer-Raine, Iseeyou and you might hate that, but it doesn’t stop it being true.”

I avert my gaze but he immediately tilts my face back up to his with the touch of two fingers to my chin.

“Don’t hide from me.”

But it’s hard. It’s so goddamn hard to stand here as he studies me, as he speaks my secrets aloud into the summer air, without shrinking in on myself or biting his head off in self-preservation.

I wish he would look somewhere else. Anywhere but at me.

“Please.”

Behind him, inky ocean waves roll up the sand towards us. The tide is coming in and it won’t be long before I feel the lick of it at my ankles.

I finally meet his eyes. “You’re kind of intense, you know that?”

“Sorry.” He shrugs, smiling at me bashfully. “I just lose my filter when I’m around you. I can try and reel it in.”

“No,” I say quickly. “I don’t want you to hide from me either.”

“Yeah?”

I nod mutely.

His intensity scares me, but only because I’m not used to it.

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