Page 49 of The Truth About Love

I know a conversation is coming that I don’t want to have when he sucks in a deep breath through his nose, preparing himself.

“You wanna talk about whatever’s going on with you?” he asks finally.

My automatic response is denial. “Nothing’s going on with me.”

He shakes his head, tutting like a disappointed parent. “Don’t lie to me, Summer-Raine. Not only is it insulting, but it breaks my trust in you. Something’s changed, I’d be an idiot not to notice. Just tell me what I can do to fix it.”

I stare blankly at the wall behind him. I hate this. Hate that he’s right, that something has changed. Hate that he wants to talk about it.

I really don’t want to talk about it.

I want to ignore it, lock whatever bullshit my monsters have created in a box and throw it into the sea.

But he won’t let me do that, I know he won’t. Auden is nothing if not persistent. That’s how we ended up together, after all. He saw me, pursued me and got me. It’s the same with everything he wants in life. He goes after it until it’s his.

But I can’t let that happen, not this time. He doesn’t really want to hear about how I’ve been cutting myself again, or how I spend hours at a time doing nothing but fantasising about what it would feel like to die. It would only hurt him.

“Do you think I haven’t noticed that you’ve been wearing cardigans again? It’s June, Summer-Raine. It’s ninety fucking degrees outside, don’t tell me it’s because you’re cold.”

I say nothing.

He doesn’t want me to lie to him, so I won’t. But I won’t confirm it for him either. I don’t want him to give me that look he gets when his Mama is having a bad episode.

He told me once that I could never be a burden. I didn’t believe him then. I still don’t.

My eyes stay locked on the wall.

“Baby, please,” he begs. “Give me something.”

I look at him then. I breathe in the sight of his fallen face, his wide, sad eyes and downturned lips. The way his entire body seems to sag in defeat, his shoulders bearing the weight of the world and collapsing under the shear force of it.

I wish I could feel my heart cracking at the sight of his pain.

“Make love to me,” I whisper finally, crawling across the bed to climb into his lap. “Just touch me and love me and maybe it’ll go away.”

It won’t go away.

I know that. He knows that. But still, he does as I ask, just like I knew he would.

I’m a coward for initiating sex to avoid a conversation I don’t want to have, but I don’t have the capacity to care. Don’t have the ability to feel guilty for manipulating the person who loves me most in the world.

He brushes a loose strand of hair behind my ear, the way he always has done, and I close my eyes as if it brings me comfort, when really, I’m only pretending.

God, I’m not worthy of this extraordinary, beautiful man.

If I was a better person, I’d let him go. Set him free to find a girl who can love him the way he truly deserves. A girl without baggage or monsters or darkness that destroys everything good in her life. She’d make him happy in a way I’ll never be able to, not if I live the rest of my days with this poison in my blood.

He kisses me. One hand cups my face, the other falls to my arms to roll up the sleeves of my cardigan. When his fingers trace the raised slashes, he hisses.

“Fuck, baby.” His forehead presses against mine, his eyelids screwed shut. “Why are you doing this to yourself?”

I bring my hands up to his face, coaxing him to look at me. “No talking,” I whisper. “Just kiss me.”

His laboured, shuddery breath warms my lips as he covers them with his own. I close my eyes, wishing that his kiss could revive me from the bleakness of my existence like Prince Charming bringing his one true love back to life.

But I’m not Sleeping Beauty or even Snow White.

This isn’t a Disney movie and no matter how magical the previous months have been, this isn’t a fairy tale either.

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