Page 135 of Losing Faith

“The laying in bed with horrible dental hygiene is always a build-up. A few days of a weight in my chest, and when nothing brings me joy, I’m pushing through each day until I’m too tired mentally to do anything. Other times, it hits after I had a few great days.”

“And this?” He squeezes my thighs gently, but I don’t answer him. I keep my eyes on my scars, but I can’t bring myself to form the words or even make a joke about it.

Jackson wraps an arm around my waist before gently flipping us so I’m on my back. My eyes meet his and a smile touches my lips when he leans forward to kiss me, and it truly does make me feel better.

Before I can deepen the kiss, he pulls away, leaving a trail of kisses from my neck to my chest. His eyes meet mine as he leaves a feather of a kiss on each of my nipples. It’s so fast and soft,innocenteven.

When he trails down my stomach I feel my excitement building because he’sstillopposed to sex, but he skips right past my pants and kisses my thighs.

I feel my throat tightening as he kisseseachandeveryscar I put on myself. He takes his time getting all of them and I blink the tears out of my eyes. He turns to my other leg and a smile touches my lips before my vision blurs.

“Stop,” I whisper, quickly brushing the single tear from my cheek before he can see.

“No.” He continues and so do the tears. “If shame is holding you back from telling me, let me tell you, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You’re stronger than your mind.”

I shake my head in response and he simply kisses the rest of my scars.

“It makes me feel better,” I confess. “I know how bad that sounds, I can recognize that, but when the thoughts are too loud and I can’t feel anything else, I can feelthat. When it hurts too much mentally, when I’m afraid I’ll get high to distract myself, the cutting is a better distraction, and I would rather that than getting high. It’s easier sometimes.”

I watch him intensely, waiting for his face to change, for him to roll his eyes and tell me it’s dumb and tojust stoporjust talk to someonelike I’ve been told in the past, but it never comes. He simply crawls back over me and buries his face in my neck, wrapping his arms around me.

I hold onto him tightly, wrapping my legs around him as I force the lump down my throat.

“Call me the next time you want to hurt yourself,” he mumbles into the crease of my neck and I let out a sigh, knowing that won’t be happening.

“Why?”

He pulls away and wipes the tear from my face before kissing my cheek. “Because I’ll give you something else to feel better about. I’ll give you something else to feel in general, a different kind of distraction.”

As I look into his eyes, I actually start to believe turning to him for help will work.

“Are you offering me sex? Because I might consider it.” I let out a chuckle and he rolls his eyes before kissing my nose.

“I mean it, Lisette.”

I want to make another joke to ease the heavy seriousness his words put in the air, but I can’t come up with one as I’m suddenly mesmerized by the way he looks at me.

“I don’t want to leave this room.” I bury my face in his neck, letting out a defeated sigh. “I have no problems in here.”

“You can come back whenever you want, but you made a promise to your brother and you need to talk to him.”

I let out a loud sigh and he tries to pull away to look at me, but I hold him closer, my face still in his neck.

“You need to stop treating him like the villain. I know it’s annoying you that he’s being overbearing, but hecaresabout you, more than I’ve ever seen a person care about anyone.”

I pull away, forcing myself to not get upset that he’s on his friend’s side. “That’s not why I’m mad, Jackson. It’s the fact that he doesn’t trust me.”

“Lisette, be for real for half a second,” he deadpans. “He found you halfdead. You werebarelybreathing. Youoverdosedwhen you told him you werejust busy. If he didn’t rush to you the second he did, you wouldn’t be here right now. Do you seriously think he’s going to get over that in a week and simply believe you when you say you’re fine? You’re not fine, baby. It’s not that he doesn’t trust you, he simply isn’t believing your lies and you’re mad about that.”

I look off to the side, my cheeks heating. “Okay, but—”

“There are no buts, Lisette.”

I keep my eyes off of him. Ihatebeing called out when I’m wrong.

“I know you want him to trust you, but you’ve given him no reason to trust you, sweetheart. You have to see this from his perspective. I feel like you’re just pushing him away and acting like this because you feel guilty which isfine.That’s understandable, but stop ignoring his calls and treating Sire like he’s such an unbearable annoying brother for simply caring.”

I bite my tongue to stop myself from saying something I don’t mean because he’s right, and I just hate when I’m not.

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