Page 69 of Unbound

I’m staring at my ceiling and it’s three in the morning. After taking a few shots with Sophie and finally talking, I’m not sure how to process everything we said. She opened up to me for the first time in probably three years. She gave me her pain, my pain, and we put words to the pain. Gave it what it deserved. Sure, we were drunk, but it was all there.

“I wished he wasn’t yours.”

Those words rattle around in my head and as much as they hurt, my darkest night haunting my present, I knowwhyshe said them.

Closing my eyes, I blow out a breath, trying to come up with a reason as to why I acted the way I did for so long. Like a bull in a china shop, I shattered everything around me. For what though? Because I was drowning inside and she was watching?

You know, I honestly don’t think I know why I acted that way. At least I couldn’t tell you now. Maybe it was the substance clouding my brain, but I know I was angry at the world for the last three years and didn’t care who I hurt in the process, just that someone was hurting as much as I was. And that person ended up being Sophie.

Just when I’m thinking of seeing if Sophie’s back home, there’s a knock at my door and it cracks open.

Sophie peeks her head in. “Hey, are you sleeping?” she whispers in the dark.

She pushes the door open slowly and then I hear the soft click of the door latching, locking. She pauses at the door while the thump of my heart is thundering in my ears.

“No, is everything okay?” Sitting up, my back meets the headboard. I’m completely naked, so I keep the blankets up around my waist. “Is Lyric okay?”

“Yeah.” She steps toward my bed, her knees hitting the edge of my mattress. “He’s sleeping. But I couldn’t.”

You and me both.

“What are you doing in here?”

Silence settles in the room, preparing for confessions that have yet to come.

“I… don’t know actually,” she finally says, breaking the silence. “All I know is I couldn’t lie there in bed and not come in here. I feel like I’m constantly pushing myself away from you and holding onto what I really want to say because maybe the timing’s not right, or we’re interrupted.” I start to say something, but she stops me, her hand on my lips. Her breathing intensifies as she examines my face, eyes wandering over my every feature. Sitting down on the bed, she brings her legs up, her feet near my hands. It’s then I notice she’s only wearing a T-shirt and no pants. I don’t look at her legs. I can’t. “I know I said you’re different now, and I gave you my truth at the bar. You know the pain you’ve caused. I know you do and well, it almost hurts to look at you.”

Reacting to her words, I lean forward. I drop my head, my parted mouth meeting the curve of her neck. “I can’t remember the last time it didn’t hurt to look at you,” I murmur, my lips pausing at her ear.

When I draw back, tears are streaming down her face, and it hurts just as much because I’m once again the cause of them. Raising my hand, I carefully brush away the wetness on her cheeks. Our eyes catch, so much suffering portrayed in both of us.

“I’m sorry for a lot of things, not telling you about Lyric when I could have, but—” She swallows, attempting to control a sob I know is threatening to escape. “—mostly I’m sorry for what happened in Mexico.”

“I know you are.” My truth needs to come next because this is just as much on me. “I shouldn’t have treated you that way. It was worse than anything you ever did.”

I don’t know what I’m thinking when I lean in. Just that I do, again. It seems I don’t know a lot these days. In a lot of ways, sex was a way I covered up what I was feeling, a way to numb myself into forgetting. I know we shouldn’t, but holding her, showing her I still care for her seems like the only way to express to her what she means to me.

Sophie stops breathing as my breath blows over her. Time slows and becomes meaningless, and I’m trapped in her eyes. She doesn’t say anything, just looks at me. I want in this moment forever.

I don’t know how to process what’s happening, but my body can’t, won’t stop. I know this may be the very last time, but I have faith it’s not.

All I know is deep down I’m scared and I have been all along. It’s where my insecurities lie and is the truth in the lyrics I write. I’m scared of hurting her again. I’m scared of being hurt.

The urge to get closer and closer pulses through me. It won’t let up and I can’t stop myself from reaching out. I start tentatively by running my fingers down her arms, up further to her shoulder and then the curve of her neck. My hands shake with so much want and need.

Scooting down the bed, I lay flat on the mattress and she pulls the blankets back just enough to slip inside them with me. I don’t know where it’s going, or what she wants, but I’m not stopping her.

“I can feel your heart,” she whispers, her hand on my chest, but it’s moving lower. “It’s beating so fast.”

Is she going to push me away?

Turning my head, my eyes hold hers, my voice trembling around the words when I say, “What do you want, Sophie?”

She’s scared. Just like I am.

Her lips part and she studies my face, then lower to my chest where her name’s tattooed over my heart. Her fingertips trace each letter. “I want you.”

Raising my left hand from my side, I touch her cheek with my palm. “What if that’s not enough anymore?” My brow furrows as I swallow over the painful lump forming in my throat. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

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