Page 95 of Would You Rather
He shakes his head, his eyes softening when he looks down at me. “You don’t want that right now. And that’s completely fine.” His arms tighten around me. “You don’t need to force yourself to get in the mood or just go along with it because I want to,” he says. “When you’re feeling it, you can let me know.”
“You…” My lip wobbles. “You mean that?”
“Of course,” he says, his brows knitting together. “Why wouldn’t I?”
My eyes start to tear up, and I hold back a sob, pressing my lips together. Lucas, however, catches on because he frowns as he holds my face in his hands. “Hey,” he says, in a voice so soothing it makes me want to cry even more. “What’s wrong?”
I shake my head, blinking away the tears. I don’t want to cry in front of him. Not again. Squeezing my eyes shut, I beg myself not to break down, but when his hands wipe away a tear, my eyes snap open, locking with his.
“Baby,” he says, his voice so calm it makes me want to cry even more. “I didn’t mean to imply I don’t want you. I always want you, but I’m not going to push you into doing something if you’re not feeling it.”
I shake my head, my heart bursting with the love I have for him. “That’s not it.”
“Then what is it?” he asks. “You can tell me,princesa. Whatever it is.”
“I… I don’t want you to think I’m weak.”
His lips turn into a frown. “I would never think that,” he says earnestly. “I want you to be able to tell me anything, no matter what. You never have totryto be perfect with me. All you have to do is exist. Be messy, be loud, cry, scream if you have to. It doesn’t matter. You’ll always be perfect to me.”
My heart trusts him so much that the words come spilling out. “I had a boyfriend,” I tell him. “In high school.”
His eyes darken, and his breathing starts to pick up. “What happened?” he asks.
The memory of it is painful, and the thought of Lucas seeing me as anything but strong is scary, but he saw me break down in the elevator, and he’s still here. He still wants me.
“It was a few weeks after Nia died,” I start. “I was a mess, completely lost without my sister. My parents hardly talked to me and I felt so lonely,” I admit, relaxing into him while his hand rubs my back. “I know they were grieving too, but it felt like they were mad at me or something. I felt like after their real daughter died, they didn’t want me.”
“Mads,” Lucas says. “You know that’s not true.”
I shrug. “Maybe it’s stupid, but that’s how I felt. And then I met this guy at school, and he talked to me, he liked me and gave me attention. It seemed like no one else cared about me, so I let myself get caught up in him.” I breathe out a sigh. “It all happened so quick. One moment, he took my first kiss. The next he was calling me his girlfriend.”
It was on my sixteenth birthday, and I still remember waking up to my parents being gone for work without so much as a happy birthday text. They had never done that before. Birthdays were always a big thing in our family, but when Nia died, so did all our other traditions.
“He was kind and gentle. At least at first,” I continue. Lucas’ hand stops abruptly on my back and I glance up at him, seeing his brows knitted so tight. “But not long after, he started to get very controlling. I don’t even know how he did it, but he managed to make me turn against my parents.” I shake my head, a tear rolling down my cheek when I let out a laugh. “I had spent my whole life trying to make them love me, and while I knew they did, he made me feel like I would never be good enough for them. He used to tell me that they would never love me like they did Nia. That he was the only one who could learn to love someone that was as overbearing as me.”
“You’re kidding,” Lucas says.
“I believed him.” I nod, more tears rolling down my chest. “I really believed no one would be able to love me. My own birth parents didn’t want me, I didn’t have many friends and had never had a boyfriend, and after Nia died, my own parents didn’t want to be around me. Why wouldn’t I believe him?”
“Because he was manipulating you.”
“I didn’t see it at the time,” I tell him. “He made me think everyone hated me, everyone except for him. He got jealous if I had any friends, which were very few and told me to cut them off. He checked my phone constantly. He had this power over me that made me feel like I was no one without him. And he wanted things I wasn’t ready to give.”
“Mads,” Lucas breathes out, tightening his hold on me. “Please don’t tell me…” He trails off, his words clear.
“Whenever I would tell him I wasn’t ready or that I didn’t want to, he would get angry and call me a prude or childish. And it got to a point where…” I trail off, shaking my head. “He was sick of waiting, and I hated seeing him pissed whenever I turned him down, so I just… let him.”
“You let him?” Lucas asks, his tone sharp.
“I didn’t say no,” I admit.
“But did you want to?”
I shake my head, burying my head deeper in his chest. “No,” I admit, a sob catching in my throat. “I didn’t want to. But I didn’t want him to get angry.”
“What do mean angry?” he asks with a bite.
I hear the warning in his voice, and I spill the words out, wanting to tell him everything. “He had a temper,” I tell him. “Kicking chairs, punching walls, that sort of thing, but then…”
