Page 55 of Senseless
"I told you youcouldcome back. Reaper told me himself he'd let you back in. He won't go back on his word."
"That's not as simple as it sounds. He would have to rewrite club law and get a vote to have it approved. And even if he did that, Mari..." I ached to touch her, to take one of her hands or just wrap around her in a hug. "I can't be yours."
"Youarestill mine." She dropped a hand to rest on my thigh and I couldn't bring myself to remove it. "You told me yourself last night that you've always been mine."
It was so fucking hard to talk. My heart felt jammed up my throat, but she deserved to know the truth—that I was a lost cause who would never deserve her.
"I loved last night Mari, but," I curled my hand around hers and removed it from my leg, "it shouldn't have happened. It's just making things harder."
The look crossing her face hurt worse than the most painful cut I'd ever received.
"Shadow, why does it have to be like this?" Emotion choked her voice and that sound killed me. "I want to be with you. You want to be with me. Why should anything else matter?"
"Because I've already hurt you," I bit out. "I can't ever forgive myself for that, and now I can't ever trust myself to sleep next to you. I want you more than anything else in my life, but I don't deserve you."
I turned away, closing myself off from her as I faced the bar. Focusing on a random speck of paint on the wall, I took my deep breaths and willed my chest to stop collapsing in on itself. I silently hoped she would slide off the stool and leave, putting both of us out of our misery.
I should have known better when she placed a hand on my arm and leaned in closer, when every nerve in my body screamed at the light touch from her. This was the woman who forced me to say good morning to her after all.
"That's not true, Shadow. You deservesomuch. You deserve to be loved."
"Mari, please..." I didn't know what I was begging for.
"You've gone nearly three weeks without sleepwalking when it used to happen, what, three, four times a week? Shadow that'samazingprogress."
"It doesn't mean anything," I argued. "If it happens once a month, or once a year even, it's still putting someone in danger if they're near me."
"We can take precautions. Maybe a combination of Doc's therapy and sleeping pills. We can figure something out, Shadow. It doesn't have to condemn you to a life without any happiness."
"It already has." I stole another look at her. "That happened the moment I hurt you. I can'tevertake that risk again, do you understand? You mean too much to me."
"Shadow." Mari shook her head with a huff of breath, clearly frustrated, but nothing she said would change my mind. My thoughts had already run in circles about this hundreds of times before. "It was an accident. Iknowyou would never hurt me."
I shook my head in response. "Consciously, no, I would never. But my subconscious is a deep, ugly place. I see it with every therapy session and it's...I never want to expose you to that. It'll never go away, Mari." I swallowed deeply. "That violence you experienced atmyhands is part of me. It's who I am."
"I don't believe that," she said quickly, just as stubborn as me. "It might be part of you, forced on you by what you endured, but that person who hurt me wasnotyou." Her voice lowered as she spoke closer to my ear. "Would you let me sit in on a therapy session?"
"No." I forced the word out through gritted teeth. "Absolutely not."
"Shadow, I'm willing to do this." Both of her hands wrapped around my arm now, her cheek nudging my shoulder. "I want and accept all parts of you. Let me prove it. Let me be there for you."
"No, Mari." I forcibly removed her hands from me, sliding off my stool to put distance between us. "It was fucking hard enough letting Doc see what happened. You? No, I could never show you that."
She remained unfazed, crossing her arms in front of her. "So is it that you don't trust yourself, or you don't trust me?"
"What?" I blinked at her. “What do you mean?”
"Of course, I see it now." Mari tilted her head slightly as she regarded me with some new understanding. Whatever that was eluded me completely.
"What are you talking about?"
"You've set yourself up in a perfect, self-destructive cycle," she said. "You've convinced yourself that you're so undeserving of love, that I'll run away screaming if I get a small glimpse of your trauma, right?"
I bristled, unsure of the point she was trying to make. "Maybe not that exact reaction, but yes. I think it'll change what you think of me and...I don't want to burden you with that knowledge."
Mari held up two fingers. "One of two things needs to be true if that’s what you expect to happen. One, you think I'm a fool, that I don't see you for the walking textbook of childhood trauma symptoms that you are, and that I don't understand the weight of what you've been through."
"I don't believe that at all." I stepped toward her, the impulse against my earlier reaction to step away. "You're not a fool, you’re brilliant. You and Doc understand me better than anyone else."
