Page 230 of For the Fans
“I won’t stop, baby,” he whispers.
My phone makes a noise in my pocket, and I pause sucking and biting on his neck to check it. “It might be Bridget. I just want to make sure she’s feeling okay.”
His eyes are awfully round as he watches me checking the new text. It is from Bridget.
The second I read it, the whole world slows down, clucking and chugging like an engine running out of fuel.
Fear grips the inside of my chest as my eyes slowly slide back up to Avi’s.
He’s really gnawing on his lip, though he pauses it long enough to mumble, “Is it… her?” My head moves in a subtle nod. “What did she say…?”
He’s staring at me, eyes shimmering something I’ve never seen on him before. Something I never wanted to see on him…
Something I’ve only ever seen from a handful of people.
Oh my God… He fuckingknows.
He knows.
My legs want to give out, knees rattling and my fingers shaking as I manage to croak the words, “She said… I’m sorry for telling Avi.” My jaw tightens and my gaze drops back to the phone to read her text, word for word. “Please don’t blame him. It’s my fault. He deserves to know. I love you so much, Kyran… I just need you to be…” And I pause before breathing the word, “Okay.”
The pressure in my skull is blurring my vision as my phone slips from my fingers onto the floor with a clunk. I back up slowly.
“Kyran… Please,” he says, softly, like someone who’s trying to stop a vicious psychopath from attacking. “Let’s just talk about this. We can talk about it…”
“Talk about what…?” I mumble, covering my face with my hands, backing up farther. “There’s nothing to… talk about.”
My legs hit the couch, and I crash down onto it. Avi stomps over, kneeling on the floor before me. But I can’t look at him.
I don’t want to.
“Baby, just hear me, okay? Hear what I’m saying…” His hands grip my thighs, and he rubs them with his fingers. “This changes nothing.Nothingis different between you and me. I just… I just care about you, that’s all.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about…” I whimper into my palms, breathing lies all over the lines of my roadmap.
“Kyran, I’msorry,” he gasps. “I’m sorry I found out from Bridget, and not from you. Baby, I understand why you didn’t want to tell me, but I’m trying to tell you that it doesn’t matter. I just love you, and I want you to feel safe with me.”
My hands whip away from my face fast and I glare at him. “Why wouldn’t I feelsafewith you?? Are you fucking serious?! So what, just because… Youthinkyou know about something my sister told you happened, that means now I’m some fragile, wounded child?!”
He blinks, stunned, like he has no idea what to say.
I hate this. I fuckinghate this!
This!Thisis why I didn’t want him to know, God-fucking-damnit!
Because now he’s looking at me like that.
“I used the wrong words,” he mumbles, shaking his head. “I fucked up. Okay? That wasn’t what I meant. I meant that I want you to feel comfortable talking to me. If you want to! Only if you want to. That’s it…”
My head won’t stop shaking back and forth, my eyes finding anything in the room to look at other than his face.
“Baby, listen to me…” Avi crawls up onto the couch, straddling my hips. Sitting on my lap, he grasps my face, forcing my eyes to his. “Ilove you, Kyran. I love you so fucking much, and that is neverevergoing to change. No matter what happens, no matter what I learn about you… Baby, you’re it for me. You’re the only person I’ve ever loved this way. Do you know how special that makes you??”
The thickness is my throat is making it hard to swallow. My mind is racing with thoughts of what he must be thinking… What my sister must have told him.
I don’t know what details he knows, or how much she said, but either way, it’s too much. I feel like a fuckingidiotfor thinking I could be happy, in a relationship with someone…
I should’ve known.I don’t deserve to be happy with him.
