Page 71 of Bliss: Part 1
I let him wrap me up in his arms and pull me into his chest. He sat back against the wall with me tucked into his lap, his arms strong and steady around my body, holding me like he didn’t plan to let go for a while. I folded into him, my head resting beneath his chin, my hands clutching fistfuls of his shirt.
“You breathing okay now?” he asked softly, his lips brushing against the top of my head.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “It’s better now.”
His body eased a little because he was finally able to breathe too. “You scared the hell out of me, Lissy.”
“I know,” I mumbled, eyes closing against his chest. “I scared myself too.”
We sat like that for a few minutes, in the quiet. He didn’t push me to talk. He didn’t try to fix anything. He just held me, like he knew it was all I needed. And it was.
But eventually, I pulled back enough to look up at him. His eyes were bloodshot from worrying all night.
“I have to tell Dad,” I said quietly.
Dash frowned, his gaze steady on mine like he was trying to read every unspoken thought in my head. He nodded slowly, but he was still thinking it through even as he answered.
“Yeah,” he said eventually. “Maybe it’ll help. Your dad knows about your panic attacks. Maybe this time, he’ll take it seriously. Get you someone to talk to, a real therapist or something. Someone who knows how to help with—”
“That’s not what I want to tell him,” I said, cutting him off before he could finish.
His eyes narrowed slightly. The frown returned immediately, deeper this time. There was confusion there, for sure, but it was more than that. His expression shifted like he already knew what I meant.
“Oh,” he said, voice quieter now. His gaze dropped for a second and then came back up. “Bliss…you know that’s not a good idea.”
“I know,” I said quickly, almost defensively. “I know it’ll ruin everything.”
Because it would. It absolutely would. The moment those words came out of my mouth and reached Dad’s ears, things would start falling apart. The whole house, the safety of what we had, the illusion of something that felt almost normal in its own fucked-up way…it would all come undone.
“But I can’t keep this from him anymore,” I added. My voice was tight, my throat burning again. “I messed up last night. I let it go too far, and I didn’t stop it. I could’ve. I should’ve. But I didn’t.”
I paused and looked down at my hands, which were resting in his lap now. My fingers trembled just a little.
“I wasn’t ready for something like that. I thought I was. But I wasn’t. I felt...disgusting afterward. Like a slut. Like someone I didn’t even recognize.” My voice cracked slightly. “I didn’t know I had limits like that until I crossed them.”
Dash didn’t speak right away. I could feel his whole body tense. He didn’t even need to say anything. I could already hear his thoughts playing out in the silence. And then he finally broke it.
“They’ll kill us,” he said. “Not you—but us. Me. Tripp. Ashby. Rhys. Both our dads will fucking destroy us if you tell them what we’ve been doing. Bliss, you can’t.”
I flinched slightly at the sharpness in his voice, but I didn’t back down.
“Talk to me instead,” he said quickly, his tone softening again, desperate now. “Whatever you're feeling—whatever’s eating you up inside—we’ll figure it out together. You don’t have to go to him. You don’t have to blow everything up just because you’re feeling overwhelmed right now. We can fix this. You and me.”
And I wanted so badly to believe him.
I wanted to crawl into that version of reality and stay there, pretend this could all be untangled without consequences. That if I just poured my heart out to Dash, the guilt and the confusion and the weight of what we’d done would somehow vanish. That he could hold me long enough for the shame to dissolve.
But I couldn’t. It wasn’t just about talking. It wasn’t about needing advice. It was something deeper than that. Like a switch had been flipped inside me during that panic attack. Some line in my brain had been crossed, and now I couldn’t unsee the truth. What we did wasn’t normal. It wasn’t harmless. It wasn’t something I could keep burying beneath silence and stolen moments.
“I have to tell him,” I whispered, not even looking at him anymore. I stared at my hands instead, still resting in his lap. “I won’t say it was you guys. I won’t say anyone pressured me. I’ll take all the blame. I’ll tell him it was my idea. That I wanted it. That I let it happen.”
“Lissy…” Dash exhaled slowly, rubbing his hand up and down my back, his touch light and tentative, like he wasn’t sure what to do with me anymore. And maybe he didn’t. I’d just dropped something massive in his lap, and he was still trying to comfort me, still trying to make sure I was okay. That was just who he was. Too kind, too sweet for the situation I was dragging him into.
“You don’t have to protect us like that,” he said quietly.
“Yes, I do,” I said, finally lifting my head to look at him. “Because I started it. I let it get this far. And if there are consequences, I’m the one who should deal with them. Not you. Not the others.”
He stared at me for a long time, eyes searching mine. He was still hoping I’d say I didn’t mean it. But I did. I meant every word.
