Page 237 of Releasing 10
Clearly, Liz had saved up every ounce of energy and joy for our daily visits, because seeing what she went through in a standard twenty-four hours broke my fucking heart.
Because her mind wasn’t just complicated; ittorturedher to the point where I found myself understanding her sudden and drastic shifts in mood.
The worst was the self-harming—something that I learned she did daily. That really took the air out of my lungs. Knowing that if I turned my back at any given moment, she could andwouldtake a razor to her flesh. I’d caught her on three occasions, and those three fights were the only time I had ever raised my voice to her.
Because I needed her tohearme.
Because I needed her to know what when she cut herself, she cut me, too.
“Hugh?” Liz whispered in the silence, and the sudden intrusion of her voice, not to mention the hand she stretched over the side of her bed to trail her fingers in my hair, all but gave me a damn heart attack. “Are you awake?”
“Yeah, Liz.” I blew out a breath, chest heaving. “I’m awake.” When her fingers continued to tousle my hair, I reached an arm up and rested my hand on the edge of her mattress. “Did you have another nightmare?”
“I think so,” she replied softly, snatching up my hand in hers. “But I don’t know if I was asleep when it happened.”
“Do you want to talk about…” My words quickly trailed off when my girlfriend rolled off the side of her bed and onto the mattress beside me.
“Hi,” she breathed, settling on her side, facing me.
“Hi,” I replied, swallowing deeply. “Did you just fall out of your bed?”
Liz shook her head, and the intense way she was looking at me caused every hair on my body to stand to attention. “You’re leaving tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I sort of have to.” A dull ache settled in my chest. “School starts the day after.”
“I don’t want to sleep without you tonight,” she whispered, reaching up to stroke my jaw. “Not when it’s our last night.”
Careful to not read this wrong, I slowly raised my arm and waited for her reaction. When she immediately burrowed her head into the crook of my arm, I relaxed and wrapped my arm around her. “It’s not our last night,” I promised, voice thick and gruff. “We’ll have thousands of more nights together.”
Inhaling deeply, Liz draped one long leg over my hips and flattened her palm over my bare stomach. “You always smell so good.”
“Well, I sort of have to, now don’t I?” I teased, striving to keep my mind off the way my body was steadily burning up. “When my girlfriend spends most of her days sniffing me.”
“True,” she mused, fingers moving to my navel. “Hey, did you know you have hair under your belly button now?”
That wasn’t the only place I had hair, but I sure as hell wasn’t about to tell her that. Not when I was doing everything I could to mentally counsel my body into calming the hell down.
“Hugh?”
“Hm?”
“Did you hear me?”
“Yeah, Liz.” I cleared my throat and snatched her hand up in mine. “I heard you.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, sounding guilty. “Was that a bad touch?”
“No.” I shook my head and repressed a shiver. “Not bad. Just unexpected.”
“Oh.” She moved closer, wreaking havoc on my poor fucking heart. “Hugh?”
“Yeah, Liz?” I replied, clenching my eyes shut when her inner thigh settled on top of me.
“When do we get to touch?”
Forget swallowing; I damn near choked on my spit when she asked me that.“Touch?”
“Yeah,” she breathed, nuzzling my shoulder with her cheek. “Like how girlfriends and boyfriends touch each other.”
