Page 47 of My Best Friend Is Broken
“Liam.” I keep my voice low, gentle, the way you’d speak to a frightened animal. “Hey, you’re dreaming. You’re safe.”
But he doesn’t hear me. He’s somewhere else entirely, lost in whatever hell his sleeping mind has conjured. His legs kick out violently, nearly catching me in the ribs, and his breathing becomes rapid and shallow.
“Stop,” he gasps. “Please stop. It hurts. It hurts.”
The words hit me like ice water. This isn’t about the car accident or Olivia or the bridge. This is about prison. About things that happened to him in that place, things he’s never told me about but that I can see in the way he flinches when strangers get too close.
“Liam, wake up.” I reach for his shoulder, but the moment my fingers make contact, he explodes into motion.
His fist swings toward my face in a wild arc. I duck instinctively, catching his wrist before he can connect, buthe’s thrashing now, fighting against me with desperate strength.
“Get off me!” he screams, his voice raw and broken. “Get the fuck off me!”
I grab his other wrist, pinning both his hands above his head to stop him from hurting himself, or me. He bucks beneath me, trying to throw me off, his eyes wide and wild in the darkness.
“Liam!” I say his name sharply, putting every ounce of authority I possess into the single word. “Wake up. Now.”
His eyes snap into focus, pupils dilated with terror as he stares up at me. For a moment, he doesn’t recognize me. I can see it in his face, the way he’s cataloging threats, trying to figure out who’s pinning him down and what they want to do to him.
Then awareness crashes back, and he goes completely still.
“Nicky?” His voice is small, confused, like a child waking from a nightmare.
“Yeah, it’s me.” I release his wrists slowly, watching for any sign that he might start fighting again. “You were having a bad dream.”
Slowly, carefully, I release him. But I don’t go far. I stay hovering over him as if somehow it helps.
He lies there panting, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cool night air. His hands flutter down to his face, covering his eyes as if he can hide from whatever he just relived.
“I can’t stand it, Nicky,” he whispers, and the break in his voice nearly destroys me. “I can’t do this anymore. The nightmares, the shame, the way my own mind tortures me every time I close my eyes. I can’t...”
He trails off, but I can hear what he’s not saying. I can’t keep living like this. I can’t keep fighting. I can’t keep pretending that love and therapy and all the good intentions in the world are going to fix what’s broken inside me.
“Claim me,” he says suddenly, his hands dropping from his face to meet my eyes in the darkness. “Make it stop. Please, Nicky. I need... I need to belong to someone who won’t hurt me. I need to feel safe.”
His breath shudders. “If I’m yours, no one else will even dare to try and hurt me.”
The desperation in his voice breaks something inside me. All my careful reasoning, all my determination to do this the right way, the healthy way, crumbles under the weight of his pain.
Because he’s right, isn’t he? The conventional approaches aren’t working. Therapy and medication and all the professional wisdom in the world haven’t stopped the nightmares, the shame, or the guilt or the way he looks at bridges like they’re offering salvation.
Maybe what he needs isn’t what the textbooks say he should need. Maybe what he needs is exactly what he’s asking for. To feel owned, protected, claimed by someone who loves him enough to fight the entire world to keep him safe.
I lean down and kiss him.
It’s not gentle or careful or any of the things I planned our first kiss would be. It’s desperate and fierce and full of five years of wanting, and fear and the terrible relief of finally, finally being allowed to love him the way I’ve always wanted to.
His lips are soft beneath mine, warm and slightly chapped from the winter air. He tastes like toothpaste and something uniquely him, something I want to memorize and keep forever. For a moment, he’s completely still, shocked into immobility.
Then he kisses me back.
It’s like a dam bursting. All the careful distance we’ve maintained, all the walls we’ve built to protect each other, come crashing down in an instant. His hands fist in my tee shirt, pulling me closer, and I can feel the way his whole body melts beneath me, tension draining away like water.
This is what he needed. Not therapy or medication or careful professional boundaries. He needed to be claimed, owned, possessed by someone who loves him enough to take responsibility for keeping the demons at bay.
When I finally pull away, we’re both breathing hard. I can see my own shock reflected in his wide blue eyes, the way he’s staring at me like he can’t quite believe what just happened.
“Nicky,” he whispers, and my name sounds different in his mouth now. Softer. More intimate. Like something precious he’s been saving.
