Secret Lucidity(34)

I reach my hand up and touch his face, and when I do, he pulls me in and presses his lips onto mine. The blissfully painful butterflies return, awakening all my nerve endings with their fluttering wings. They slice me from the inside, marking every single soft spot as their own, determined to never let me forget this moment by branding me in tender scars.

His hand drops down my back and tugs me against him so tightly that our bodies are flush together, and I swear I can feel his heart against mine.

Lightning strikes, thunder rumbles, and rain falls violently against the window that reflects sinful impulses we can’t deny any longer.

Our legs tangle, and he shifts his body above mine, trapping me safely beneath him as our lips move together. He’s slow and purposeful, painfully so. Another tear slips from my brokenness and drifts down my temple and into my hair. I hold on to him to hold on to myself, but I slip on the heat of his affection, and no matter how hard I fight it off, gravity takes over.

I whimper against his lips, but it doesn’t stop him. He only gathers me in his arms more, squeezing me against him. His kisses soften and deepen, opening my lips with his, tasting the unforgiving flavor of heartache. He licks it away, salving my tongue with his, and I let him as I slide my hands under his shirt, pressing the tips of my fingers into his back.

His kisses drift from my mouth to the salty dew on my cheeks, and I wish he could do more than just kiss them away. I wish he could vanquish them entirely, freeing me of my relentless agony. But we don’t live in a place where wishes come true. I’ve learned that the hard way. So, I take what he’s willing to give, hoping it’ll be enough to mend, but no longer wishing for complete healing where complete healing doesn’t exist.

Some wounds are everlasting.

“Don’t cry,” he breathes against my neck.

“I don’t know how to stop.”

He draws back and looks down at me, but he’s nothing more than a beautiful shadow, illuminated by the flashes of lightning outside. I shudder beneath his touch when his hand slips under the hem of my shirt and trails up my bare flesh and between my breasts.

Covering my severed heart with his hand, he presses down on skin and bone, saying, “Everything you’re thinking is a lie. You need to start listening to this.” I beat into his palm a little harder, a little louder. “This pain won’t last forever. And I’ll tell you that you’re not alone again and again until you believe it, because I’m here with you.”

“You’ll push me away again.”

“I didn’t want to.”

“But you did.”

“You scare me. This,” he says, pressing against my heart again, “scares me. If anyone ever found out—”

“They won’t.”

“They could,” he insists, and I know he’s right. “But no matter how wrong people might perceive this—us—to be, and no matter the risk of them finding out—I want it. I can’t stop thinking about you. Since the day I first saw you . . .” His head drops to mine, and with his eyes closed, he adds, “Tell me you feel it too.”

Moving my hands to his face, I pull his lips to mine and kiss him, and he free falls into me, kissing me back. His hand drags from my heart to my breast, cupping me gently, and for the first time in a long time, I’m able to lose myself in someone else.

“I feel it too.”

With my words, he takes me in his arms and we sink deeper beneath the sheets as we step out of the bounds of the law and finally admit we are too weak to fight this any longer. As the storm crashes from all around, we continue to kiss and hold each other until sleep takes us under.





“HELLO?”

“Hey, I just left the house and saw your car on the side of the road,” Kroy says. “Is everything okay?”

Doing what I can to sound as normal as possible, and nothing like a girl who’s in bed next to her teacher, I tell him, “Yeah. I just ran out of gas.”

“You at home?”

“Uh-huh. I’m just waking up.”

“You need me to help you out?”

“No, I’m fine. I have a gas can in the garage. I just haven’t dealt with it because of the storm,” I say.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. Thanks anyway.”

“Who was that?” Coach Andrews questions after I set my cell phone down on the nightstand next to his bed.

Rolling over, I face what felt like a dream last night. But I know it really happened by the way he’s looking at me. There isn’t a single strain of resistance in his gaze.

“Kroy.”

“The guy you were hugging yesterday?”

“Yeah.”

He tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear. “Is he your boyfriend?”

“Was. After the accident, things just . . . changed.”

“And now?”

Lying face to face, tucked under sheets that smell of him, I grow self-conscious and admit, “And now . . . I barely understand anything anymore.”

For as long as I was with Kroy, we never spent the night with each other. Last night was the first time I’ve ever slept next to a guy, and the unease of not knowing what to say or what to do colors me in a timidity that I’m unable to hide from him.

“Don’t do that.”