Broken Juliet(57)

He pushes me back, so I can see his face. “Cassie, I want to be with you. Always. If that involves us being naked and making love in a hundred different ways, every day for the rest of our lives, that’s fantastic. If it involves us sitting and talking, wearing barbed wire and cast-iron body suits, that’s fantastic, too. I just want you. Now. A week from now. A year. A decade. Whenever you’re ready. What I want is never going to change. It’s you. Just you. Naked or clothed, doesn’t matter to me.”

I take in a ragged breath. What he’s saying …

He strokes my arms. Keeps me grounded in this moment.

“That’s why I haven’t had sex for three years,” he says as he runs his hands up my shoulders and caresses the back of my neck. “There were plenty of girls who reminded me of you. Similar hair, or eyes, or smile. If I’d squinted, I could have easily pretended they were you. But I didn’t want a lookalike. I haven’t been able to have sex without emotion since you, and considering you own all of my emotions, who the f*ck was I going to have sex with? From the moment I met you, it was only ever going to be you.”

I lean my forehead against his. “But—”

“No buts. If our relationship was only based only on sex, do you think we’d have gone through all the shit we have? Sex is easy. It’s an itch that needs to be scratched, and as much as I love having sex with you, what I want from you isn’t easy. It’s messy and complicated, and it’s filled with so much f*cking passion, I don’t have a clue how to cope with it all. But I find a way, because I love you. And love is hard, but it’s worth it. You’re worth it. And I hope one day you’ll realize I’m worth it, too.”

I’m too choked up to speak.

I know he’s worth it. I’ve always known that. I knew it before he did, I just need to stop doubting we can make this work.

“Ethan? Your therapist … would she maybe take me on?”

He frowns. “I don’t know. Is that something you want to try?”

I nod. “I need to change. But I can’t do it by myself. I need help. I don’t want to be … like this … anymore.”

He pulls me into a hug, and his breath is ragged against my throat as I stroke his hair. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“We’re going to get through this. Have no doubt.”

I squeeze him tighter. “That’s the plan.”





NINETEEN


EMOTIONAL EVOLUTION


Four Years Earlier

Aberdeen, Washington


The thing about developing an addiction is that it happens so quietly, you don’t know how much trouble you’re in until it’s too late. It tiptoes through the rooms of your mind and body, gently inserting hooks and strings into every cell, until you don’t know where you end and it begins. And untangling that web is nearly impossible.

By the end of our second year at The Grove, my sexual encounters with Ethan have increased in frequency, but I tell myself I have it under control. Whenever we stray into areas that feel too intimate, I go cold turkey for a couple of days to remind myself he’s a luxury, not a necessity.

It’s not until I go home for the summer that it occurs to me I may be in trouble.

For the first few days, I’m fine. I sleep in. Spend time with my parents. Listen to music and pray for sunshine.

By the end of the first week, I’m antsy. Restless and horny. I think about him way too much. His face. His smell. What I wouldn’t give for just one hit of his smell.

Halfway through the second week, I take a job at the local diner, partly as a distraction to stop me thinking about him, and partly to get me out of the house so I won’t have to listen to my parents argue.

By the end of the third week, I’m in full-blown withdrawal. Irritable. Intolerant. Needing a fix of someone who’s on the other side of the country and pissed at everything and everyone that’s not him.

I guess he misses me, too, because on my way home from work at the beginning of the fourth week, I receive a text.

<Hey. Elissa just dragged me along to see Wicked on Broadway. Ashamed to say I enjoyed it. Be right back, handing in my man card. Hope your summer is less lame.> And just like that, I’m high. Embarrassingly so. I do a little dance and skip up the stairs to the house.

Mom and Dad stop bickering long enough to welcome me home, and I head straight up to my room.

<Elissa dragged you, huh? Don’t lie. Always suspected you’re a closet music theater fan.> A minute later, I receive a reply.

<Yes, you’ve discovered my dark secret. When I’m alone I put on the Funny Girl soundtrack & do my best Babs impersonation. Forever ashamed.> I laugh before catching myself. Dammit. Not good.

I miss having sex with him, that’s all. Not the way he brushes my hand when he passes in the hallway. Not the affectionate glances he gives me when he knows no one else is watching. Not the way he regularly drags me into stairwells, or bathrooms, or shadowy corners of the costume storeroom just so he can kiss me.

It’s just the sex I miss.

I close my eyes and try to calm my racing pulse as I resist the urge to text him again.

Admitting you have a problem is the first step.

I admit nothing.

I don’t miss him.

I don’t.