Come to Me Quietly

He sighed as I worked. “Aly, listen… ” His voice was quiet and took on an undertone of regret. The short flare of softness he’d watched me with last night again transformed his eyes. “I’m really sorry about the way I acted this morning.”

I knew his apology was genuine, and maybe I should have let him get away with it. But I didn’t want to. What he’d done hurt me. I twisted my jaw as I looked up at him, blindly dabbing at his other hand as I called him out on it. “Are you always an asshole?”

This time his quiet laughter was hard. “What did you expect me to be, Aly?”

“Different,” I said, fully pinning him with my eyes.

“But I’m not.” His voice was gentle, and I was sure I didn’t believe him. “I wasn’t lying to you this morning. You don’t need my shit and I can’t handle yours.”

I struggled to make sense of how he’d changed the words and the hint of desperation he’d injected in them.

“We were friends once,” I said, picking up his other hand to begin cleaning it. “At least I thought we were.”

His lids dropped closed for the longest moment. When he opened them, he reached out to gently trace his fingertips along the whitened scar barely visible along the outside of my forearm from when I’d fallen out of the tree. His fingers were rough. Perfect.

My lips parted as goose bumps rose on my skin. I shivered, and he pulled away. He pressed his lips together, his head cocked to the side as he sat back. “Yeah, I guess we were.”

“Are you not allowed to have one now?”

He laughed softly, an incredulous sound as he shook his head. It appeared as if he was shaking it at himself. “Aly, you’re killing me.”

I frowned. “I don’t get you, Jared. Did you think you could stay here and I’d just ignore you? I care about you.”

“Don’t say that,” he whispered, something like grief flashing in his eyes.

“But I do. I always have.”

He attempted to pull away, but I held tight. “Friends,” I emphasized. At the very least, he owed me that.

With his free hand, he scratched at the side of his head, and a teasing smile slowly worked its way onto his mouth. “Fine, Aly, we can be friends. Do you have a note you need me to X the box on, too?” He gave me an exaggerated eye roll.

I thought maybe he deserved a punch in the arm, exactly like I’d given him when he made fun of me for the letter he found that I was going to give to Zachary Braggs in the fourth grade. I laughed a little. “You’re such a jerk.”

Everything about him softened when he tugged at a lock of my hair. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Pretty sure you’re going to regret being a friend of mine.”

“You’re completely full of shit, you know. You don’t scare me for a second.” It was a lie, of course. Pretty much all my fears were wrapped up in him.

His face darkened. “I’m not trying to scare you, Aly.”

“Then don’t.”

NINE

Jared

What the hell was I doing?

Everything about this situation was wrong. Aly kneeling in front of me. Touching me. She was close, too close. I could taste her breath, and I kept catching hints of that fucking delicious coconut body wash I’d used last night. Somehow it smelled a thousand times better on her.

These urges constantly hit me, and I couldn’t help imagining what it’d be like to bury my nose in the haven behind her ear, to press my mouth to her jaw, to tangle my hands in her hair. Against my better judgment, which could so easily be called into question, anyway, I gave in. Took a little.

I was always so good at taking.

The strand of hair I tugged between my fingers was soft, like silk against my callused skin. The action should’ve been innocent enough. I remembered doing it often when we were children, just a small act of affection to let her know it was okay she was there. There was never anything more to it than that.

But I knew better now, knew it would stir the need I’d felt in the pit of my stomach since I found her backed against that wall last night, since she’d driven me half-mad in her kitchen this morning, since I’d stumbled into her apartment like the piece of trash I was tonight. Somehow she still found me worthy, kneeling in front of me as if I deserved even a scrap of the attention she gave me now.

With her head down, she attended to the wounds on my other hand. I allowed my gaze to fall, to trace the face I wanted to trace with my hands.

I didn’t think I’d ever felt intrigued by a girl before the way I was now, had never wanted to crawl inside someone’s mind to dig through her thoughts, to find out who she was. Why she was. Aly’s green eyes were both fierce and soft, her touch both intent and gentle. She was kind, yet she didn’t hesitate to call me out on my shit. She made me itch and squirm, made me want to run and want to stay.

She began taping up my second hand, forging this little truce between us, steadily sucking me deeper into a place I knew I shouldn’t go.

But I couldn’t stop it.

There was something about being alone with her in the seclusion of this apartment that I liked, like maybe we were sharing some kind of secret that no one else could touch.