I held her, knowing how wrong it was, how fucking selfish I was being, but I couldn’t let go. It would be too cold if she weren’t pressed against me, too empty if she was somewhere I couldn’t reach her. So I kept my arms around her all night long, running my lips across her shoulder, harder each time I felt her body jerk as she pretended she wasn’t crying. Pretended I hadn’t made her cry.

When her breathing slowed and evened out, I knew she’d fallen asleep. I focused on her skin and her heat so I wouldn’t think about how wrong everything had gone and how fast it had happened and how many lives besides my own I was fucking up.

“I’m sorry.” I don’t know if I’d whispered it or just moved my lips. It didn’t matter—either way I’d made sure she couldn’t hear it. Coward.

---

When I woke up, she was using my chest as a pillow and my arm was around her, holding her like I was afraid she’d slip away while I was sleeping. Her eyes were open, and I knew she’d been up a while, just like I knew I’d fucked everything up for both of us.

Her eyes were wide and sad and ashamed. She didn’t cry but her voice cracked when she spoke. “I don’t think I can make it stop.”

I looked away, knowing and fearing what she meant. I didn’t want to let go of her when she sat up. I wanted to pull her down and tuck her back into my arm, so I wouldn’t have to see her expression. As if that could make things like they’d been before…before she became the only thing that made me happy and feel whole. Before I brought her into my fucked-up life.

“Carson, I’m—”

“Don’t say it.” I shook my head, avoiding her eyes. “Don’t think it. Don’t feel it. It’s not real, right? It’s just your mind playing with you.”

“I know you didn’t sign up for this, and I’m really sorry I couldn’t do it. I wanted to, and for a while I thought I was, but I was wrong.” She cleared her throat. “I’ll go if you want me to.”

Did I? No. Should I? Yes. If I let this go on any longer, I’d end up hurting her just like every other asshole had. I’d already let it go on too long, taken too much from her. But I owed her some kind of explanation, to let her know how incredible she was and that if there was any chance for us, I would take it. I just didn’t know how to tell her.

I started with a deep breath. Right. I needed to do this because it wasn’t fair for her not to know. “I like you a lot. A lot. More than—” Chicken-shit—I was just as afraid of telling her as I was of her not knowing. “A lot. But I can’t be with you that way. You can’t feel anything for me.” Because I couldn’t let myself feel anything for her.

“I didn’t want this,” she said. “I was afraid of it happening. I warned you it might but you said...” She ran her lip through her teeth, looking so miserable and confused. “Why were you so sure it wouldn’t? Why are you so sure it won’t work now?”

I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Except that I didn’t want this to end. To not see her anymore, not be with her? No, that couldn’t happen. Maybe we could figure out a way to make her feelings stop. Maybe if she understood what I might do to her…

“Okay.” I got out of bed, needing the distance before I told her. “It won’t work because if we were together, I would be the worst parts of every guy you’ve ever dated. I would cheat and lie and make you think it was your fault. I would want all your attention and give you none of mine.”

My eyes were stuck on the wall behind her because I was too weak to tell her and look at her at the same time. “And I wouldn’t hide it, which would mean that everybody would see what I was doing to you, and they’d feel sorry for you. They’d talk about you as much, probably more, than they’d talk about me. Because it’s easy to figure out someone is an asshole. There’s not a lot to it. It would take a lot more words and wondering to understand why you let me treat you like that, why you didn’t leave me, why you thought so little of yourself that you kept pretending everything was okay.”

I had to tell her all of it because there’s no coming back from the truth. She’d know, and it would make her stop caring about me. Maybe we could go back to the way we were and maybe we couldn’t, but anything was better than this, than being this afraid of myself and what I might do to her. At least she’d be safe.

“When I was little, I was more terrified of growing up than I was of my father. I prayed I’d be like Peter Pan—never grow up and become a man, because of what they had to do. Men had to teach the people they loved how to behave. They had to. It was extra confusing because one day something would be forgiven with a smack to the back of the head and another day I’d be punished for it. You know, punished with…um…” I swallowed. “With whatever he could find that wouldn’t break when he…um…”

My throat felt constricted, like my body knew I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about this and was trying to stop me. I had to finish it, though. “I never understood when or why. My father always knew, though, and so did the men that followed after he died.”

“And one day I would know. When I became a man, I would understand the requirements, and I would have to make sure the people I loved followed the rules and were good people. Or I would have to punish them. I would have to hurt them because I loved them.”

I glanced at her quickly and saw pity on her face. That’s not what I wanted. I wanted her to understand why I could never be with someone. Why I couldn’t trust myself to love her.

“You’re not getting it,” I said, running a hand through my hair and starting to move. “Shit, Lane, I want to think that I wouldn’t. That I couldn’t, but who knows what the fuck they’ll do in a situation they’ve never been in before?”

“What are you talking about?”

“What if I hit you?” I knew what would happen because I’d lived it so many times. “You’d forgive me and take me back because I’d convince you it was your fault.” I slumped down on the edge of the bed and let shit come out of my mouth that I’d never told anyone. Because I’d never trusted anyone before. And all of it was going to kill that trust, smash it into little pieces like it should be. “You’d hide the bruises and try to do better, but it wouldn’t work. Because it would have nothing to do with you or what you did. It would have to do with me and how fucked up I am. And no matter what you did or how hard you tried or who you were, I would keep doing it. Because I hate myself. Because picking on someone who loves me makes me feel better. Makes me feel like I’m not weak or stupid or powerless.”

I took a breath, not knowing when I’d last taken one. “I would fuck it up because I don’t know how not to.”

“That’s what your dad did?”

I nodded, not looking at her, not really seeing anything. But I was feeling it—everything I’d felt back then: angry, afraid, worthless. “Did you know I look just like him? And people have told me I think like him.”

“You’re not him.”

“When someone tells you they love you so much, they have to hurt you, everything gets mixed up in your head and you don’t know what’s right and what’s not. And when the person who’s supposed to protect you tells you it wasn’t that bad and sends you back in for more… That shit doesn’t go away. It’s part of you, changes the way you react, the way you are.”

“It doesn’t mean you’ll do what he did.”

“How do you know? I don’t even know. But I know it’s not worth the risk. I’m not worth the risk.” I’d gone through hours and hours of therapy, but nothing stuck. Nothing could convince me it wouldn’t happen. I got angry at people. I felt that pressure build up inside me. The bar fight was the worst, but it wasn’t my first. I didn’t even care about those people, and I couldn’t walk away. If I could hurt someone I didn’t care about, what would I do to someone I loved?

“What if I told you I think you are worth it?” she asked.

“I’d tell you you’re wrong.” I felt her hands slip under my arms and around my chest, the heat of her body on my back.

“What if I told you I know you care about me?”

I paused, not moving. Unable to move. “I’d tell you that you’re right.” It wasn’t love, but it was so much more than I should have ever let it be. “I don’t want to hurt you, Lane. But, if we don’t stop now, I will. I know I will. And you’ve already been hurt too much. I can’t do that to you.”

Fuck. I pulled out of her grasp, wiping my hands over my face and through my hair. “You need to leave now.”

“No.” There was no real expression on her face—no anger, disappointment, or fear. All the things that I was feeling.

“Go away, Lane,” I said tightly.

“No.”

I couldn’t touch her, couldn’t force her out because touching her was the risk. “Please.”

She shook her head and scooted back to lean against the headboard.

“Fuck, Lane. Go away. I’m trying to warn you what might happen.”

“It’s not going to.”

“Do you actually think you know me better than I know myself? Get out. Of my bed and my life.”

“No.” Her body seemed unaffected but a tear gave her away. Then another that she wiped away roughly.

Proof positive. I’d hurt her. And that was just the beginning. “What do you want? To fuck with me? To make me—” Then I realized it. Recognized it. “It’s deliberate. You do it on purpose.”

“Do what?”

“This.” I motioned back and forth from her to myself. “You’re so self-destructive you put yourself into situations where you know you’re gonna get hurt. Just like Renee did. Even after my dad died, she couldn’t help herself. Guy after guy, all of them beat the shit out of her. I used to think my friends who didn’t get beaten were the weird ones because every man I’d ever known hit my mom. And most of them hit me. But then I realized that she went into the relationships knowing what was going to happen. She chose to be with men who treated her like shit because that’s all she thought she was.”

“That’s not why I’m here,” she said, shaking her head, “and it’s not what’s going to happen.”

“Only because I won’t let it.” It all seemed so obvious now. People don’t change. She was just like my mom and Anna, and I almost fell for it. “If you had your way, I’d be just like the rest of your frogs. Keep me close until you think you’re in love, because you know that as soon as it happens, I’ll leave you. Because that’s all you think you deserve.”

She was openly crying now, her knees tucked up to her chest, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

“I’m just another one, aren’t I? I almost fell for it. I almost fell for you.” Fuck it. I did fall for her. “I can’t wait to see you, I smile like a shithead every time I see it’s you calling, I want you to stay over every single night because I sleep better when you’re next to me and the next day always seems brighter, better.”

I kept talking, not knowing which of us I was hurting more. But better it happen now than when it was too late. “Being with you makes me feel like I’m more of a man, because I know without a doubt that I would do whatever it took to protect you.” My voice caught. “So that’s what I’m finally doing. I’m telling you to go away.”

She lifted her head to say one word: “No.”