Chapter Thirty-Five

Giles

THIS THING BETWEEN JULIA AND me is fragile. If we move the wrong way it might break right before our eyes, shatter into a million pieces, and be lost before we could figure out what it ever really was. 

But moving too slow? That seems just as reckless, because every night we've gotten physically closer, and every night winds me up tighter and tighter.

I've tried to keep my cravings for her more or less innocent. I've found a surprising satisfaction in just the thought of her throughout the day, flickers of her laughter, ingrained in my mind. Of her eyes and the way that they smile before her lips even twitch. Of the way she says my name, in warning, when she doesn't like something I've said. 

I've tried to convince myself that the boundaries between us are too clear for either of us to accidentally cross. That what we've created between us is simple.

But that's a lie.

That night last week when we woke up in her parents' house, bodies twisted together, marked a shift in our nighttime situation. Now there's no other way. I need to feel her body close to mine at night and she seems to want to feel me just as bad. It's no longer a question. She lets me hold her even when the heat our bodies generate makes it hard to think. I try really, really hard to enjoy every little bit she gives me without asking or pushing for more. Even though it kills me and every part of me screams to throw caution to the wind and plunge forward.

We've crossed a line and are pretending we haven't. We pretend the line has always been on the other side of this, of what we do now. The line keeps shifting, crawling, moving, while we look the other way.

We keep tracing over that line in our conversations and reminding ourselves in subtle ways that we are content with a friendship. And, in many ways, I am. For the first time in my life, I've got something I don't have to be afraid to lose. Because our friendship isn't something that can be lost easily, the way a relationship can. There's no denying she's good for me. There's no denying she's been the antidote to the poison that spread through my heart over the past two years. She came into my life and made everything ripple around her.

All of these things are true. But none of it changes the fact that I haven't been with another girl in nearly two months. And having Julia's gorgeous body pressed to mine at night is dangerous. My dreams have already shifted to visions of her hands slipping under the waistband of my underwear. Of her soft whisper in my ear begging me to take her, promising me everything will be the same in the morning.

If I thought that us having sex wouldn't change anything, God knows I'd give it all I've got. I can be convincing when I want to be, I can be more than persuasive. But I can't be sure things won't change. I can't be sure giving in to sex won't reveal everything else between us to be an illusion of lust. 

I need it to not be an illusion. I need it to be something I can hold on to.

More than once, I've caught something in her eye that hints she wants more, too. But she's made it clear, over and over, that we shouldn't entertain a different possibility between us. I think she's lying to herself as badly as I'm trying to lie to myself. 

We're both entitled to walk the contradiction between the things we say we want and the things we do together. It's senseless. But it's safe. And that's the one thing we have in common, the one thing bringing us together. We both just want to feel safe. 

I've been keeping one thing from her, though. I can't verbalize to her just how much I'm dreading seeing my mother again. It's a shameful kind of dread. The type that paints me as a coward. 

Julia knows, somehow. I can tell by the way she tries to softly pry me open to talk. But I resist. I've already opened up to her more than I ever thought I would. More than I meant to. 

I used to have walls up. She blew them to pieces. 

But telling her about what my mother did opens up a new can of worms. It reveals a pattern. A pattern of behavior those closest to me seem to share.

 The tendency to leave me or, at the very least, attempt to.

"Get closer," I say to Julia, as she gets in my bed.

She does, wiggling over a bit more until our faces are inches apart. I wrap my arm around her waist and yank her body even closer. She gasps then lets out a low laugh as I settle comfortably against her, wrapping my arm tighter around her waist. 

"Better," I whisper, her lips so close to mine, I feel my own breath curling back to me. "Now I can sleep." 

I shut my eyes and start becoming more conscious of my breathing. Having her this close? God, it's torture. It's indulging in something I know I'm not supposed to have. 

Minutes pass, I'm not sure how many.

Then I hear her say, "I can't sleep."

"Why not?"

"I can't stop my thoughts."

My eyes open in time to see her frown. "And what are you thinking about?"

"What are we doing, Giles?" She pulls her head back to look at me properly. "Really...what are we doing?"

I don't answer right away because I can see in her eyes how badly she wants me to simplify this for her. But there's no simplifying us. Not ever. 

"I don't know," I tell her. "I really don't. I just know I don't want it to stop."

She nods, and then brings her face closer still. Her lips remain just a breath away from grazing mine. 

"Why does this feel so good?" She asks the question so quietly, I'm not sure if she meant to say it out loud. 

"Because it's right. Because we're meant to."

"Aww." She tries to pinch my cheek, but I grab her hand before she can lower it, forcing it to flatten onto my face. Her palm is soft and warm and brings me comfort.

"Don't ever leave me, little leopard." 

I'm kidding, but I'm also not. Those words leave a strange vibration in my throat, and in my chest, too. I realize how serious I am, how badly I need her reassurance.

She yawns, a smile already in her eyes. "Don't worry, I won't. I promise."