And love we make for the next two days, sneaking food and sleep in between, heaps of the former and far too little of the latter. James capitulated next to me a few hours ago, falling into a deep sleep. For some reason, I can’t sleep. Exhausted as I am, a strange energy, emanating from deep inside my chest, fills up every cell in my body. I wonder if it’s possible to be too happy. A twinge of regret fidgets itself inside me at the thought that we’ll leave tomorrow. In four hours. It’s four o’clock in the morning now, and I told James we need to leave here at eight o’clock at the latest so I can make it to Stanford in time for my lecture. Thanks to Jess’s stroke of genius-packing my books-I don’t have to make a stop at home on the way.
I prop myself on an elbow, watching him in the dim light coming from the lamp on his nightstand. He sleeps on his stomach, with his back exposed. I trail my fingers on his lips, aching to feel them on mine again. Even in his sleep, his lips look as if they’ll curl up in a smirk any moment now. I can’t help myself and steal a quick kiss.
> His eyes blink open.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to wake you up.”
“What time is it?” he mumbles.
“Four o’clock. Go back to sleep.”
“Not a chance,” he says, and his lips curl in a smirk. His arm curves around my waist, and he pulls me so close to him, I can feel his erection against my leg. Every nerve in my body becomes hyper-aware of the closeness between us. God, I will never have enough of him. I can only hope he’ll never have enough of me, either.
“You naughty boy. What were you dreaming about?”
“You,” he whispers against my lips.
“And what were you doing to me?”
“Exactly what I’ll do now. Turn around,” he commands, his eyes implacable. My folds drip with desire. I do as he says, preparing to lift myself on all fours, but he pushes me into the mattress, with my back up, climbing on top of me, the muscles of his torso pressing against my back. He slings an arm under me, cupping my breast. No air reaches my lungs as he twists my nipple gently.
His hot, irregular breaths make the hairs at the nape of my neck stand on end. His other hand touches me right where I need it to.
“Christ, you’re wet already.” His teeth pull gently at my earlobe. “Who’s the naughty one now?”
I open my mouth to answer, but instead of words, a moan comes out, as he starts circling my clit with his fingers, plunging inside so deep I’m certain I’ll fall apart under him. He pulls out, then thrusts again and again, filling me. I can’t move under him, arch my back, or escape in any way the pressure of his fingers circling my tender spot. And this makes it so much more intense. My whole body shakes under him as wave after wave of quivers ravage me, cold sweat forming on my skin. It kills me that I can barely touch him. My hands seek his skin desperately, scratching his thighs with a vengeance. Spasms tear me apart, starting from the spot where his blessed fingers work their magic on me. I search for the pillow, biting into it.
“Don’t. I want to hear you scream, Serena,” he gushes in my ear.
And so I scream, as the sound of his relief fills my ears, his body slamming into mine with a sizzling desperation.
Silence follows, as he falls on top of me, his ragged breaths chilling me. I don’t know how long we stay like this before he moves to the side, pulling me into an embrace. I kiss him softly, then snuggle against his chest. He interlaces his fingers with mine, touching my forehead with his lips.
“I want to spend forever with you,” he murmurs.
A wave of warmth spreads through me, melting my insides as it does, except my heart, which pounds so hard I’m positive it will burst through my chest. It doesn’t. But something else can’t wait to burst out of me. Words. I say them without fear and restraint this time, not like the first time I said them, at the hospital.
Squeezing his fingers lightly with mine, my core brimming with hope, I say, “I love you, James.”
For one blissful second, I think he will say it back to me.
And then the hope freezes inside my chest, turning into a ball of ice that explodes in a thousand shards.
He pulls his fingers away from mine, his entire body stiffening.
Just like in the hospital.
I catch my breath, not daring to move. Perhaps I’m imagining all this, though the coldness around my fingers, marking the spot from where his hand had been, is proof that I’m not. How many seconds have passed since I spoke? It can’t be that many. I can wait a little longer. But the longer I wait, the only thing that seems to happen is that he grows stiffer. I roll away from him, pushing myself on my knees and fitting the bed sheet around me.
The sight of him, pale and wide-eyed, lying frozen on his pillow, brings a violent urge to vomit.
“I just said I love you.” I choke. “Don’t you have anything to say to that?”
Part of me dreads that he’ll say the same thing he said back at the hospital. I can’t do this. You and me. But if he will, it’s best he does it now. Quick and cold. “James, say something, for the love of God,” I challenge, raising my voice.
My voice seemed to snap him out of whatever he was lost in. He pushes himself to a sitting position, leaning against the headboard. Every muscle in his body is contorted as he puts his shirt and boxers on.
He opens and closes his mouth a few times, then says, “I’m sorry. I-I can’t say those words back to you.”
“No shit. You look like you’d like nothing better than to bolt out the door this very second.”
“No, no, Serena. I’m not gonna bolt. I’m not going anywhere this time. I just… ” He runs his hand through his hair, biting his lip.
I swallow. “You just don’t love me, I get it.”
He launches forward across the bed to me, but I leap away before he can touch me.
“No, this has nothing to do with my feelings for you. I just can’t tell you the words. But this doesn’t mean I don’t feel like that, I swear.” His eyes are begging, and his lower lip trembles.
But all I can do is snort. “You tell me that you want to spend forever with me, but you can’t say you love me. You see how I might have trouble believing you?”
“Don’t take it like this, Serena. I… I only said these words to one person before.”
“So did I.” I fold my hands across my chest, securing the sheet tighter around me.
“No, it’s different… it’s not j-j-just…” He shakes his head vigorously as if hoping the gesture would make his incoherent stuttering disappear. “I can’t say… I can’t even think of those words without bringing back memories that I’ve fought very, very hard to forget.”
I take a step back, all my limbs like jelly. “So what will you do every time you come across something in our relationship that reminds you of Lara, James?” His head jerks back as if I’d just swung a whip before him. “How long will it be before you decide one of those things is just too much for you, and you’ll leave me? Again.”
“I will never leave you, Serena. This won’t happen.”
Every nerve, every fiber in my body wants to believe him. It would be so easy to believe him. If he wasn’t shaking the way he is. If his eyes weren’t brimming with doubt.
In his own words.
Tears start forming behind my eyelids. Sudden and burning. I grit my teeth, digging my nails in my palm. I will not cry in front of him.
“I just…” I bite my lip. My voice is so weak; it gives away how much I’m crumbling on the inside even without any tears. I take a deep breath, hoping it’ll help. To no avail. “You’re so unpredictable, James. One minute you are loving and warm, and then you turn into a fucking stranger. All because of something I say. I can’t live like this. Always in fear that something I say or do will set you off.”
I can’t live knowing you don’t love me. That perhaps you never will.
James seats himself on the edge of the bed with his shoulders slumped. He’s not looking at me anymore. “There are parts of me I haven’t shared with anyone, Serena. I’m-”
“Except Natalie, isn’t it?” I spat.
He snaps his head up. His eyes are slitted. “Why are you bringing up Natalie again?”
“You’re not a stranger to her.” My voice is suddenly strong. “You’ve shared some of those… parts… with her. More than you’re willing to share with me, anyway.”
Has he ever told you he loved you? the lark asked me. How well she had known that he hadn’t. How true her words always turn out to be. She told me once that James can make me feel like I’m the center of his world one day, then walk out on me the next.
And that’s exactly what has happened.
I don’t intend to stick around and wait for her second prediction to come true: that James will never love me.
“Don’t make this about Natalie, please.” He stands up, wobbling in my direction. I wobble backward, stumbling on the sheet in my hurry to get away from him. I pull the sheet tighter around me just as I hit the damned glass door. There’s nowhere to escape now. But I don’t have to. One glance reveals that James stopped dead in his steps.
I clear my throat. “I’m not making this about Natalie. This is not about her, and it’s not about Lara. It’s about you. You don’t want to let me in, James. I’ve laid
myself out to you like an open book. I’m not requesting you do the same, but… I can’t help you heal if you don’t let me in.”
“I know, Serena,” he says, putting both his hands to his mouth like in a prayer. “That’s why I want to change. I want you to help me change. I want to become the man you deserve to have at your side.”
“Then start now,” I say, ashamed of how pleading my voice sounds. “Start by loving me.”
“Don’t pressure me like this, Serena, please. Give me time. Give me a chance.”
“This is your chance.”
“This is an ultimatum.”
“Depends how you look at it,” I snap.
Deep down, I’m fully aware there is no other way to look at it. This is an ultimatum; I know that. But I also know what happened last time I gave James a chance when I left with him at that chocolate factory.
He shattered me.
Still, someone else, someone braver, would risk giving him the chance he asks for. Because if the risk pays off, magic will be my reward-the kind that only he can do. The kind of magic that pumps liquid fire in my veins and makes me sizzle with life.
But I am not someone else.
Jess’s words choose the worst time to haunt me again. You’ll end up in your safe little corner, where nothing risky can harm you. From where you’ll never allow yourself to live. Perhaps. But living an insipid life seems so much more bearable than the mere thought of him hurting me again, of him never growing to love me. I could never live with that fear.
“Please,” he whispers, watching my eyes. His image blurs in front of me-I won’t be able to withhold the tears back much longer. “I will never hurt you again, I promise.”
A sob escapes my lips, and I slide down the cold glass door a few inches. He promised too many times that he would not hurt me. Nothing good ever follows after those words. It’s a promise we both know he can’t keep.
He’s hurting me already.
“Just give me time.” He takes one step nearer, propping his arms on the glass behind me above my shoulders, trapping me. I push myself harder against the window, wrapping the sheet so tightly around me, it cuts into the skin above my breasts. Despite my blurry eyesight, I can see the barely contained tremor in his arms, and I can make out the hardened muscles on his neck, and the pulsating veins on his temples. “I will tell you those words.”
“No, you won’t. Not without fighting with yourself.” A knot blocks the air in my throat, and my next words come out broken and weak. Like me. “And you’re not ready to have that fight. Look at yourself.”
“I want to fight for you.”
I smile, reaching out to caress his cheek. “Love shouldn’t be a fight in the first place, James.”
He grabs my hand in his, kissing my palm. “I’m sorry I’m not more than this. But I want to become more for you. I need you to take that chance with me.”
When he told me, on our first night here, that he wanted to change, that he wanted to become more, I believed him. So much that I wanted to take a chance with him, even though taking chances terrifies me. I wanted to do it. For him and me. But if I don’t even have the certainty that he loves me… I have nothing. We have nothing. I can’t take chances on that.
He presses my palm to his cheek as if wanting to meld with me. I think he knows what I’m about to say.
“I can’t, James. I’m sorry.”
He closes his eyes, kisses my palm again, then lets my hand fall. “Of course, you can’t. I don’t blame you. I’m a risk taker, and even I wouldn’t bet on someone like me.” He takes a deep breath, straightening up. “You… you deserve someone who can give you the certainty you seek. It was selfish of me to ask you to do this. If I’m being honest, I expected you to tell me you wouldn’t stay with me before I set up things for us here. But I kept hoping. I should have given you more time to think. I’m sorry.”
I don’t know why I am not crushed. Why I am not crumbling to dust, even as the weight of his words looms around me, poisoning the air I breathe? And then I realize what protects me, like a layer of ice. A thin one. But I’m grateful for it.
Shock.
At how resigned he sounds and looks. He recites the words as if they were mere facts that led to the logical conclusion that two people as different as we are cannot find a way to be together. He kisses my forehead, his lips melting my feeble protection in one shattering second. I catch a whimper before it escapes my lips. When he pulls away, there is a flicker in his eyes. It tells me that he, like me, is about to break apart any moment now.
“I’ll leave you alone to change.”
The reception desk is empty, so I just call a cab by myself and then wait for it in front of the hotel, glancing over my shoulder every other second, my mind terrified that James will come out. But there are other parts of me-those that crave his touch at night and those that hurt and need his healing words. And those parts desperately wish he would do just that. Come out, take me in his arms, and whisper that he loves me. But he doesn’t, and his absence claws itself through all parts of me, torturing my skin and burning my insides. It’s like a poison, his absence. A devastating poison, with the power to burn me alive from the inside out, one cell at a time.