Starting With You

35. I'm just a little damaged, I think.

Jensen

I LEAD HER OVER TO THE COUCH and she tucks her legs beneath her when she sits next to me. I grab her hand, placing it in my lap, and draw circles on her palm while I gather my thoughts. When I look up at her, I see that she has pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. She's nervous. I blow out a breath, not wanting to drag this out any longer.

"You remember Caroline?"

The name startles her, and she tries to pull her hand free from me, but I don't allow her to take it. Instead, I enclose it in both of my hands on my lap.

She looks away from me, her jaw clenching. "Yeah, J. I remember your high school girlfriend."

Caroline was my first serious girlfriend. We started dating in the beginning of our junior year and continued until everything imploded at the end of our senior year. She was my first for many things, including sex. In fact, the whole thing revolved around our physical relationship, my raging teenage hormones taking charge.

At the time, I had thought it was love. Now having felt what true love is, I realize it was infatuation. Lust. The excitement of experimenting with new sexual experiences. Although it wasn't love, it still had the power to destroy me; and that it did.

"Teddy," I say softly, trying to draw her attention back to me. "Please look at me."

Her eyes are wary when she turns to me, and she blinks rapidly. I cup her face, running a thumb across her cheek. "I don't really want to hear about your past relationships, Jensen, especially her. I realize we both have a past, but she is the only girlfriend I had any direct contact with, and you know she wasn't very nice to me."

That was an understatement. Caroline hated my friendship with Teddy. It was a constant argument between us. Somewhere in the middle of our junior year I stopped trying to get them to befriend each other and accepted the fact that they'd have to be two separate parts of my life. Unfortunately, that put a huge strain on my friendship with Teddy as I often made choices with the wrong head. I wasn't completely oblivious to the way Caroline treated Teddy behind my back either, but I tried to diffuse it the best I could and then just ignored the rest.

"I know, baby. I'm sorry she was such a bitch to you and I'm even more sorry that I didn't do more to stop it."

I blow out another breath, squeezing my eyes shut momentarily. When I open them, I feel the resolve to get the conversation back on track. "But that's not what I wanted to talk about. Something happened our senior year. Something big. And it kind of messed me up for a bit. And I need to tell you. I need you to know because it has the potential to impact us, our relationship, and I don't want it hanging between us. I want to be completely honest with you and let you know so you can understand where some of my decisions about us come from."

She scrunches her face in confusion, but she doesn't say anything. I squeeze her hand before continuing with my confession. "At the end of our senior year," I begin and then pause, nerves fluttering around my stomach, "Caroline got pregnant."

Teddy's mouth opens in a soft gasp, her eyes wide as she looks at me. Still, she doesn't speak, so I continue. "She didn't want to keep it, but I did. I couldn't wrap my head around any other option than keeping it. We got into a big fight. Well, lots of big fights actually. But the biggest one was when I said we should tell our parents so they could help us with this huge decision. She wouldn't even consider it, acted like I was such an insensitive, selfish, stupid asshole for even suggesting it."

I pause, running my hand down my face. Now that I started talking, it felt good to get it out, but her trembling hand in my lap forces me to slow down. I don't want to overwhelm her. I glance at her, and it looks like she is holding her breath as if bracing herself for whatever I'm about to lay at her feet.