Jackson
“Are you okay?” I asked when Grace showed up at my place. She hadn’t said much of anything, but I could see in her eyes that she wanted to use sex to forget that night.
“No,” she told me as she began to unbutton her shirt. Her eyes swam with emotion as I placed my hand over hers, bringing her movement to a stop.
“What is it?”
“Nothing, really. Can we just…” Her words trailed off as she tried her best to blink her tears away, but Grace wasn’t one to hide her emotions easily. She felt everything in the complete opposite way of me. Her emotions lived on the surface while mine swirled in the depths beneath.
She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. Her thoughts must’ve been flying through her mind quickly because as she parted her lips, no words came out.
I placed my hands on her lower back and pulled her into a hug. “We don’t have to talk,” I told her. “But we don’t have to have sex tonight. I can just hold you.”
She shook her head back and forth as her body trembled against mine. “That goes against our arrangement.”
“I think we’re miles past our arrangement, princess.”
With a sharp inhale, she spoke. “Everything’s a mess. My father thinks I’m making a huge mistake being close to you. He didn’t say those exact words, but I know he’s disappointed in the way I’m dealing with everything, and my mother…” she muttered, her voice cracking. “She’s so hard on me.”
“Don’t take it personally. She’s hard on everyone because the world made her that way.”
“Same as you?” she asked.
“Same as me,” I replied. Even though I couldn’t stand Loretta Harris, I saw how we shared some of the same traits.
She sniffled and laid her head against my chest. “Every day, it’s hard to breathe. I do fine when I’m with you, but when I leave your side, it’s hard again. I feel like I’m using you as a temporary Band-Aid for my pain.”
“You can use me all you want,” I told her. “In any way you wish.”
I felt my heart skip a beat.
Lately, my heart had been skipping a lot of beats around her, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I simply allowed it to happen, not wanting to read too much into it all.
“I’m broken,” she warned me.
“Yeah, I know.” I took her hand and kissed her palm. “I am too.”
She placed her hands against my chest and felt my heart beat against her fingertips. “Fix me for a while?”
“I’ll fix you all night long, and then I’ll continue tomorrow.”
