My heart broke a little as I counted them. What had caused them? I couldn’t ask, not unless I was ready to share my own story with him.
I touched every one, as if with my fingers I could release the pain that had been present when they appeared.
He stayed still, stoic and silent as I explored.
Once I was satisfied that I’d discovered every mark that he’d tried to hide with the dark ink of his tattoos, I bent and press a kiss to his spine, in the hollow between his shoulder blades. When he rolled beneath me, I braced myself on my knees, sinking back down onto of him once he again faced upward.
He reached up, cupped my face with his hands, and drew me down to him. The kiss was slow and deep, drugging me with the raw emotion beneath it.
When he wrapped me in his arms, pulling me down so that I was cocooned against his chest, my heart stumbled in its rhythm. I pressed my cheek to his chest and listened to his own pulse, steady in his warm chest.
We both had far too much baggage for this relationship to be a good idea. But right now, as I lay cradled in his arms and felt his breath whispering though my hair, I didn’t know if I could possibly stay away.
***
Time passed, slowly and yet too fast, as Alex became a habit. Bit by bit I began to feel almost normal, like any other girl on campus.
Though neither of us spoke of our pasts, the connection between us was palpable.
I was so emotionally stunted, I prayed daily not to screw it up. Emotionally stunted... and sexually frustrated. I couldn’t hold back a wry smile as I jogged to the students union building for my afternoon yoga class.
Alex was an expert on making me writhe against him with just one kiss. I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anything, but every time I tried to move further than half naked petting, he would tell me to be patient.
I knew that the short, hard orgasm he’d pulled out of me the night of the foster benefit was only the start of what it would feel like with him, and I wanted the rest of it so badly I could taste it.
Groaning to myself, I hoped that the yoga class would help remove some of the sexual frustration from my mind.
“Sorry, sorry.” I was out of breath. Maddy was waiting outside the locked room, her long black coat done up right to her chin.
“No biggie.” She shrugged, nonchalantly, moving away from the door so that I could open it.
“Looks like it’s just us again today, huh?” Given her standoffish behavior during the last class, I wasn’t entirely thrilled with the prospect.
To my surprise, she smiled at me, and I saw none of the hostility that had been present before.
“I’m actually glad. I was hoping you could work with me on the crow pose again.” Pulling an elastic from her pocket, she raked her long dark hair back into a sloppy bun, then shrugged off her coat. “I’ve been working on it at home, but I think my posture’s off. I can hold it, but I can’t really let go, you know?”
I did indeed, I mused as I unrolled my mat on the floor and waited for Maddy to do the same. Lots of people practiced yoga, but in my experience few were ever able to move beyond struggling to hold the postures and actually experiencing the practice for what it was.
Centering. Balancing. Not so different from what Alex did for me.
We worked through the postures that we started each class with, warming up our muscles for the trickier stuff. After the locust and the frog, I was feeling the burn of my muscles start to push everything else out of my head. A glance up at Maddy showed me that she was nearing the mental place where she could focus on her breathing rather than her physical discomfort.
I slowly moved from my knees to my feet, careful not to disrupt her.
“Let’s try the crow now.” Flowing between the positions gracefully was one of the hardest things about yoga, and Maddy stumbled a bit as she transferred her weight. But I liked the way she clenched her jaw and worked through it, slowly shifting her weight to her hands.
“There.” I reached out to help her adjust the curve of her spine, then snatched my hands back, remembering the way she’d reacted last time.
Her eyes flickered to me, and she wobbled a bit.
“It’s okay.” Hesitantly I reached out and helped her position her back. The wobbling stopped, and I felt a sense of satisfaction as she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.
The lesson lasted for another twenty minutes, during which I mostly left Maddy alone. When I rose from the corpse position, feeling slightly more centered than I had at the beginning of the lesson, I found Maddy sitting on her mat, waiting for me.
“You seem... ah... a bit more relaxed than you did last time.”
A bit less bitchy
, the voice in my head added, though I would never have said it out loud.
The other girl’s face flushed.
“Last time I was here I was dating an asshole.” Her voice was quiet as she shuffled off of her mat and began to roll it up. “Brett Anderson. He said he knows you.”
I froze with my water bottle halfway to my mouth, something murky gathering in my gut.
“We went to high school together.” Brett Anderson had been star of the basketball team. He was golden haired and gorgeous, and with him I’d allowed myself to get lost in a crush while he thrust between my thighs.
Instead of being careful with the self destructive girl I was, Brett had told everyone who would listen about the dirty slut who had let him do whatever he’d wanted. One of the first boys I’d turned to when I’d begun my downhill spiral, he couldn’t be blamed for my actions, but neither could he be thanked.
All I’d needed was one morsel of kindness. Instead he’d used me and walked away with cruel intent. I hadn’t thought about him since I’d started college.
“Does he go to school here?” My mouth dry, I screwed the lid back on the bottle of water. I told myself it didn’t matter, which at its core was the truth.
I wasn’t that girl anymore. I was stronger.
It still hurt.
“He’s on the varsity basketball team.” I couldn’t help closing my eyes for a long moment. Of course he was. Cause sometimes karma blithely ignored the asshats of the world, and punished everyone else.
I bit down on my tongue hard enough to hurt as Maddy’s wide eyes, framed with dark spiky lashes, watched me warily.
I was
not
that girl anymore. Brett could spread all the stories that he wanted, but he could only hurt me if I let him.
“He always did like to talk.” Forcing my lips into a wry smile, I reached for the long woven bag that I kept my mat in.
Maddy barked out a laugh and did the same.
“You mean he lies.” Her thin eyebrows rose to the ceiling, and my forced smile became a real one. “When he found out you were my yoga teacher, he made sure to... ah... tell me stuff. Stuff I don’t think actually happened, but I got jealous. I’m sorry for that.”
My smile faded. I resisted the urge to shake my hair in front of my face.
“Some of what he said was probably true.” I might be different now, but I couldn’t pretend that my past was anything other than what it was. For a moment I panicked, wondering if any of the varsity teams ever hung out together—namely, Brett’s basketball team and Alex’s football one.
I didn’t care what anyone else thought of my past... but Alex wasn’t just anyone.
“Maybe.” Her mat back in her bag, Maddy shrugged back into her peacoat, then turned to face me. “But he didn’t have to tell it the way he did. He wanted to hurt us both, and there didn’t seem to be a point. Not cool. So I dumped his ass.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it a bit. Maddy had dumped her boyfriend because he’d been telling... well... the truth about me?
I was floored. My own mother couldn’t stand up for me, yet this girl I barely knew had.
Nothing my discomfiture, Maddy nodded curtly, then turned towards the door. I swallowed, tried to speak, and had a hard time getting the words out.
“Um. Maddy.” She turned, waited. “Maybe we could grab a beer or something sometime. If you want.” God, that sounded so lame. It’s not like I was asking her for a date.
It had been a long time since I’d tried to make a friend. Kaylee didn’t count, because we’d been forced into each other’s lives as roommates, and along with it she’d decided we were going to be best friends.
She was a force to be reckoned with.
I held my breath, not sure if I’d done something dumb or not. When Maddy smiled back at me, relief was a big wave, washing over my skin.
“Cool.” She grinned, then saluted me. “Great class. See you next week.” Then she was gone, and I was left grinning like a fool.
It was a baby step, I knew... but it felt like a giant step towards getting my life back.
***
“It really doesn’t bother you when other people drink around you?” The small pub that sat just off the edge of campus was small, dark and, at this time of night, incredibly loud.
I was snuggled tightly into a tiny booth where the table was scarred with initials in hearts. The upholstery on the seats was cracked, dried out with age.
Only a month earlier I would have been overwhelmed to the point of discomfort by the settings. Instead I was quite cozy, tucked beneath Alex’s arm as he toyed with the ends of my ponytail.
“It really doesn’t.” To demonstrate, he pushed the green tinted cocktail that I’d ordered closer to me, his fingers slipping in the droplets of water that beaded the glass.
As I picked it up for a sip, he added, “It especially helps when you order girly ass drinks like that.” He shuddered with exaggeration, and I smiled up at me, not even a bit annoyed.
“A vodka slime is not a girly drink.” I held the straw out to him to taste—he would have the occasional sip of alcohol, I’d noted, but wouldn’t ever consume an entire drink.
Consternation crossed his face.
“Chicken?” I smirked. He raised an eyebrow at me in that dark, oh so sexy way he had, and a shiver ran up my spine.
It was so blessedly normal, I thought as I watched his lips close around the bright red straw. I felt a wash of heat as he sucked, thinking of how his lips would feel on my skin.
“Gross. That’s so sweet.” I grinned as he grimaced. Yes, so normal, like we were a normal couple out for a drink.
I placed my hand on his thigh under the table, bracing myself as I took the cocktail back. His muscles tensed beneath my touch, but he didn’t any move towards me, apart from the arm that rested on my shoulders.
This, I thought, this was the only thing keeping this relationship from being completely normal. We’d made out what felt like a million times now, but he refused to go any further.
I admired him for his restraint, because I could feel how much he wanted to go all the way every time that I was under him, but at the same time it was frustrating and all consuming.
“Where’d you pick up a taste for vodka?” Yes, he wanted me—the way he whispered in my ear and nipped at the lobe reinforced how much.
What would let him take the next step? I truly didn’t know.
I stiffened at his question, saw him open his mouth, probably to change the subject. He never held back on questioning me about my past, but never pressed me to answer, either.
Truthfully, he was wearing me down. I was always counting down the minutes we had left together in my head, because once he knew, he would be gone.
I wouldn’t blame him.
“I used to party a lot, in high school.” Emboldened by the vodka slime, I looked down at my fingers, twisted tightly together and resting on the table. Maybe it was time for it to come out.
Part of it, anyway. Part of it was locked deep inside on me, and I intended to die with it still that way.
“You don’t really seem like the partying type.” Alex’s fingers continued to play through my hair, but I felt the minute tightening of his body that told me he understood what I was saying was important.
“I was different then. Really different.” Pulling back from his touch entirely, I turned to look into those insanely dark blue eyes of his. They were so open, so accepting that it hurt my heart.
I didn’t want to disappoint him, but being who I was, I had no choice.
Alex said nothing, probably not wanting to stop the flow of words from my mouth now that they’d started. I cringed, a giant fist squeezing my heart, as I realized that a lighthearted question about vodka had turned so serious, so fast.
“I’m not a virgin, Alex.” The corners of his lips turned up in a smile, the laugh lines disappearing as he realized how serious I was being.
“Neither am I, Serena.” He reached out and tried to take my hands in his, but I evaded the touch. “I thought you knew that.”
“I don’t think you’re quite understanding me.” I drew in a shuddering breath. “In high school, there was some stuff that... that I wanted to forget. So I drank, and I messed around. I was every boy in school’s dirty little secret.”
I waited for it, for the disgust to wash over his face, for him to push away from me, to shove out of the booth and leave.
Instead he leaned over and caught my hands in his before I could pull them away. Defensive, I glared, trying to tug myself free.
He wouldn’t let go.
“How old are you, Serena?” Alex sat back in the booth, his face deadly calm, though his grip was like iron.
I narrowed my eyes, not sure what he was getting at.
“I’m twenty. You know that.” At least, he should have. I’d told him often enough.
“That’s what I thought. And you’re a sophomore, right?” I furrowed my brow and stopped struggling.
“Uh-huh.” My voice was heavy on the sarcasm, but I didn’t care. “And you’re a senior, you cradle robber, you.”
“So high school was, what? Three years ago for you?” He rubbed his thumb over the tender spot between my thumb and forefinger, and even through my discomfort I felt the heat build.
“That doesn’t mean anything, Alex.” His fingers moved to my wrist, softly stroking the skin there, and I shivered, wishing he would stop.
It was so much easier to think when he wasn’t touching me.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” I repeated, when he remained silent. Exasperated, I sighed and gnawed on my lower lip. “It’s in the past, yes, but it still happened. I can’t make it go away.”