“But you didn’t. Okay, you had a fight, but that’s not the only reason Liv chose to do what she did. It’s a shit situation and hurt a lot of people, but wasn’t your fault.”
“It fucking hurts.” He grips my hand. “Everywhere hurts, and then I’m with you and the ache goes away. But that terrifies me because even though I’m happier when you’re here, there’s also need, jealousy and fear filling the space the hurt once did. How are they any better?”
“They’re not.”
“So that’s why I want to be numb. Feeling nothing is better than feeling that shit.”
“You’re not thinking about…”
Jem drops my hand and shoves his hands into his pockets. “No! I’m done with drugs. I need to learn to control the thoughts myself. I can’t give in to my emotions.”
This is the core of who he is and who he needs to fight. This man was emotionally dead and how long for? His life triggered this and he shut down to avoid the hurt, but now he can’t let himself feel the good too. My chest tightens because I know I’m the same and his words hit that home.
“You can’t stop yourself feeling, Jem. Even if you shut the world out, there’s another in your head and that place is harsher than the world you avoid.”
He steps forward, back into my space, our space, the one between us we refuse to cross. “I don’t want to replace one hurt with another, Ruby. I don’t want to go down the same route. You overwhelm me because I’m a different person around you. You see the real me and understand, never judge. I’m happy with you. But if I let you in and you leave, it would fucking kill me…”
My heart pushes against my chest, as if wanting Jem to take hold the way I know he already has. His words reach my ears, but I can’t take them in. Nobody ever told me I mean something; that I make them happy. How can this mess of a girl in front of him?
Jem winds a hand into my hair and rests his forehead on mine. I flinch at his skin touching the graze on my forehead. “I want you. I want you so much. You’re me. I thought you were the fucked up, broken me, but you’re not. You’re the talented, strong, and determined person I once was. So much about us is the same – not just the bad.” He inhales a shaky breath. “You’re not Liv. You just kicked that truth into my dumb head.”
Hesitantly, Jem kisses the uninjured edge of my mouth, then presses his lips against my cheek, holding the back of my head gently as his mouth remains there, as close as he can get without causing pain.
I want to cry because I want Jem to hold and kiss me, and I ignore the urge to push him away in case he closes me out again. Jem wraps his arms around me, carefully as if I might snap if he hugs too tight, and strokes my hair. Unable to hold back anymore, I rest against Jem’s lean body, my face against his neck, my senses closed off from anything but the safety in his arms that he pulled me to last night.
“Stay with me,” he says into my hair. “I know you don’t want protecting, but until this shit is sorted with Dan, stay safe.”
I place a hand on Jem’s chest and his heart thumps against my palm. With Jem, we can be in a safe place together; we don’t have to be alone in the world if we share the good in ourselves.
Together, now, we’re wrapped on the edge of this place we belong, the shattered pieces of our lives surrounding us. With the secrets we shared came the understanding that not everything is broken forever.
“I don’t want to save you, Ruby,” he whispers against my hair. “I want to mean something to you, because for the first time in forever, someone means something to me.”
I listen to the steady beat of his heart, as I’m encompassed by the confusing, frustrating Jem who just laid himself open to me. For the first time too, I believe Ruby means something to someone else, and for the right reasons.