“I don’t want you to have to keep coming in and saving the day, Yates,” I grit out, sitting up as he crouched down in front of the bed, bringing us closer. “I… it just makes me feel weak.”
“You are not weak.” He rejected my statement with such conviction I nearly believed him. “Just because you aren’t beating the shit out of someone doesn’t make you weak, Dahlia. Everyone has their own brand of strength. You are not weak.”
“Compared to you guys—”
“More so,” he continued as if I hadn’t even spoken, his hands intertwining with mine, “stop trying to take my damn job away from me. I protect you, Dahlia. I love doing it, so cut the shit and stop trying to force me to stop.”
I arched my brow and smiled. “Yeah, I’m a job now?”
He let out a low hum. “Best one I’ve ever had.”
“Stop saying cute stuff like that.”
Yates stood up and grabbed my waist, sliding me forward before crawling over me and caging me between his large, muscular arms. I breathed in his familiar scent, my fingers tightening on his shirt, wanting to run my hands underneath it and up his impressive abs. I swallowed as he brushed his nose with mine, making me melt at the sweet gesture.
This man was overbearing sometimes, and then there were moments like this, moments where I had absolutely no idea what to do with him.
Well, except love him.
“I don’t like it when you’re mad at me,” he admitted softly.
I offered him a look. “I’m mad at you all the time.”
“Actually mad.” He flashed a knowing smile.
My hand slid up to his face. “Yates, I’m not mad, I’m just frustrated. Embarrassed about how I handled it and mostly wanting to forget about it. Forget about her. Forget about the bullying. I just want it done. I’m so tired of it constantly affecting my life, and now that you guys know, all I want to do is move on.”
Was that honest enough?
Yates seemed to consider his words. “But you can’t just forget all about it, Dahlia. It’s changed you as a person. Those parts aren’t going anywhere.”
Leave it to Yates to perfectly point out the problem with my desire.
My throat tightened as I looked down at his shirt collar, pretending to find it interesting. “And I’ll have to work through those in time—”
“Together. We are going to work through them together.”
My throat closed. “I… I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about it.”
Yates examined my expression and then inhaled. “I know, bunny. And I know you need time to warm up to the idea of doing that, but we have to talk about it. Sooner rather than later. I need to make sure you’re healthy, Dahlia. I can’t live in a world you aren’t part of, and I am terrified that the way you think about food and the level of control you have over what you eat is going to result in exactly that—losing you.
“I know it’s not as easy as telling you that you’re beautiful. I know that won’t fix it, even though I could say it every moment of the day and have it be true.Youneed to believe it.Youneed to be happy with yourself, and I am going to do whatever the hell I need to in order to help you with that.”
Tears were streaming down my face, hot and heavy, before I had a chance to stop them, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, wanting to curl far enough into him that nothing else would ever touch me. Only him. Only my boys.
“Okay,” I whispered. “I’ll try to talk about it. I just don’t know where to start, Yates.”
I would have tried something, but the entire thing was overwhelming. I wasn’t lying to him: I had no idea where to start, which is why the ramble that followed wasn’t really my fault.
“It’s not as easy as just deciding to eat. I could eat a week’s worth of food in one sitting or nothing at all, but either way, I would be constantly thinking about what I did or didn’t eat. It’s constant. A thought pattern in my head I can’t escape. The only time I feel good or feel in control, especially when we are going through stressful moments, is when I don’t eat. Or when I control it to the point that I know at least something in my life is predictable.”
I wrenched a hand through my hair and swallowed. “I know how messed up it sounds. I know I have a problem. I know all of that, and the worst part… is that at the center of it all, I don’t want to change, Yates. Not because I don’t think I have a problem, but because change means correcting my eating habits. I know they are wrong, but there is a part of my brain, the part that is more afraid of those damn pictures and the scale, that tells me they aren’t. That my habits are protecting me from being criticized more than I already am. That it could always be worse. That if I stop, I’ll truly be out of control and that attribute will make me unworthy of… of, well, any of this.
“The present problem is bad, but the alternatives terrify me. I know this might not make any sense, but it’s the best way I can explain that I don’t know how to do what you’re asking.”
I hiccuped, tears still streaming down my face as I tried to control my breathing, which had heightened. Exhaustion and the overwhelming emotion from earlier were slamming into me like a tidal wave.
Yates cupped my jaw and pressed a soft kiss to my lips, emotion I would have never expected breaking into his gray eyes. “We will just take it day by day, meal by meal, okay?”