It should be simple. I need Brendon to know. So I tell him.
But my mouth is sticky.
My hands are numb.
Everything is heavy.
“Your grandma?” He traces a line down my arm, all the way to the tip of my index finger, then back up to my shoulder. It’s slow. Sweet. Affectionate.
He does it again, only this time he traces my middle finger.
Then my ring.
Then my pinkie.
We lie in silence for minutes. Until I can’t feel the bliss of his touch. Until I can’t feel anything but the weight of this secret crushing my chest.
It’s everywhere. In the air. In the moonlight. In the soft cotton sheets. In his fingertips.
On my lips.
“Kay.” His lips brush my ear. My neck. “Whatever it is, you don’t have to talk about it.”
I nod.
He kisses me again. It’s a sweet kiss. Not I want you or I need you or I’m going to fuck you again.
It’s I love you.
“But you can.” He draws circles on my shoulder. “Anything.”
“I want to.” I do. Really, I do. My desire is so big and bright it’s casting everything else in glare. Every single one of my thoughts is tuned to this frequency.
“Yeah?” He plants a kiss on my shoulder.
“But I don’t want you to look at me differently.”
“I won’t.”
“How can you promise that?”
“Did you kill someone?”
“No.”
“Do you really want to fuck Dean?”
My laugh breaks up the tension in my shoulders. “Murder and lust for Dean are equally bad in your eyes?”
“Fuck no.” He presses his palm into my stomach to pull me closer. “Lust for Dean is a million times worse.”
“Really?”
“You have no fucking idea what it does to me, the way he flirts with you.”
But I do. I see the way his jaw cricks, the way his fists form, the way his eyes fill with jealousy. “He does it to get to you.”
“It works.”
“It did work. We’re here.”
“You’re giving him credit for this?”
“Well… doesn’t he deserve a little?”
“Maybe.” The playfulness falls from his voice. It’s back to soft and sweet. “But I’m not giving him credit.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.”
“What is?”
“True.” None of this is fair. Not that I need a pill to feel okay. Not that Grandma is sick. Not that my parents are middle class when Brendon and Emma’s are rich.
But it’s not fair that their parents are gone. Or that I was born smart. Or with a nice figure.
Or that he’s almost mine.
That really isn’t fair and it’s all in my favor.
“Life isn’t fair. But you can’t use that as an argument for everything,” I say. “Otherwise, what’s the point of fairness? Of justice?”
“You’re such a smart girl, Kay.”
“Why don’t I like the sound of that?”
“You should.” He intertwines his fingers with mine. “There’s nothing you can tell me that will change the way I look at you.”
I shake my head. “You can’t promise that.”
“Maybe I lack imagination, but I can’t think of a single thing.”
Because he’d never think of this. I have everyone convinced I have my shit together. And, mostly, I do.
It’s just, sometimes I don’t.
I’ve been healthy for a long time now. But that can’t last forever.
“I don’t want you to promise that.” It’s more that I know he can’t. That it will hurt too much if he does. “I don’t want you to promise you won’t leave. Because you might. And I don’t want you to stay out of obligation.”
“Kay…”
“Don’t tell me there’s nothing. Because you don’t know what this is.”
“Okay.” His voice is some tone I’ve never heard. An understanding one.
He drags his fingertips back up my arm. All the way to my shoulder.
It’s funny. I’m naked. I’ve been naked this whole conversation, but I feel like I’m about to strip out of everything.
This might scare him away.
I might lose him forever.
I suck a breath between my teeth. My exhale is heavy enough my hands shake. No. They’re still shaking.
I’m shaking.
“I…” Too many words rise up in my throat. They knock together. They take over my head and my lips and my heart.
Then he’s running his fingers through my hair with that impossibly soft touch.
And I’m still terrified to lose him.
But it’s scarier, the thought of being alone with this forever.
“I don’t know a better way to say this.” My hands are shaking, but I press on. “I’m broken.”
He doesn’t say anything. He just combs his fingers through my hair again.
“I have depression. I guess that’s normal. Relatively. But I… last year. That was when it started. It was before Grandma’s heart attack. It wasn’t because of anything. Everything got hard. Heavy. Food didn’t taste as good. My favorite books no longer entertained. It was like I was moving through water. It took so much energy to make dinner or clean my room. Or even get out of bed in the morning. I couldn’t sleep, but I didn’t want to do anything else.”