39. Lilah
39
LILAH
I must have dozed off in Nolan’s bed because when I opened my eyes, he was sound asleep, his arm still tight around me, like he had no intention of letting me go.
Ever.
And honestly, I wasn’t complaining.
I really like you .
They were such simple words, but now I felt the sting of tears thinking about them. I tried to remember if anyone had ever said them to me and couldn’t think of a single time.
My mom had said “I love you” when we were kids, although maybe not as often as some parents. She’d told me I was smart when I did well in school. Matt had once said he was glad I was his sister.
But no one — not one person in my whole life — had ever said those four simple words.
I really like you .
They made me feel like maybe there was something to like after all. Like maybe I wasn’t some defective, broke, aimless loser with nothing to offer the world.
And the crazy thing was, I hadn’t been lying when I’d repeated the words to Nolan: the feeling was mutual.
Would I have liked him if I’d known him — really known him — in high school?
Maybe not. Actually, probably not.
But was anyone the same person they were in high school? I knew for sure that I wasn’t. And yeah, I’d never had the capacity to be mean, to hurt someone, the way the Bastards had hurt me, but I’d changed in a lot of big ways, and it was becoming pretty obvious to me that Nolan and Jude at least had changed too.
As for Rafe, the jury was still out on that one.
I lifted my head to look at the watch Nolan always wore. It was almost 2:30 in the morning, and while I had no desire to leave the comfort of Nolan’s arms — or Nolan’s bed — there was no way I was going to let Matt see me creeping from his room in the morning.
I slid carefully out from under Nolan’s arm and stood.
“Don’t go,” he mumbled.
I looked back at him and my heart caught in my throat. Sure, he looked like a high-fashion advertisement for hundred-dollar men’s underwear, but it was more than that. It was the way his tousled dark hair fell over his forehead, the way his lashes looked extra long when they were closed, his skin glowing in the light of the little lamp next to his bed.
I wasn’t an expert on relationships, but that feeling in my chest? The one that made my heart feel like it was being squeezed in a vise, in a good way? I was pretty sure that was more than just I like you .
Shit.
I leaned down to kiss his forehead. “I have to. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I turned off the bedside lamp, then slipped into the hall, closing the door behind me.
I’d just turned toward my room when I heard voices coming from the other end of the hall.
I froze, listening, then realized it wasn’t voices plural. It was one voice.
Rafe’s.
I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but I could hear his distress, could tell he was having another nightmare.
I looked around, wondering if Jude or Nolan would appear in the hall. They didn’t, and a moment later when Rafe’s voice got louder, I hurried toward his room.
I didn’t want him to wake up Matt, didn’t want to explain why one of the giant tough guys in the house had vicious nightmares. But also, it hurt me to hear Rafe like that, to know he was in pain.
It didn’t make sense, but what could I say? My life had stopped making sense the night I’d banged on the door of this house.
I let myself into Rafe’s room and closed the door behind me. He’d stopped talking, but he was breathing fast and heavy, like he was running.
Or like he was scared.
I let my eyes adjust to the darkness and took in the room’s layout, almost identical to Nolan’s, complete with the bar and mini-fridge, the attached bathroom, the glass doors leading to the balcony, the sitting area with a sofa, TV, and gaming system.
“What the fuck are you doing?” My heart stuttered in my chest before I realized Rafe wasn’t talking to me. He was in his nightmare, his voice low and menacing. “What the fuck are you doing? You can’t…” His breath came even faster. “You can’t do that. Shit… Fuck…”
I hurried toward the bed as his voice built to a crescendo.
“Stop it right now…” He started thrashing in bed, like he was fighting someone off. “I will… I’ll do it…”
I reached hesitantly toward him, not wanting to make it worse.
“Rafe,” I spoke softly at first, but then he started crying, still thrashing, and my heart just about broke at the sound, a long, low wail that didn’t even sound human emerging from his mouth. “Rafe!”
He sat up so fast I shrunk back, my heart pounding.
His eyes were wild, and I put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay.”
He shook me off and for a split second I wondered if he was going to strike out at me, thinking I was the enemy in his nightmare.
“It’s me,” I said in a hurry. “It’s Lilah.”
He froze and I saw the fight leave his body, although his shoulders were still tense. “Lilah?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you doing here?” He didn’t sound mad, just confused.
“I heard you having a nightmare,” I said. “Everyone else is asleep.”
He fell back onto the bed. “Fuck… fuck.”
I reached out instinctively to touch his forehead and felt the sweat on his brow. “I’ll be right back.”
I went to the attached bathroom, surprised to see it held a tub only because it was hard to imagine Rafe cramming his giant body into a bathtub, and ran cold water on one of the clean washcloths I found on the shelf stacked with towels.
After squeezing out the excess water, I turned out the light and stopped at the mini-fridge for a bottle of water on my way back to the bed.
He took the water from my hand and lifted his head to drink, then lay back down, his breathing slowly returning to normal.
I lay the washcloth on his forehead carefully, half expecting him to be a dick and tell me to get out. But he just lay there, let me drape the damp washcloth on his brow like he was a patient and I was his nurse.
“That feels good,” he said.
“I’m glad.”
I reached over to adjust the washcloth and he closed one hand around my wrist. For a long moment, he didn’t speak. There was just the heat of his skin on mine, his touch as searing as a brand around my wrist.
“Thank you,” he finally said.
“You’re welcome.” I started to stand, intending to leave now that he was awake, but his voice stopped me.
“Can you just… can you just stay for a bit?” he asked. “I know I don’t have a right to ask, but…”
I nodded and sat on the bed, backing up against the headboard so that I was sitting next to his head on the pillow.
“Can I get you anything else?” I asked.
“No… thank you.”
We settled into the quiet, nothing but the sound of summer coming from the other side of the open doors to Rafe’s balcony.
I thought he’d gone back to sleep, was getting ready to creep from the room, when he spoke again.
“I don’t deserve this.”
My breath caught. They were the same words I’d repeated to myself after the scandal in high school, after my suicide attempt.
I don’t deserve this .
I’d been bad. A sinner. I’d been shameless, immodest. I’d embarrassed my mom, my little brother.
Shamed them. Shamed God.
It wasn’t the same thing. I knew that. I’d been taken advantage of — by Brandon Miller who’d given me the drink and by the Bastards who’d taken advantage of my condition.
Rafe, Nolan, and Jude had chosen to do what they did to me.
But still. I was starting to wonder if we were all just kind of fumbling around in the dark, victims of our messed-up brains and messed-up families and messed-up psyches.
“Maybe you’re wrong,” I finally said in the dark.
“Wrong?” His voice was clear.
“Maybe we all deserve something good.”
I waited for his response, but he didn’t speak again. I stayed until his breathing regulated and I knew he was asleep.