Chapter 18
Rowan
There’s a comforting, heavy weight on my chest as I stir. The TV is blindingly bright in the dark space of her living room, and over the low volume of the movie, I can hear beautiful breathing.
I feel a pulse—hers and my own.
No flatline, only steady rhythms and even breaths.
I brush back curls from her face and run my fingertips down her arm, hoping it doesn’t stir her.
One.
Two. Three.
Four. Five. Six…
Seven. Eight. Nine…
I’ve never felt like this for anyone. I’ve never had this terror weigh me down at the thought of losing someone. Even though I know it’s because of my mother, I know it’s because of her—this girl sleeping on my chest, wrapped in my arms.
Ten. Eleven. Twelve…
Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen…
Seventeen freckles.
I gave myself to her a long time ago, and those are pieces I’m never getting back.
Not that I want them anyway. I kiss her head, and the scent of coconut and other ingredients used in her hair products and perfume invade the rest of my senses.
Gingerly, I shift to adjust our position enough to hold her better.
That’s what makes her stir though. Shit.
Natalia moans softly, her lashes fluttering and nose scrunching, as she wakes up. She rubs at her eyes but nestles in closer, her face coming into my neck. Shaking her head a bit, she finds a comfortable position and brushes her forehead against my jaw.
The biggest surprise of the night, though, is when Natalia presses her lips against my neck—accidentally or purposely, I don’t know.
But I don’t care. I’ll take it, accept it, let it brand my skin for the world to see—for me to see in the mirror, or feel while I walk down the street and say, Natalia’s lips were right here.
Her lips have touched my skin. She may as well be Midas.
She untucks her arm and slides it across my chest, letting it wrap loosely around me. She’s so perfectly at peace.
Natalia moans softly again. “Hmm. Rowan?”
“Hi,” I whisper, drawing circles on her back.
She sighs sleepily, stretching with a quiet groan as she sits up, her palm over my heart. “What is it?” She yawns. “What happened?”
“We fell asleep,” I groan, my neck cracking with a small stretch of my own, but I keep my arm around her. “It’s okay. You can go—”
“What time is it?”
“Um.” I reach for my phone on the floor and check. “Three.”
Natalia sits up with her hands on my bare chest. “Oh. What—”
“It’s okay, we fell asleep,” I rasp.
“I know, um…” She rubs at her eye. “Um…We…”
“I know,” I sigh. This is where our night ends.
No sleepovers. Those are rules actual friends with benefits make. But Natalia and I are not that. We have our benefits, but Natalia has never been just my friend. She’s been my person since the beginning, even when she hated me and when we bickered and bantered for fun.
My fists curl and I hate that they do because the idea of following this stupid rule is just pushing buttons in my brain that send anger through me. Anger I don’t want to have—shouldn’t have since I knew what I was getting myself into when I decided to chase a girl who rarely lets anyone in.
“Rowan…” She chews at the corner of her lip with soft, sympathetic eyes like she plans on stabbing me in the chest. “We said—”
I leave her in the living room as I hunt down my clothes before I sit at the edge of her bed in my briefs and find my socks. She stands in the doorway, the curls that came free from her clip framing her face, and shuffles on her feet. “Rowan…what…”
“I’m getting dressed,” I rasp and find my chinos on the floor.
“Rowan…”
I sigh and hold my pants on my lap. “Can we talk about it then?” I ask, trying again. “Please, Natalia. I can’t… I can’t see you like this.”
“I don’t know what you mean—”
“Natalia.” I groan, standing up and slamming my pants onto the floor. “Please.”
“Rowan, I don’t know what to tell you,” she rasps, her voice trembling the slightest bit.
“The truth,” I beg. “I know you, Natalia. And this—”
“You don’t know me.” She breathes. “You think you do because we’re having sex. But guess what, you don’t get a sticker for making me come. It’s basic bedroom etiquette—”
“Wow,” I breathe, licking across my teeth and nodding. I snatch my pants from the floor again and pull them up my legs. “Wow.”
“Rowan—”
“You know…” I chuckle, to myself, and grab my shirt up next. I take a step until I’m towering over her and say, “I care about you, Natalia. I know you better than you think I do, and I think that scares you. I think it terrifies you that I see you and you don’t want me to because you’re scared.”
“I’m—”
“You think you have parts of you that are dark and unloveable, but that isn’t true,” I say.
“I’m not going to apologize for pushing you and asking if you’re okay because, you know what, I don’t think you’re used to that.
And fuck, you should be. You should be used to a guy asking about you, wanting to know about you.
Every damn day, I want to go after that fucking asshole who hurt you the way he did, but I don’t because I’m here, trying to show you that I’m not him and I never will be.
I’m here trying to show you how you deserve to be treated.
Natalia, you deserve so much and I’ve wanted to give you everything since I’ve known you. ”
“Rowan…”
“You’re scared, so we only have sex, Natalia.
” I shove my arms into the sleeves and button up the shirt I came with, sans my missing undershirt.
“And that’s fine. I can do sex. I can fuck you however you want me to and make you come as many times as you ask—that’s fine. And I’ll follow your stupid rules.”
Natalia swallows audibly, her eyes sadder than they were before and they make me want to stay—to never leave her. But these were her rules. And as she’s said, it’s just sex. It might always be just sex.
“I’m gonna go,” I mumble and walk past her, out of her bedroom.
She follows after me. “Rowan, please—”
“I came here to check on you,” I say. “To make sure you were okay. To see if you needed a friend. And... Instead, I came and did the opposite.”
“Didn’t you want to—”
“That wasn’t why I came!”
“But—”
“I didn’t come here for sex, Natalia! I came to make you feel better, somehow.
But instead, it seems the only way I can make you feel better is if I fuck you.
Or if I’m your fake boyfriend when your parents visit town or video call you so they aren’t on your ass.
You don’t think I know you don’t want them on your ass?
This is all I’m good for. I’m your boy toy! ”
“That isn’t true!” Natalia shouts, her pointer finger defending her honor. “That isn’t true and you know it. You aren’t a boy toy…that isn’t true!”
“Isn’t it? Natalia, tell me what it is you really want from me. Please,” I beg. “And that will be our line. Our ground rule.”
She inhales sharply, her hands dropping at her sides and tugging at her sleeves—hiding. And I wait, hoping.
“Right,” I breathe, pulling open the door. “Well…I’m leaving.”
“Rowan, please.”
“I’ll see you—”
“Why are we in a fight?” Natalia shouts. “I don’t understand! Oh my god! Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.” She groans loudly, burying the heels of her palm in her eyes. “I can’t do this right now,” she croaks. “Just go. Get out.”
“Natalia.”
“What?”
“Nat—”
Her hand flies to her chest, a soft slap as she presses against it. “I just feel very overwhelmed right now,” she pants. “Like—Like I can’t—I can’t breathe.”
“Shit,” I hiss to myself. “Nat, sweetheart.” I set my hands on her shoulders. “Breathe, baby.”
“No, no, don’t touch me.” She sniffles hard. “I can’t be touched right now. I just…I…”
“Tell me what to do,” I croak. “How do I help you?”
“You can’t, Rowan! Why don’t you get that?”
I sigh, my heart breaking. I can’t possibly just leave her here like this. But when I take a step forward, she takes two back. “Natalia.”
“If you want to leave so badly, then go,” she cries. “Go.”
“I don’t want to leave like this,” I say. “Not fighting like this.”
“We aren’t fighting,” she nearly shouts. “We don’t fight! We are fucking, Rowan. You come over, you fuck me, and thats it.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Right.” I roll my tongue over my teeth and nod.
“Don’t do that,” she groans with a stomp, tears suddenly pouring out of her. “You think I’m like this to be cute? That I enjoy being like this?” She roughly smacks her temple as she says, “There is something wrong with me! I cannot fix it!”
“Stop that,” I drop everything.
Natalia continues smacking her temple, harder and harder as she sobs. “There is something wrong with me! Fuck! I can’t have anything no matter how much I want it!”
“Stop that,” I say again as my hands wrap around her wrists, pulling her hands away from her head, gripping them tight in my hands. “Don’t hurt yourself like that.”
“Please just leave,” Natalia sobs, her breaths uneven and heavy and shaky.
I hold her wrists and bring them to my chest. “No.”
“Go, Rowan.” She hiccups. “Let me go. I’m doing this for you.”
“No.” My jaw ticks. “No. Come here.” I pull her body into my chest. Natalia fights for only a few seconds, but she quickly submits and settles into my body as my arms wind around her, one hand cradling the back of her head and the other arm around her waist.
She cries, breaking my heart, and soaking my sweater. I hold her up as everything she’s held inside for the day pours out of her like a violent tsunami, crashing down the protective border she’s built.
“Woah, hey.” I quickly squat down and catch her when her legs give out. She nearly drops to the floor, slipping out of my arms, but I catch her in time. “Come up here with me, sweetheart.”
“I can’t.” She hiccups.
“That’s okay.” I lift her off her feet and take us to her couch. I sit back with her across my lap and her body is limp against my chest. “I’ve got you.”
Oh my god, I love her to death. And oh my god, I’d rather die than have her go through this.
I know nothing of what it’s like to live inside her head.
I don’t know the way she feels when she wakes up or what she thinks about just before she falls asleep.
I only know that if she feels like this, it hurts her too much.
“Talk to me,” I rasp.
“No.” She sniffles hard and pushes me away. “No. No, not like this. Go.”
She’s hurting herself again, rubbing too violently at her face, her nails digging into the skin of her palms. And I’m so fucking scared to leave.
“I can’t leave,” I whisper. “I’m not leaving you like this, sweetheart.”
“Rowan—”
“I can’t leave,” I say again, my hands reaching out to cup her face. But she takes a step back before I can. “You’re scaring me.”
“Rowan, I am tired.” Her voice trembles. “I am tired and I am in pain. I need you to go,” she says and points at the door.
“Nat—”
“Get out! Get out, go!” Natalia cries. “Go…Please,” she croaks, her voice shaky and broken. “Please, just go.”
Even though I don’t know what just happened, why we were angry and shouting, I go with it.
“Go,” she croaks. “I can’t do this right now. I can’t…”
“Sweetheart.”
Natalia’s teeth are digging into her lip, her head shaking rapidly. “I can’t hear that right now,” she croaks quietly, her feet shifting and hands trembling. “Don’t…Don’t call me…”
“Nat—”
“Look,” she says, softer, “I just need to be alone. I won’t—I won’t do anything. I promise. Just...please.”
“I…” I almost keep insisting—almost tell her no, that she won’t be getting her way in this scenario. But I have to trust her, so I surrender; she gave me no other choice. I force my legs to take me to the door.
“Okay, well…You said no sleepovers,” I mutter, slipping on my shoes and draping my coat over my arm, already regretting those words. I stare down at her and pause in the doorway, hoping for…something. “Um, have—have a goodnight, Natalia.”
“Go,” she croaks again. “I—I’m so—”
I kiss her temple and close her apartment door behind me, leaving my heart with her.