Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I DON’T KNOW YOU AT ALL BY LIZZY MCALPINE
I change into the large shirt that swallows me whole, just like I wanted. After I’m dressed I dive into my drawer in Bellamy’s bathroom. I brush my hair and my teeth. I remove my makeup, and I get as comfortable as I can.
The second I finish, I open his bathroom door slowly, looking into the bedroom.
I look around carefully as I step in, and Bellamy isn’t there at all.
I didn’t put any pants on because of the size of the shirt on my body.
I move to his bedroom door, and open it, looking outside to see the living room.
Bellamy is laying across the couch on his phone, music playing in the background.
I step out of the bedroom, and his eyes catch me. He sits up right away.
“Hey. Are you… Are you okay?” He asks me, and I nod and shrug.
“I’m okay. I’m just shaken up. I’m embarrassed I guess,” I hate that I have to tell him this happened because it never should have happened.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” My eyes roam on his body, and back to his eyes.
I contemplate it. I look at him, wondering how exactly I will get it out, scared about how he will react. What if he’s upset by what’s being said about me, and possibly him? What if it bothers him? I feel my lip shake, and I see Bellamy’s face completely change to full concern.
“Baby...” He stands up, and comes straight to me, not hesitating. “Can I touch you right now? Is that okay?”
I move my arms around his torso, not looking at him, but pressing my cheek to his chest, hugging him. He holds me too. He slides one hand up my back, and into my hair, the other hand pressed flat against my back as he hugs me.
“What did he do?” He’s quiet as he speaks to me.
“He cornered me,” I’m crying now. “I’m sorry Bellamy.”
I hate this more than I can explain. I don’t want him to be upset. Not about what happened or about his reputation. He has to know how bad this will look to others. How people might see him if they think…
“What do you mean he cornered you Ryn?”
I shake as I think about it again, “He walked up to me, and he stumbled up, and I tried to push him back, but he grabbed onto me. My back was pressed to the wall and I couldn’t move. He said he was… Someone told him about our arrangement. Not the truth of it. He said that I’m...” I can’t talk.
My voice is shaking at the thought of this ever happening again, other people knowing about this, or about Bellamy. About me.
“It’s okay...” His thumb moves back and forth on my head, his hands warm against my skin.
“Someone told him I agreed to have sex with you to make... To make your ex jealous... He... He-” I hesitate again.
“He kissed me, and he might have done more if Lawson didn’t say something and I didn’t want him to.
I kept trying to push him off. I told him we weren’t.
That it wasn’t what he had thought it was and I tried so hard. I’m sorry.”
Sobs wrack my body, my face is so wet with tears at this point I know they’ve transferred onto him now.
“I’m not really sure why you're apologizing to me baby,” His chest moves as he speaks.
I find comfort in the way it rises and falls. His arms are strong around me.
“Because people are going to think… People are going to associate you with me. Your reputation-”
“Means absolutely nothing to me,” He finishes my sentence. “And if you’re going to apologize to me for kissing him, you have no reason to.”
That’s another thing I was already apologizing for. He took my words out of my mouth.
“If you wanted to kiss him, you would still be there kissing him, not here with me,” His understanding is overwhelming to me.
“And I’m sorry about earlier today, and-”
“I don’t want to talk about earlier today or anything else right now.
I want to talk to you, and make sure you’re okay…
Lawson told me you were there alone at that party.
That he was keeping an eye on you to make sure you were okay and I’m glad that he did.
I’m glad you’re all in one piece. You’re okay.
That’s all that matters,” He pulls me back to look at my face.
His hand comes up, slowly moving my hair out of the way. He slowly wipes the tears from under my eyes, his thumbs resting on my cheekbones.
“I wanted to see you... And to feel comfortable so I came here... I... I felt so wrong, I was just scared...” My words are shaky and uneven.
My voice doesn’t belong to me right now.
“I was scared for you and if I wasn’t here, and I wasn’t with you I promise I would be driving to the frat house right now, and ending Caleb's entire basketball career as we speak. I still plan on doing that at some point for putting his fucking hands on you. Let me see…” He keeps holding my face with his left hand but brings his right down.
His fingers brush the bottom of my chin, and his thumb grazes my lip, looking at where Caleb drew blood.
“Does it look bad?”
Bellamy shakes his head, “He did this? Does it hurt?” He asks and I nod my head to both questions.
“He bit my lip when he… Um. It stings, but it’s fine. I’m fine.”
“As for what he said to you… Baby, no one that matters believes that bullshit. If they do, they don’t deserve to know you, or me,” He speaks quickly, his eyes drifting between both of mine.
He slowly brings himself to me and kisses my bottom lip as softly as he can.
Not in a sexual way, no ulterior motive to the kiss than to comfort me.
My heart throbs at the gesture. My heart aches knowing how badly I feel for him.
How this right now shouldn't be happening but it is, and I feel every ounce of it.
He brings his lips to my forehead now, and I close my eyes tight.
“I wish this was all real sometimes,” I speak before I think.
“What do you mean?” Bellamy asks slowly, if it wasn’t a crazy thought I’d have sworn I could hear hope in his voice.
“I mean all of this is fake. For the list. This comfort and all of this isn’t real, and sometimes I wish I knew this wasn’t just for some list… That someone was as kind as you are in real life,” It’s not like me to be honest like this.
But I guess my normal is out the door for the night.
“Do you not think you deserve that? The kindness…” He asks and I shake my head.
“I don’t know. I deserve a lot of things.
I want to feel like I deserve kindness from everyone but I don’t.
I just don’t think it’s fully obtainable.
Comfort from humans can happen, it's just… too hard to find, and I found it, but this is just for the list, I know that. I just… I want to keep it right now and pretend,” I speak quickly, not wanting him to interrupt me.
“Ryn…” His features soften.
I know I still have tears in my eyes. He’s looking directly at me, that electrifying gaze locked in on every inch of me.
“Pretend,” I speak before he can say anything else.
He looks at me with the same soft face. The same bright blue eyes.
“Tonight I want to know you and I want it to mean something. So pretend with me.”
He slowly tilts my chin even more. He moves his hands, putting us in a dancing stance.
“What do you mean you want to know me?”
“I want to know things that most people don’t know,” I admit.
“I want to know you, too,” Bellamy sways me, both of us dancing to the music that he's playing.
I tilt my chin back down, and Bellamy brings his hand to caress my cheek, his fingertips brushing behind my ear.
“What makes you feel the most comfortable?” I ask him softly, his heartbeat playing in my ear louder than the music that makes us sway.
“Hugs and warm blankets. I like ice cream but not anything chocolate or caramel.
.. I like the raspberry or strawberry kind, it was my mom's favorite, and all we had in the house when I was growing up. So I ate it all the time with her. The smell of laundry makes me comfortable. Lawson and Griffin. Um… You. You make me feel more comfortable than any of those things.”
My heart leaps up to my throat.
“What about you?” He asks me as if he didn’t just send me into cardiac arrest with his words.
“Big t-shirts. Sienna because she never judges me. Football games. Rom coms. Your friends make me feel comfortable. Um, hot coffee, and you... You make me feel more comfortable than I have ever felt,” I tell him.
His hand slides up my back and through my hair, somehow we’re closer now. If it was possible I’d mesh with him at this moment. I’d be as close as I could ever get if there was a way.
“Who’s your favorite artist?” He asks me.
“Music?” I ask back, and he nods. “I love Kings Of Leon and boy bands. And I love Taylor Swift too.”
“I love the same things, but I’ve told you the music I listen to before,” He answers, and he’s right, I do already know the music he loves. “How do you take your coffee?”
It’s not something he’d ever need to know. It’s not something he’d probably remember in a week or two, but he asks like it’s the most important thing in the world to him right now.
“I like it with sugar and vanilla soy milk. And I like caramel flavoring. What about you?” I ask him.
“I’ll take it, however, it’s given to me. I’m indifferent about coffee,” He tells me.
I want to gasp, but it seems just like Bellamy to not care. It seems just like him to drink the first thing he sees on the menu at some small cafe. Or he’d order whatever I got every time we got coffee together, I smile at the thought.
“I talk in my sleep sometimes… and I sleep in the fetal position most of the time... But I like something under me, under my face when I sleep whether that’s a person, or a pillow, or a blanket,” I tell him.
“I normally sleep on my stomach, TV off always, no noise, no light.”
“My favorite holiday is New Year’s,” I continue to rattle off facts.