Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
With his hand strong in mine, he reaches for me, signs of life rushing back into him. He’s waking up even though I know he wasn’t asleep, and then he’s closing his arms around me and pulling me into his chest. One gentle hand smooths down my back. My cheeks are wet, and I only notice it when I put my cheek on his right shoulder. I can feel the scars under my cheek, the ropey white lines and uneven ridges. I turn my lips to them and rest them against one.
“You’re not collateral damage,” I tell him brokenly through my raw throat. Maybe the third time is the charm. Perhaps if I keep repeating it, he’ll believe me. “Because you’re not collateral, you’re not spare, and you’re not something extra. You’re not something that can be put up against something else. You’re someone, Darius.” He shakes his head, and I feel the movement against my hair. His hand stops at the back of my neck and cups it there, his fingers threading through my hair, touching my skin, and grounding me. I was the one who was supposed to be helping him. “You’re my someone.”
I nestle my chin against his shoulder. He doesn’t pull back, and his hand stays on the back of my neck. I love the warmth of him against me. Behind me. Surrounding me.
“Hans came and got me.”
I don’t actually think he’ll answer. I can’t imagine this feels good for him, having me pry into things this way. But he does, though. He tells me in the softest tone as though he doesn’t want to hurt me, and it makes my chest constrict painfully. “I’m inside the car. Always being crushed. But it’s…it’s my dad too.”
I freeze, growing cold. “Your dad? Was he…was he driving? Was he okay?” I don’t know anything about this. I don’t know enough about it. Not one damn thing.
Darius makes a sound I can’t decipher, and I want to wrap himself around me. Two shaking pillars of fire who need each other. “He was okay in the accident. Just a few scratches. The car ended up on its side. My side. The passenger side. He missed the turn and drove off the road. He hit the ditch, hit the trees in the ditch. Thankfully, they weren’t old and very solid, or it would have been a lot more than my shoulder that was fucked up.”
I feel gutted, so afraid. I feel exactly like when I was sitting in the doctor’s office with my sister and holding her freezing-cold fingers while we were told she had cancer. I pull back a little, and he lets me. His hands slide down to my arms, resting on my biceps and holding me while I keep mine on his shoulders. We’re like twin mirrors of each other. “When you get in the car and the panic happens, what does it feel like? Are you back there? What goes on?”
“Because I need help. Because I need to move forward.”
“Darius.” My fingers curl into his skin, not painfully, but grounding him, keeping him with me. I don’t want him to go back there right now. “No. You are enough, just as you. You’re not some shattered thing that needs reassembling. You’re you, and the you that I’m looking at now is beautiful. You’re magnificent, and you’re kind. Your heart is the most perfect, sweet, and innocent heart I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. I didn’t mean you had to move forward. Move in whatever way you want. Maybe even backward because that would probably be more helpful since that’s where it all started. But if you don’t want to go in any direction, then fuck it. Just like the car this morning. Fuck. It. Fuck forcing yourself, fuck getting in, fuck the pain and the panic and all that shit. It’s okay to be exactly the way you are right now if you’re okay with that. Who cares what the world wants and thinks? I can see under your skin, and maybe you don’t like that. Maybe you do. Either way, I’m here. I’m here, and you’re way the hell more than enough. You are like the perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”
“Sloppy and layered on too thick?”
A dark laugh wants to burst out of me, but instead, a small giggle leaks out. “No, not sloppy. No way, though those are the best kind. And the peanut butter being layered on too thick is awesome. The jam, though, that part needs to be contained a little. You’re the perfect amount of both. On really delicious fresh bread.” I stroke my fingertips over the scars that are still mostly too dark to see, but I can feel all of them as I keep going. He lets me trace the pattern of past pains, hurts, and hopes. “You don’t have to be normal. Fuck normal. Normal never made for a very good sandwich anyway. And you know what? Driving is overrated. Walking is way healthier.”