See Through Me (Lose My Senses) (22 page)

My hand trembled as I wrapped a strip of tape over more napkins and my stinging wrist. It didn
’t look pretty or particularly clean, but it contained the bleeding. The cuts were going to leave nasty scars. I dropped the roll of tape on my legs. Scars. Ash had scars on his shoulders, he’d told me it was from one of his dad’s beatings.
What if it had been his mother the whole time?

My breath came out in panicked, short gasps. I had to do this. I had to. I couldn’t lose it.
I found a water bottle and carefully wiped off the drying blood on my legs and hands. The last step was to pull on a rumpled sweatshirt from under the seat. And then I drove home.

When I opened the front door and walked inside, Ash yelled out from the kitchen,
“What took you so long? I was starting to get worried.”

He came into the living room wearing only a pair of cargo shorts. I tugged the left sleeve of the sweatshirt down and prayed the bleeding wouldn
’t leak through my makeshift bandage. I put the pizza down on the coffee table, next to one of Ash’s sketchbooks.

“
Are you all right?” He scanned over my face with a questioning expression. “You look like you’re freezing.”

I tried to control the remaining shivers of fear and shock.
“I’m not feeling very good all of a sudden.”

“
Is it a migraine?” He started forward like he wanted to take me in his arms.

“
No.” I quickly sat down on the couch. If he thought I had a migraine, he’d insist on taking care of me. “I’m just nervous about leaving tomorrow. Um, I got into a special program at U of M at the last minute and I have to leave in the morning. I was going to tell you earlier but I forgot.”

“
Tomorrow?” His brow furrowed in confusion. “What about all your plans to take off and explore?”

“
It was a stupid idea.” I bent my wrist accidentally and masked a wince. “I was just freaked out about going to college. I’m already over it.”

“
Are you sure?”

“
You don’t understand.” He didn’t understand, because if I made him understand, he wouldn’t get away. “I have to go. It’s the only opportunity to get what I want out of life.”

He settled on the other side of me on the couch. My fingers crept inside the sleeve to rub the concealed duct tape. She
’d gotten to me without a problem; what could she do to Ash if he wasn’t able to go to school? It would be all my fault if I didn’t leave tonight. I felt the weight of his gaze on me.

“
Katie, are you okay?” Ash said, his voice concerned. “Did something happen when you went out to get the pizza?”

“
No, it’s nothing like that.” I forced myself to look over to him and purposely bit my lip to appear as uncertain as possible. “I just realized how fast everything is changing.”

“
Yeah, things have changed.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I wanted to talk to you about that. About us.”

My heart beat faster, overtaking the throbbing in my arm. Oh, please no. Not now. Not when I
’m about to walk away from him. “I did, too.”

“
What did you want to tell me?” Anxiety flashed in his eyes.

“
I don’t know about us. I mean, being more than friends.” I averted my eyes, blinking rapidly to clear the tears. “Why can’t we go back to the way it was before? You know, the good old times? Everything wasn’t so different.”

“
What?” He sucked in a sharp breath. “I don’t want the old times back. I love what we have now. Why are you suddenly acting like you don’t?”

I couldn
’t stop myself from asking because I wanted to hear it. Just once. I was so selfish. “And what do we have?”

“
I’m in love with you.” He brushed the hair off of my face with a solemn expression. “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love you.”

I allowed myself the luxury of this one single second. The gentle touch of his fingers on my face. The words that hung in the air, the timbre of his voice as he said it. For one second, he was mine. Then I bit my inner lip so hard, the metallic taste of blood flooded my mouth to match the blood leaking from my wrist. I pulled the sleeve of the sweatshirt over my left hand, balling up the fabric in my fingers.

“I think you’re confusing love for friendship,” I told him, moving away with stiff shoulders. “And we’re going to be thousands of miles away from each other. A long-distance relationship would never work. We’re going to be moving in different directions—”

“
You can’t mean that.” He cupped my face in his hands. “Tell me you don’t love me.”

I shook my head. I couldn
’t do that. I couldn’t lie about that.

“
Tell me the truth.” His voice caught ever so slightly. I hated that I heard it. I hated myself more.

But the truth was useless and good intentions didn
’t matter. Actions did. I shoved all the heartbreak aside, and locked it down tight. “I don’t love you the way you need me to.”

Because it won
’t keep you safe.

He took me by the shoulders.
“You’re lying.”

I forced myself to look into his eyes.
“You’re my best friend. Of course I love you. But this was different.”

“
How is it different?”

My mind raced as fast as my heart to find an answer. I had to push him away. He
’d see through me if I didn’t.

I whispered,
“I wanted to lose my virginity, and you were the only person I could trust. I wanted to be normal for once.”

And more than that, I had wanted to be happy. To be in love, being loved. To start a new life without secrets. I almost had all of that up until an hour ago, and now I was destroying it. Ash stared at me, and I swear he stopped breathing.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” He jumped up, knocking the coffee table onto its side. The pizza slid out of its box in a mess of cheese and sauce, and the sketchbook skittered under a chair. “You’re seriously trying to tell me you used me for sex?”

“
Don’t be like this!” My neck cramped from the strain of not collapsing in front of him. “We knew this was coming. It’s time for us to learn to be apart from each other anyway.”

“
I don’t want to learn how to be apart from you.” His face was awash with anger—and hurt. “I need you.”

“
I’m sorry I can’t love you back the way you want me to.” Tears pooled in my eyes but I wouldn’t let them fall. “But please believe me, you’re the most important person in my life, and I can’t lose you.”

His lean chest rose and fell rapidly. He balled his fists at his side.
“I’m not leaving until you promise me one thing.”

My promises were worthless. I
’d only break them. “What?”

“
You’ll come out to L.A. on your first school break and meet me there.” He clenched his jaw, his voice devoid of all emotion now. “There are some things I need to tell you.”

I flexed my wrist, the pain distracting me from the wrenching hollowness in my chest. His mother
’s spy would know if I visited. Somehow she’d find out “Why?”

“
Because I’m never coming back to this side of the country after I leave next week.” He loomed over me, his face like chiseled granite. “If you don’t want to lose me, promise me.”

I was going to lose him no matter what I did. The words ripped out of my throat.
“I promise.”

He gave me a curt, dismissive glance and then did what I
’d expected from the moment he kissed me on the beach. He slammed out the door, and left me behind. I curled up on the couch and clutched my injured arm to my chest. At least he didn’t stay long enough to see me cry.

Tuesday

While I talked, Ash had moved closer to me in the empty meadow. Silent as the moon shining down on us, he watched the movement of my hands. I stopped plucking out blades of grass. A wide
swathe of earth lay exposed in front of me. It had taken all my self-control to keep my voice composed during my confession.

“
I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like I didn’t trust you. I’ve always trusted you, but I can understand if you don’t believe me at this point.” My throat spasmed, raw from battling to get every word out. “You know the worst part? I lied to you and then ran away in the middle of the night, like you meant nothing to me. You didn’t deserve that. No one does.”

Ash knew everything now. He shook with imperceptible tension, incredibly angry and on the verge of imploding again. Shame weighed heavy on my shoulders. We needed to go soon. I had to go home and pack so I could leave in the morning. And I didn
’t know how much longer I could keep it together, already on the brink of breaking down. I brushed off my legs and went to stand up.

“
Listen to me.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward him, catching me off-balance. “Please.”

I landed on him and we tumbled into the deep, soft grass.

“I’ve always known you were the one who called CPS.” He flipped me over on my back and covered me with his body.

Near tears, I struggled to move out from underneath him.
“And I made things worse for you.”

“
You’re the only person who’s ever given a damn about me,” he said. “I got through each day because of you. I was the one who made things worse for you! I didn’t fucking know she would go this far.”

He took my wrist and brought it up from my side, the anguish on his face clear. In the moonlight, the faint raised scars could be seen, jagged under the red ink. My heart plummeted. I
’d tried so hard to gloss over the details of his mother’s attack.

“
You’re not responsible for her.” A tear escaped from my eye. “But I chose to hurt you when I lied. I could have made different choices, but I didn’t know what else to do. I swore I would never do anything to hurt you, and that’s all I did last summer.”

“
You didn’t lie.” He drew in a ragged breath. “You were protecting yourself. I just hate that it was from me.”

“
No!” I protested, a sob building up in my chest. “It wasn’t like that. I was trying to protect you.”

“
She hurt you and I didn’t even know.” He closed his eyes, the shadows of his lashes giving his face a haunted appearance. “I knew something was wrong that night. But when you told me you didn’t love me, I was so pissed off, I couldn’t think. I had to get out of there before I lost it.”

“
You were supposed to be angry. I did it on purpose so you wouldn’t ask any more questions.” I sniffled, sounding pathetic. I hated crying in front of him. It showed weakness.

He rested his forehead
against mine. “I should never have left you alone that night. You shut down and avoid when you’re terrified. I should’ve stayed with you until you felt safe enough to tell me, and instead, I walked out on you. The next morning, I had calmed down, but it was too late. You were gone and wouldn’t return any of my calls or texts.”

I hadn
’t wanted him to know where the scars came from because I’d known he’d blame himself. He had been hurt enough.

I turned my head away, but Ash held my face in his hands, making me witness firsthand his remorse.
“That night, all I cared about was how I felt. It destroyed me to think that you didn’t love me as much as I love you. I didn’t fight for you. I let you go. I left you alone, and I’d sworn I would never do that. And then you totally disappeared…and I had no idea… You didn’t trust me to keep you safe, and you were right—I couldn’t even be trusted to
know
you were safe.”

“
You would’ve fought for me. I believed it so much, I was convinced I had to leave the way I did. You would’ve lost everything. And I wanted—” My voice cracked and more tears flowed out. “I wanted you to be free more than anything else. But I ruined it no matter what I did.”

“
I’m free when I’m with you.” He kissed the wet tracks running down my face. “I love you. That will never change, I swear. But you have to go.”

“
What?” He loved me but he didn’t want to be with me anymore?

“
I’m an asshole for even contacting you here, in town. Let alone wanting you to stay. But I didn’t know how else to find you, other than coming back.” He traced the scars with his thumb. “She’s sending Trevor after you. She’s not going to stop.”

I hadn
’t told him any of my suspicions yet. “How do you know that?”

“
Because I think she’s already done it. When she ran his dad’s campaign, I caught Trevor coming out of her bedroom one night. The rumors started about you within the week. She’d known how I felt about you for years.” He looked away to the burnt-out shell of the farmhouse. “She used to taunt me that if anything happened beyond friendship, she’d find a way to make you vanish. It’s why I made it seem like I fucked anything that offered senior year, so she’d think I had moved on from you.”

“
I’m an asshole, too. Every minute I spend with you is another minute she could be arranging to take over your life. You have to leave, too. If she’s going after me, she’ll—”

“
She won’t risk her precious career over me.” His mouth twisted. “I’ve heard she’s telling people how proud she is of her famous artist son. She’d sooner slit her own throat than be proven wrong.”

Leaves of clover chilled the nape of my neck.
“Why does she hate us being together so much?”

“
She’s the queen of mind-fucks, that’s why.” He swallowed and glanced down at my face. “That’s not it, though. She hates us—no, she hates you because of who you look like. She hates me for who I look like, too.” He moved a lock of hair out of my eyes, his forearm dusted with fine, dark hair.

Numbness spread from my fingers and up my arms, reaching into my chest. I couldn
’t breathe. I looked so much like my mother. He resembled his father. A long-standing riddle came together.

Ash read my face and confirmed it with his words.
“My dad had an affair with your mom, and it has to be the reason she left.”

I shut my eyes. It always came back to her. I couldn
’t outrun my mother’s footsteps, no matter how hard I tried. “You knew the whole time?”

He nodded.
“I overheard them fighting about it the first night I came into your room.”

My eyes opened wide. In the picture from the truck, the man in the photo had been wearing a wedding ring.
“The affair didn’t end after she left, did it?”

“
I don’t think so.” He drew in a deep breath. “I think it ended when she died.”

“
How do you know?”

“
Because it’s around the same time my dad started drinking,” he said. “I didn’t want to ever tell you, because you’d feel guilty about it when you did nothing wrong. I never wanted to hurt you, either.”

I stared past him at the stars, my vision blurring with more useless tears. All of the shit in our lives was because of
them
. Because they all couldn’t just grow up and move on from the past.

My father lied because he couldn
’t handle my mother leaving him. Later, he couldn’t handle staying around because he didn’t want to be reminded of her when he looked at me. Ash’s father couldn’t get over my mother’s death. Ash’s mother’s psychotic brain couldn’t take the idea of us being together, couldn’t stand the idea of us re-creating a mistake she couldn’t allow to happen again in her warped imagination. And my mother? Who the hell knew what she couldn’t handle? Probably life, judging by the chaos she left in her wake. I hated all of them. But I never hated the one thing their complete dysfunction brought me.

I knew with absolute certainty what I wanted. A life and a future away from the past. Ash started to let go of my wrist. I grabbed his hand, and laced my fingers through his. I wanted to be free, too.

Ash said in a low, urgent voice, “Katie, you have to go so I can make sure you’re safe.”

“
Too late.” I held on tighter. “I need you just as much.”

“
I’m the last thing you need.” His words didn’t stop him from burying his face in my hair.

“
No, I need someone who doesn’t let me hide or lie, someone who sees me.” My voice trembled. “The real me, just the way I am. And you do. I didn’t know how much I needed that until I left.”

“
I didn’t last summer. I knew you were lying, and I still left you alone.” His shoulders and back lifted with each breath. “And I almost lost you.”

I didn
’t know any other way to convince him except to show him. My fingers wound in his hair and I brought his face up to mine, and tasted the salt of my tears on his lips. He stiffened, and then a low sound of surrender came from his throat. He plunged his tongue into my mouth but his hands were reverential as they caressed my body. He was my true secret, someone to call my own. And I was his. Always his.

The heat of desire spread with his every touch. I tugged at his t-shirt and he understood. He sat up, and I stripped his shirt over his head. And then he helped me slip off my tank. We slowly undressed each other. In the veil of the moon and stars, Ash was even more heartbreakingly handsome, his body a work of art made of sharp silver planes and lined shadows.

“So very beautiful.” He wiped the drying tears away from my cheekbone with a sweep of his fingers.

I smiled softly and pulled him on top of me. I was beautiful whenever he looked at me. The grass cooled the skin of my shoulders and back. He pushed my legs apart with his knee, and I angled my hips up. He slid inside, stretching me and filling me completely. The worshipful gentleness brought the tears back to my eyes. I loved him and he loved me. Why did it have to be so complicated? It didn
’t, that’s why. Loving him with my whole soul was all I knew how to do.

He stilled, alarm warring with arousal on his face.
“What’s wrong?”

“
I love you,” I whispered. “I love you so much it scares me sometimes.”

“
I know.” He braced his hands on both sides of my head. “But the idea of not loving you scares me more.”

He rocked back, his torso gliding against my breasts. I let him make love to me this time. The last remaining bit of fear had dissolved. We found our rhythm together.
Moans came out of my mouth unheeded as he leaned down to drop soft kisses all over my face after each one, until he was gasping, too. We fit together perfectly because we were perfect together. I arched into him, wishing I could permanently imprint myself on him. My building orgasm sped up from that tiny change in position. He used his lips to trace the outline of my ear. I shivered in sheer pleasure.

“
You’re finally mine,” Ash panted in my ear.

I licked my lips. I was so close, and he knew it.
“No.”

“
Why not?” His eyes glowed in the moonlight.

“
Because—” I raised my hips, cradling him closer. “You were mine first.”

Our gazes connected. Seeing right through to my secrets, seeing right through to my heart. The naked intimacy was almost unbearable. Almost. I
’d die before I’d turn away. A climax unraveled, and then seemed to never end, leaving me lightheaded. He came after me, thrusting into me, a hoarse shout escaping from his mouth.

Together we clung to each other. Foreheads touching, hearts beating as one, our legs tangled. The air took its sweet time to return to my lungs. Ash continued to shelter me with his body, lifting his weight off of me but not losing the skin-to-skin contact I craved.

I’d told him I loved him and nothing bad happened. The sky didn’t fall to pieces, the ground didn’t shake and tear asunder. Maybe we really could figure out everything else together, the way we should’ve done in the first place. I looked up at him. The stars glimmered above us, the moon rising over the trees that surrounded the open meadow.

“
You’re not getting off that easy.” He picked a blade of grass off my shoulder. “What do you mean I was yours first?”

“
Do you know what my first memory is?” I ran my hands up and down his back. He was still shaking from the aftershocks. So was I. “We were maybe four years old, playing in my backyard. The babysitter had gone in the house. You were chasing me and I tripped—”

“
You cut your eyebrow open.” He touched the corner of my eyebrow. “Right here.”

“
And you picked me up off the ground, looking like it hurt you more than it hurt me. You hugged me so hard, and I thought, ‘He’s mine,’ and from that moment, I thought of you as mine.” I lowered my lashes with a faint blush. “I think I loved you even then.”