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My spirit quaked. A convulsion of the instinct to run and the impulse to sink into what he said. The way he knew without me confessing the details. I wanted to let him hold it when I’d never been brave enough to allow anyone else to.
Except for that one time. That one time I’d gone to my parents and given them the truth.
Sorrow rushed through my being, stunned again by the horror of what it’d caused.
I should warn him away, but River had started brushing that thumb over the ridges of my lips, tracing them as he watched me. His eyes had turned to pitch.
Black flames that lapped.
“I want to erase every scar he left. Kiss each of them away. Help you heal them so you know you have the strength to go on. So you know you don’t have to hide anymore. Because hiding who you are is a fuckin’ tragedy, Charleigh. Tragic when I can feel the goodness trying to shine out of you.”
“River…” My eyes dropped closed. I wasn’t sure I could keep looking at him when he made me feel like this.
I was struck with a wave of possibility.
With that hope I’d felt the first time I’d stepped off the bus and into Moonlit Ridge.
He kept brushing his thumb over my lips. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Mesmerizing.
Hypnotizing.
“Give us twenty questions, Charleigh. Twenty questions of getting to know each other. As simple or as deep as you want them to go. Then you can decide if you trust me. If when you’re in need, you feel safe enough to come to me.”
If I were being logical, if I had my bearings, it would have been clear that I had to tell him no. I could never agree to something so ridiculous orreckless.
But I found myself nodding and whispering, “Okay.”
His expression flashed with something dark and resolved, though his touch remained tender.
Careful, even.
“Good.” His tongue stroked out to wet his plush bottom lip, and his eyes darted all over my face, as if he were searching me for answers to something he hadn’t yet asked.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” he murmured, words raw. “That is as long as it’s good with you?”
It was a question.
A proposition.
One I knew would ultimately wreck me.
I could already feel my heart swinging wildly in the man’s direction. Wanting to make the leap when I knew he’d never truly be there to catch me.
But maybe I did need this.
Maybe I did need a buoy.
A life raft.
Someone to support me for a little while until I made it to shore and could stand on my own two feet.
It was time.
It was time.
I swallowed around the reservations and the skitter of fear that streaked through my being. I didn’t want to bear it anymore.
