"No, I mean, I don't want to be special, crotch-groping friends."
"So what does that leave?"
"Non-crotch-groping friends. Two people that can sit on a bed and...talk."
"Okay," I say. "I think we are doing pretty good at that. But I still want to have sex with you." The words leave my lips before I can filter them out.
She snorts. "I know. I'd want to have sex with me, too."
I start laughing and she joins in. We laugh for a long time, feeding off the sound of each other. When we finally stop, she looks sad again and says, "I feel like shit."
"You look like shit."
"Thanks."
Our reactions grow slow, our words grow lazy, and the honesty that comes from that? The lack of inhibitions? It makes her lay her head on my shoulder and the move is something I don't expect.
She must feel the way my body stiffens because she whispers, "Is this okay?"
Is she kidding?
"Yeah. It's okay."
It's strange and humbling to think she's so badly in need of someone to lean on that she'd lean on me. Me, of all people. I don't deserve to be the one she leans on, but there's no way in hell I'm going to leave her alone.
We sit there in a silence that's almost comfortable. Almost. If it wasn't completely unnatural for her to be this close to me. If I wasn't so painfully aware of her body. If I wasn't envisioning the dozens of ways that I want to see her sliding against me.
"Honestly," I say into the silence, "I was hoping that game would get me answers to some things I'm curious about."
She doesn't answer right away and for a wild minute, I think she's fallen asleep. Then her voice drifts over me, tired and resigned. "What do you want to know, Giles?"
I tap a finger on my knee a few times, each drum narrowing in on my curiosity. There's no other way to say it. "I want to know about him."
She shifts. "Him?"
"The guy you didn't love but broke your heart."
She hesitates. "He took something from me...something I'd like to get back."
"And what's that?"
"My power."
I pull in my eyebrows. "I'm not sure what you..." A sick thought cuts me off and my fists clench. I try as hard as I can to keep my tone gentle at my next question. "Did he...rape you?"
"No," she says quickly. "It wasn't that. It was...I...It was--"
"It's okay," I say. "You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to."
She lets out an almost inaudible breath of relief. So fragile it brings a stitch to my chest.
We don't talk again. And for the first time ever, a beautiful girl falls asleep beside me, completely clothed. And I enjoy every second of it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Julia
GILES IS GONE WHEN I wake up. I lie still for a few minutes, wondering if maybe I dreamt it all. Wondering if I passed out from dehydration and my subconscious played tricks on me in an effort to give me closure. But my second pillow smells like him and the covers on that side are wrinkled in a way that tells me he slept in my bed last night.
Or maybe he didn't.
Maybe he only stayed until I fell asleep. Either way, it's strange that it happened. Stranger that I let it.
Forgiveness isn't something I do well. I can hold on to a grudge until the next ice age, and then use the heat from my anger to keep me warm. I'm trying to understand why I don't hate Giles the way I know I should. His apology should've been a pebble on bulletproof glass, but instead it was a bazooka, blasting through it without issue.
He caught me in a moment of weakness and then took me by surprise. His words were so genuine when he said he wanted to go back to how things were before. I didn't think we could. He toyed with me that night, knocked me down a few pegs. Then he came to my rescue and bled a little with his words. And I felt the truth of those words in myself, as well. Because whatever it is he's going through, whatever unintentional comfort I've provided, he's done the same for me.
I don't know how he managed to make me feel so comfortable around him, seeking his company after I swore I'd never let him come near me again.
When he came to sit beside me in my bed, I worried he'd try to test boundaries like I know he enjoys doing. But despite our proximity, everything about his movements was chaste and innocent. That brought my walls crumbling down, the ice in me shifted. Setting my head on his shoulder was precisely what I needed in the moment. It's ironic, that this guy who's seen me naked and has toyed with me in an awful way, could invoke a space where I no longer feel bare.
It occurs to me when I get out of bed that he might be somewhere in the house, maybe in his own room. But he's not. The house is empty, his car no longer in the driveway.
My throat is dry and there's a slight throb at my temples, clear signs that I'm dehydrated. I remedy the issue by chugging an entire bottle of water and spend the rest of the lamest weekend ever recovering from the day before. Getting freshly cooked food in my stomach and lots of liquids. The whole day, all I keep thinking is, I don't know what compelled me to answer Giles honestly during what should've been just a game. I revealed something I never thought I'd tell him, of all people.
But I'm glad I did.
When you hold in a secret long enough, it starts to become larger than life. A secret feeds on silence, growing limbs until it starts to control you. I learned that the hard way, but what I couldn't have known is the power of releasing a secret in an exhale of words. Just like when I shared with Lex, I felt better telling Giles, even if he didn't understand the significance of my confession. As soon as the words left my lips, I was a little bit lighter. A little bit stronger, even, because for a tiny moment, I owned it instead of letting it own me.
At work, I drag myself around behind the bar, not quite fully recovered. Lex entertains me with updates on Mr. Suit, whose name is actually Jeremy. He still comes to see her at work every so often, and I keep my lips pressed tight on my opinion of the guy. Lex seems enamored by him. Not just by him, but by what he seems to represent for her. She tells me she has no interest in dating guys our age. She likes her men mature, baggage free, and stable. And I gauge the reason is a lack of stability in her own past.