“Why’s that?”
I think of the thousands of reasons I’ve been telling myself since I left his apartment. About my quest, about how he’s wrong for me. Too young. In different places. But the truth is, I’ve never felt more myself, more easy, than when I’m around him. Even the night of the party, when I’d first made him into a pawn to play in my one-sided revenge game with Trevor, there’s been something that draws me to him like a moth to flame. After ten minutes of talking to Christopher, I’d forgotten all about Trevor, riveted by the look in Christopher’s eyes and the skim of his hands down my back.
He makes me feel beautiful and alive and excited. He makes me forget how stupid I’ve been and all the poor choices I’ve made. Being around him, it makes me want just to be. And that is a luxury I’ve never allowed myself.
He scares me.
It occurs to me, with the water lapping against my skin, now is my chance to take a risk. To develop myself into the person I want to be. Before, I’d play a game, divert or distract, or make up some story that put me in the kind of light I’ve always thought guys want girls to be. The cool, flirty girl you can have fun with, that’s great in bed, and never gives you any hassle.
But it’s not real. It’s a fa?ade I’ve created.
This, right here, is my chance to be vulnerable. To be honest and raw, and open myself up. Even if that honesty doesn’t make me look good, or desirable.
My heart beats hard against my ribs as fear grabs ahold of me, but I take a deep breath and take the plunge. I have nothing to lose but my ego, and maybe that’s something I need to kick to the curb anyway. With a small tremble in my lips, I look into Christopher’s eyes and tell him the absolute, god’s honest truth. “I don’t trust myself and I don’t trust the way you make me feel.”
Surprise flickers in his gaze, but his grip around my waist tightens. “What about me, Ash? Do you think you can trust me?”
I lick my dry lips. “I want to. Deep down I think I can, but I have a horrible track record with men and I always make the wrong choices. I don’t trust my judgment. I’m scared I’m just fooling myself.”
I brace myself, waiting and ready for him to pull away. Because that’s what I expect from men. Anything beyond fun and sex and they pull away. But if that’s who Christopher is, how he really feels about me, I need to know now. That I’m willing to face what might be a harsh truth, to walk away because I want something more or better, is progress. Not the progress I was expecting on this trip, but progress nonetheless.
I swallow.
His hands move up my back, but instead of releasing me, he presses closer, before settling his hands on my hips. “Tell me about the guy that hurt you.”
Tears fill my eyes and while I hate them, I don’t hide them. “I don’t want to. It makes me sound so dumb, and I don’t want you to think about me that way.”
He drops his head and presses his forehead against mine. “It won’t. All I want is to understand you. To know you.”
I swallow hard and take a risk. “Okay.”
Christopher
“Can we go sit?” Ashley trembles in my arms and all I want to do is wrap her up and protect her forever.
But some instinct tells me that’s not what she needs, and if I want her, I’m going to need to hear this story. That she needs to get it out so it can stop having power over her.
I nod, release her, before taking her hand. We make our way to the shoreline and sit on the sandy beach, close enough that the water laps over our feet, keeping us cool in the hot sun. She bends her knees and curves her arms around them, looking out into the vast blue ocean.
Protecting herself so she can continue. She blows out a deep breath. “I’m not sure there’s much to tell. I met Trevor my junior year of college and convinced myself it was love at first sight. He was a typical frat guy, and all he really wanted from me was a hookup. I was so infatuated with him, every time he decided to pay me the least bit of attention I was like an eager puppy at the dinner table, looking for any stray scraps that came my way.”
I instantly understand the kind of relationship she meant. Although I wasn’t sure you can call it a relationship. Xavier had girls like that, girls that would jump the second he called. Girls he could pick up the phone and they’d drop whatever they were doing and come over and do all sorts of salacious acts to prove to him they were better than all the rest.
She never was. X never gave those girls a moment’s thought when he wasn’t with them.
That one sentence is all Ashley needs to tell me to show me the cycle she’d put herself through, and how it had worn her down until that’s who she believed herself to be.