“Savage, what’s wrong?” He doesn’t open his eyes. He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t move, other than to take rapid, shallow breaths. His entire body shakes violently. His arms tighten around me as he clings to me like a lifeline and his breathing nears hyperventilation.
Holy shit, he is having a full-blown panic attack.
He latches onto me, burying his face against my neck. I hold him close and his chest heaves. The cool clamminess of his skin against mine is unnerving. I’ve never seen someone like this.
Jesus, what the fuck do I do?
“Savage, baby, it’s okay, just breathe.” I try to soothe him, but I have no fucking clue what’s happening, what brought this on, and he’s completely unresponsive.
How the hell do I get through to him?
Asking him what’s wrong does nothing and he fights any attempts for me to pull away. So, I hold him, murmuring reassurances to him for what seems like an eternity while my mind races with every scenario that might have brought this on.
When I finally reach the answer, my heart freezes in my chest.
Sex. It’s sex.
Every single time I’ve tried to take it past fooling around and oral, he makes some excuse or distracts me. I had him practically inside me this time, and he’s having a meltdown over it.
Why? What did I do?
I search every moment we’ve spent together over the last three months for any explanation, but find none.
Eventually, his breathing slows and his body stops shaking. Even then, he maintains his iron grasp on me and refuses to respond to my increasingly concerned questions.
“Savage, what’s wrong? Baby, please talk to me.” I try to pull away again, but he clutches me tighter, preventing me from seeing his face. I don’t need to see it to know he’s crying. My skin is soaked from his tears rolling down from my collarbone onto my breast.
A man like Savage doesn’t cry. At least, not in front of someone. Whatever this is, it’s killing him. I’ve never felt so fucking helpless. There’s absolutely nothing I can do because I don’t even know what the problem is.
Minutes tick by with complete, unnerving silence in the room. His pain hangs heavy in the air but I can’t seem to bring him back from wherever he is.
Come on, Savage. Talk to me.
I beg. I urge him to tell me what’s going on. I try everything with no response.
When he finally shifts, slowly releasing his grip on me and leaning back, relief floods me.
Finally.
His eyes are vacant, red, and puffy, and he doesn’t seem to focus on me, rather, some place behind me in the room.
I take his face in my hands, turning him until his empty eyes meet mine. “Savage, tell me what’s wrong.” He shakes his head and drops onto his back, resting his forearms over his eyes without a word.
Seriously?
Despair and anger create a volatile mix inside me. I slide off his hips and kneel next to him, taking a deep, cleansing breath before I try again.
“You aren’t going to tell me what’s going on?”
No response.
His arms remain draped over his eyes, his body motionless, except for the now-steady slow rise and fall of his chest. I watch him, waiting for him to acknowledge me, acknowledge anything, but he doesn’t, and it becomes abundantly clear to me he has no intention of talking to me about what happened.
Why, Savage? What can’t you just fucking talk to me?
The realization has me clutching my chest against the pain of my heart being torn open. I bite back the sob that threatens to escape. Tears slide down my cheeks before I even realize I’m crying.
“Savage, please talk to me,” I manage to eke out before I sob, “I need you to talk to me.” He doesn’t budge, and as the pain of knowing he can’t confide in me overtakes me, I shift back on the bed, away from him. I slide off the mattress onto shaking legs and have to grab the bedpost to stop from falling forward as another sob echoes in the too-silent room.
“I’m sorry.”
The words are so quiet, I’m not even sure I really hear them. Wiping my eyes, I turn back to the bed and find him in the same position, but his arms have moved up, revealing his red-tinged, hopeless gaze. He looks completely lost, but he won’t take the lifeline I’ve repeatedly offered him.
“Why won’t you talk to me? Please, tell me what’s wrong,” I beg, not even bothering to try to hide my distress.
What does it matter at this point?
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. When he refocuses on me, I know I won’t get an answer. Gone is the Savage who always promised to be an open book, who always said he would be honest with me. All that’s left is a brick wall of silence.
“I’m sorry…I just…can’t,” he whispers.
I drop my head, close my eyes, and try to breathe through the heaving of my chest. When I finally look back at him, a single tear slides from his eye and rolls back down his cheek to his pillow. I know what I need to do, but the pain of actually following through with it may kill me.