Chapter 15

Aro

The tears streaming down my face mix with the spray from the shower, and I lean my forehead into my arm against the wall as the water warms my back.

What is he doing to me?

Making me think I’m special. That I’m important. That kind of thinking is a disease that slowly kills people who are tricked into believing they have a chance. You can’t give hope to someone who can’t afford it.

But I can’t stop the sobs. They wrack my body harder, because I want to believe him. I want to think that I’m more than this and that anything is possible. That high school dropouts can all of a sudden have completely different lives, but that shit is for the movies.

Hope breeds disappointment, and disappointment eats you.

I don’t want to want things I’ll probably never have. It’ll hurt too much. I don’t want to know about the things missing from my life. I’m happier that way.

I wipe the water off my face, feeling the ache inside me. The ache from the damage he’d done just by telling me that I’m stardust. Such a sweet, stupid boy.

I shut off the water and wrap the towel around me, stepping out from behind the tiled wall. I dry my feet on the mat he has there and step toward the sink, the mirror foggy from the steam.

I stare at the counter. “He’s sweet,” I murmur to myself.

He’s self-righteous, a little uppity, condescending, and his playlist could use a serious update, but…

He’s responsible. Honest, compassionate, smart, driven, and he pays attention. He sees things and takes the time to process them.

And he’s sincere. He may have been telling me things I shouldn’t hear in that planetarium, but he meant every word. He didn’t like me thinking badly of myself.

He’s a good man. He won’t hurt anyone on purpose, and he won’t make kids and abandon them. The other men I’ve met in my life—would-be-fathers and classmates and neighborhood assholes—flash in my mind, and none of them are worth a fraction of him.

Whoever he finally falls in love with will have the best.

But I frown, thinking about him finding love and knowing how hard someone like him can fall. She better deserve him. He would never hit a girl, but I’d look forward to doing it for him if she hurt him.

I dry off and pull on a pair of the new underwear his cousin brought. I’m glad she didn’t get cocky and bring me thongs or some shit. Just straight black bikini briefs that actually look great with my skin tone. Not that I worried about that, but I’ll have to thank her. I’ll take it out of what she owes me. I should’ve just taken the money she offered, but I still intend to collect.

I pull on a white T-shirt she loaned me and grab the pair of Hawke’s pajama pants I stole, but before I slide a leg in, I stare at them and then look at my still barely visible reflection in the mirror.

I’d hurt anyone who hurt him. It’s the only thing I’m good for, but I’m good at it.

He needs to toughen up, though. Women are going to roll all over him if he doesn’t stop worrying so much. He needs to learn. To stop overwhelming himself with these panics and just feel it. To know what it’s like to want nothing else but her.

And maybe I want that, too. For just one thing to feel good in my life.

I set the pants down on the bathroom counter, pull my hair out of its clip, and smooth it down around me. It’s still a mess, and I don’t really care.

I head out into the hallway, turn left, and enter the great room. The scent of popcorn lingers in the kitchen, and I see him, slouched on the couch with his back to me, playing a video game.

Above the screen, high on the wall, the painted words reach out and grab me by the neck.

Let us live…

I’m a blip in the universe.

But I’m here.

We’re here.

For now.

“Hawke?” I say.

“Yeah?” He battles hordes of enemies for supremacy of some old, Gothic city.

I inch closer, stopping at the island behind him. “You said you never feel at home with them. With the girls you date, you never feel safe, right?”

His character stops on screen just as a beast charges him.

My heart pounds, but I force out the whisper. “Do you…feel safe with me?”