19. INSECURITY

19

INSECURITY

W aking up in bed alone, sweating, with sticky thighs, was not how Charlotte envisioned her morning going. She felt like someone had dragged her body over a cheese grater. Parts of her she didn't know existed ached.

She rolled onto her stomach and shoved the covers off. Sunlight beat down on her naked body while she buried her face in a pillow that smelled of orange Creamsicle ice cream, replaying last night's events in her mind.

She slept with Aiden. Not only in the literal sense, but also in the spread-her-legs-and-beg-for-a-thorough-dicking sense.

Not that she begged with her words, but she clearly remembered her lower half trying to attach itself to his before their clothes ever came off.

At first, she only intended to check on him after he jolted awake from a nightmare. It was only one of two times she'd witnessed him wake up frightened. What she didn't intend, or expect, was for him to roll over on top of her and turn her into a needy mess with a single kiss.

What was it about kissing him that caused her to cease all rational thought?

He wasn't always gentle, either.

He handled her one minute like she was the most fragile piece of glass, deserving of complete care, the next using her like he wanted to devour her very being.

The experience left her feeling a little shaken.

She eased herself up from the bed and walked on unstable legs to the bathroom.

Her core ached, but in a good way.

Aiden wasn't little, in all the ways that counted—it was like she could still feel him inside her. The aching reminder of the hard and rough treatment of her vagina made her shiver. Was it too soon for a repeat?

No, Charlotte. One time is one too many.

Once she finished peeing, she walked back into her room, determined to get clothes and take a shower to wash away the dried cum on her legs.

The sight that greeted her in the mirrored closet door stole her breath.

A dark, angry hickey in shades of purple and red formed a ring on the side of her breast, marring her otherwise unblemished skin. Another further down her body beneath her navel and above her pubic bone had mottled yellow around it. It looked like a cluster of bites and places where he'd sucked her skin.

Her eyes trailed over her hips, noting the finger-shaped bruising that darkened where his fingertips would have buried themselves in her flesh. A delicious shudder passed through her as she felt his phantom touch when she traced her fingers over the markings.

She had never surrendered herself to someone so completely. Let someone mark her. When her ex-boyfriend had wanted to put a hickey on her, she told him if he ever wanted to kiss her again, he would think twice.

Her eyes moved up to her neck.

A large bruise was forming on the side that she would need to cover with makeup when she went to visit her advisor, and maybe once she returned home, if it still lingered. She didn't need her mothers asking questions.

She squinted and leaned in to examine the mark on her neck. Is that dried blood? There weren't any bite marks to show he broke the skin, but a hickey could break skin. She learned that from one of the other servers at the diner.

She slid open the closet and stepped inside, grabbing a pair of dark-wash denim shorts and a short-sleeved floral blouse with a peplum bodice. Stepping out to grab a pair of panties and bra from her drawers, she froze when Aiden came her way from the kitchen.

Her body temperature rose as his eyes did a slow descent, inspecting his handiwork. When his heated gaze reached her thighs, where the sticky evidence lay drying on her skin, his nostrils flared, and his eyes turned outright molten.

"I'm on the shot," she blurted.

His gaze flew up to hers, surprise coloring his features. All signs of a possible round two evaporated.

"I'm on birth control," she said, slowing her words. "You don't have to worry." Her hands tightened around the clothes she held. "And um. I'm clean," she added, looking away from him. "I haven't gotten tested, but I haven't had sex since high school. I got tested back then after my ex and I split up. So, yeah. Clean. "

She hadn't slept with her ex without a condom. Aiden was the first to go bare, but she still made sure she hadn't caught anything. While she didn't think her ex would cheat, it didn't mean he hadn't caught it before her. He wasn't a virgin when he took her virginity.

The feel of fingers clasping her chin and turning her face caught her off guard.

Aiden looked down into her eyes. "How are you feeling?"

Of all the things she expected, concern for her feelings wasn't it. Maybe anger they hadn't used a condom. Awkwardness that she still had his cum on her legs. But concern about her well-being? He kept surprising her.

"I'm okay. Sore." When his lips flattened and turned down at the corners, she quickly added, "Good sore, I promise."

"I still don't like you hurt. I'm sorry I was rough." His fingers traced her jaw, running down the side of her neck over the bruising. "I should have taken my time."

Wait. He called worshiping her body and making her feel like the most cherished living being alive before he dickmatized her not taking his time? She wondered what taking his time looked like… No. Stop that.

She cleared her throat. "I should-I should go clean up. I have to meet my advisor today and tell her my decision. She has open office for consultations on Saturdays. It's the best day to get in."

Scurrying out of the room like he could see the doubts hanging over her like a black cloud, she locked herself in the bathroom and turned on the shower.

Last night made her feel things. Things she didn't want to feel. It made the emotions she pushed down to avoid admitting the truth rise to the surface and threaten to drown her.

She wanted to be with Aiden .

Swiping the tear from her cheek, she stepped into the shower.

Wanting something and being good enough to have it were two very different things; it was a gap she couldn't close.

The breeze made the sage green floral maxi dress flutter around her ankles and the wind chimes on the porch tinkle and sway.

It took a week to take care of everything in Athens, but it felt good to finally be back in Rosebrook Valley. Back home, where the smell of magnolias carried on the breeze and Spanish moss swayed from live oaks all around town. It settled something restless inside her that hadn't relaxed in three months since she'd been away.

Aiden stood with her outside the small three-bedroom, two-bathroom house she called home sweet home her entire life.

Vertical white siding made up most of the exterior walls of her childhood home, with board and batten gray shutters. Brick and thick wooden columns accented the covered porch.

Simple shrubs and lilyturf that required little upkeep lined the front of the house. Her mothers weren't home often enough to look after elaborate flowerbeds like other houses on the street, so this was their way of having something nice with minimal effort. The lilyturf plants added a pop of color amid a sea of green.

They walked up the paved walkway to her porch. Aiden carried a large box of her necessities, like her bathroom products and gaming consoles, while she rolled a suitcase full of clothes and carried a backpack with her books on her shoulder.

He set down the box, then returned to the car for more. She knocked on the glass of the exterior door. The inner wooden door stood wide open, offering her a dim glimpse into the home's interior.

Moments later, her mom came into view. Her smile brightened, crow's feet wrinkling the corners of her eyes when she opened the door. "I'm so glad you're home," she said, pulling Charlotte forward in a warm embrace, making her drop her backpack.

Her mom's bangle bracelets clinked together as she pulled back and held Charlotte at arm's length, looking her over. The way her mom's lips pressed together in a disapproving way made Charlotte's shoulders tense.

Her mom's bronze skin looked radiant under the sunlight. She didn't look a day over thirty, despite pushing fifty.

Dark eyes settled on Charlotte's face, and a soft sigh escaped. "You're not well."

She never knew how her mothers did it, but they had an uncanny ability of knowing when she wasn't at her best. Maybe it came from being together for years, or maybe it was a mother's intuition—if that were possible without blood relations.

"Good to see you too, Mom."

"I didn't mean that as an insult, sweetheart. You don't look sick or unsightly, just… a hunch. Come in, let's talk." She motioned with her hand to the open door, silver rings catching in the sunlight. "Hurry inside before Molly gets out."

"Molly? I didn't know you had a sister."

Charlotte turned as Aiden approached with another box. "Molly is Ma's cat. The owner abandoned her at the clinic, and they fell in love with each other."

Her mom's warm laughter made her smile. "It was love at first sight, that's for sure." She looked at Aiden, a soft smile lighting up her face. "Little fire. It's good to see you."

Her mom once told them the name Aiden meant "little fire" and held roots in Irish mythology.

"Mrs. Walsh," Aiden said with a confident smile .

It warmed something inside of Charlotte to see him so relaxed. When he first met her mom, Aiden acted cagey. Skittish. Nervous. When she asked him why, his anxiety grew until he finally admitted he felt like her mom could see through him.

She didn't mock him or even say it wasn't believable, because like earlier, her mom picked up on things others didn't and had a knack for reading people.

"I've told you time and time again to call me Sara. It gets confusing when Liz is around and you're calling us both Mrs. Walsh."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, his hand moving to the back of his neck in a gesture Charlotte had seen plenty of times before.

"Come on. Let's get this stuff to my room. I don't wanna leave my computer in the car too long in this heat."

Aiden picked up one box and followed her into the living room.

The space looked the same as she remembered it. A large sectional couch covered in throw blankets and a ton of pillows in a variety of bold colors formed an L-shape around a large, square coffee table decorated with tiny plants and candles in cute gemstone holders.

"That's Molly," she said, pointing to the long-haired black Persian cat sauntering into the room from the kitchen. The cat walked up to them, brushed herself along Aiden's leg, and then sashayed away to the front corner of the living room, jumping up onto her custom cat tree her mothers commissioned.

They had it designed like an actual tree growing in the corner of the room with carpeted platforms in various places for climbing, scratching, and lounging. The tree had one long branch with a flat surface to allow Molly to lord over her loyal subjects. The platform branch spanned one wall of the living room, passing over the entertainment center decorated with more candles and plant life, and another went in the opposite direction over the bay window facing the front yard.

"Will you be joining us for dinner, Aiden?" her mom called from the kitchen as Charlotte led Aiden toward her bedroom.

His gaze met Charlotte's, his brows flexing, indecision crossing his face. She chose to save him from the awkwardness. She didn't want him to stay if he didn't want to be around. His job was done. He got her home safely.

"I think he probably needs to settle in back at the academy before he does anything like that." She gave him a tight smile. "Isn't that right?"

"Yeah, I haven't seen Riley yet. She's going to give me an earful."

Her mom frowned, placing the romaine heart she took from the refrigerator onto the cutting board. She peered across the kitchen island separating her from where they stood. "Why would she do that? She sees you every day."

Discomfort settled in Charlotte's chest, tightening behind her sternum. She hadn't told her parents that Aiden had stayed with her yet. She forgot to mention it when she called and said she was coming home, only mentioning Aiden was going to drive her. She planned to explain everything once she settled in.

Sighing, she said, "It's a long story. I want to explain it when both of you are here."

Her mom hummed an acknowledgment, looking satisfied with the answer—for now. She returned to the refrigerator. "It's taco night." She straightened, holding two tomatoes. "Did you want soft or hard shells?"

"Both?"

Her mom smiled. "Both, it is."

Charlotte led Aiden into her room, her shoulders slumping as she crossed the threshold. The happiness she felt at being home burst like a bubble, evaporating into nothingness.

"What's wrong?" he asked, placing the box on the floor near the foot of her full-sized bed.

She climbed across the bare mattress to pull back the sheer black curtains that matched the black and silver celestial bedding she'd taken to her apartment. Opening the window to let in air to refresh the room after her absence, she turned to him and sat on the bed.

"I forgot to mention you were staying with me. All the times we spoke before I told them I was coming home, it never dawned on me to say anything."

Aiden's jaw muscle twitched. "You don't have to tell them. About me, I mean. You should definitely tell them about what's going on though."

"You don't want them to know?"

"I don't want to cause you any problems." He smoothed a hand over the side of his neck. "I'm gonna go get your computer and the other box I left on the porch." Without another word, he turned away and left her sitting there, confused and more than a little hurt.

He hadn't brought up their night together once in the last week, not since the morning he'd checked on her before her shower. Nor had he attempted to make any physical contact. Not even a hug. It was like he made a concentrated effort to put as much physical distance between them as possible.

It hurt.

What hurt more was that he acted like everything was fine—at least until they returned home. He had been attentive. Talkative. Anticipated her needs before she realized she needed something. It was like he was overcompensating for distancing himself.

All of it would be fine if she hadn't become so attached. If she didn't see the heat in his eyes at night when she got ready for bed. She didn't understand what held him back, beyond what she suspected would be a problem. He came from a different lifestyle than she did. Expectations and lineage.

She tried to tell herself it was all in her head. Insecurity. He wasn't the type to act that way, but she didn't know how else to explain the sudden shift.

Did he regret sleeping with her?

As they crossed into town, he seemed to grow colder, more distant than before. It was a side to him she'd never experienced, and it made her regret ever sleeping with him.

Of course the best sexual experience of her life gifted her with the most painful memories.

She stood and walked over to the desk on the left wall of her room, sweeping dust off with her hand to clean a spot for her computer accessories. She wouldn't get new plants to decorate. After the break-in, she didn't replace them, but now it seemed pointless. She didn't know how long she would be in town. If she were honest, she didn't care anymore.

Aiden came back into the room carrying the smaller box, setting it on top of the long dresser with an attached mirror on the right wall before turning and leaving again to get her computer.

He wouldn't even make eye contact anymore.

If this was how the solstice changed her life, she didn't like it one bit. She wanted the old Aiden back, if she had to choose between the him now and what she had before.

She took a long, slow inhale through her nose, counted to ten, and exhaled through her mouth. Her eyes stung.

After another few minutes, he returned with her computer, setting it on her desk and rubbing at his breastbone in quick, hard sweeps.

"Are you okay? "

He swung his head to look at her. His narrowed eyes looked red and glassy.

She took a tentative step toward him. "What's wrong?"

"I need to go," he said, voice thick and strained. He sounded like he was about to cry. She'd never heard him sound like this.

"Wait." She reached for him, but he pushed around her and strode out the door without a backward glance.

When she heard the front door shut, she didn't move. She dropped her hand to her side and stood frozen, staring at the empty doorway he disappeared through.

How had she messed up so much?

She didn't want him to hate her.

Did he?

"So what's the big news?"

Charlotte looked across the small, four-person dining table at her ma. She still wore her scrubs from the clinic, and her mousy brown hair was in a messy bun at the nape.

"I wanted to wait for you both to be home before I told you what I planned to do for school."

Her mom placed her half-eaten taco on her plate. "I was confused when you wouldn't tell us why you were coming home."

An undignified snort sounded across the table. "You weren't confused." Her ma looked at Charlotte. "As soon as we hung up the phone, I had to distract Sara from driving up there to see what was going on with you."

Her mom waved her hand, the clink of her metallic bangles filling the air. "It wasn't that bad, Liz."

"She was a mess. Swore something bad was happening. "

"Don't discount my intuition. Something happened, didn't it?"

Charlotte looked between her mothers. It had been so long since she watched their playful banter that tears filled her eyes as homesickness crashed into her with force.

"Sweetheart?"

"Char?"

Chairs scraped, and comforting, familiar arms wrapped around her. She sobbed like a baby. Her mothers cooed and rubbed her hair and cheeks.

"I missed y'all so much," she said, hiccupping.

"We missed you too, sweetheart." Her mom wiped Charlotte's left cheek. The bandage around her fingertip, likely from a sewing needle, scraped Charlotte's skin.

Her ma took the chair to her right, forgetting her plate on the other side of the table to sit next to Charlotte instead of her wife. "Tell us what's going on."

The dam had broken. She told them everything about her homesickness, how she wanted to do a program to be able to help with the businesses, but there were no options local to them where she could commute. How she planned to take a break until fall and make a final decision on what to do then. She needed time. She wasn't ready.

She told them about Aiden and how he stayed with her.

Her ma assumed the reason was to keep her company while she finished up her coursework to help with her homesickness. While she didn't lie, she didn't correct the assumption.

She even told them about starting antidepressants again because it got so bad.

The two things she didn't tell them about were her stalker and what she saw in the alley. They already looked concerned for her.

"I just wish you told us how much you hated accounting before now," her ma said. Her pale cheeks appeared flushed. If anyone were to look at her, they would think she felt anger, but her mild rosacea always flared up when she felt stress, giving her a deep blush on her cheekbones. "We could have helped you figure something else out."

"I didn't want to bother you."

A smooth, tanned hand covered hers. "That's what we're here for."

She was glad now she pushed through the midterms. If she hadn't, and left earlier than now, all the time she spent feeling terrible would have been for nothing.

"There aren't any schools around, really," her mom said. "I don't think you should go back, though. If this is a homesick thing, it'll happen again. Even if you went to Atlanta to be closer, you would still need to move. It's still three hours away."

"What about Savannah State?" her ma asked.

Both Charlotte and her mom looked up at that.

"You could attend and be close enough to commute," her ma explained. "We're twenty minutes outside of Savannah. What's another fifteen to the other side of town?"

Charlotte picked at the shell of her taco, breaking little pieces off. "I completely missed that place. I thought the only local options were the art school or Blackthorn Academy." There wasn't a lot of reason to keep looking after qualifying for grants to attend UGA for their accounting program. She didn't think she needed to. If she had looked harder, would she have found Savannah State? Had she seen it and forgotten?

Standing from the table, her mom tucked her long black hair behind her ear. "I wondered why you didn't apply to the academy." She walked over to the kitchen, grabbed another can of Diet Coke from the refrigerator, and then placed it on the table. "Rumors or not, Blaire goes there. Aiden and Riley, too. Why not apply to go with them?" She picked up the pan in the center of the table, carrying it to the stove to warm up the now cold meat.

"That's not a bad idea." Her ma looked at Charlotte. "Do they have any business-related courses?"

She looked between her mothers, not sure how to answer their questions. She didn't want them to be ashamed of the fact she wasn't good enough to get into the school. No one was.

There was a reason the rumors existed.

The only local she knew to get accepted was Blaire, and only because someone handed her a scholarship on a silver platter. Charlotte still didn't understand how that happened. She only knew she wouldn't be so lucky.

Even Aiden's family wasn't from Rosebrook Valley. According to Riley, her family moved to town from Atlanta when Aiden was a toddler. She didn't know if others from the academy were local or not. Lukas's family was from Finland, and Riley told her Seth and Kai's family was German. She didn't know as much about Layla, and never asked where Mera came from.

Local families attempted to enroll their kids into Blackthorn Academy. Both into the college campus in town and the lower grades placed in what they called branch schools located outside of town.

If students from the private prep school, Magnolia Heights, couldn't do it, she didn't stand a chance.

"I don't even know what course to take," she said, diverting attention from not applying to Blackthorn. She could look into Savannah State to avoid further questions.

"For now, we'll keep your apartment. It's only another month and a half until the fall semester, right?" her ma said, sliding her plate across the table.

Charlotte nodded .

"Then it isn't much difference to deal with the cost. It'll save time in case you change your mind. In the meantime, you should check into Savannah State and see if they have something that appeals to you more here."

Her mom brought the pan back to the table and placed it on the heat mat. "Blackthorn Academy, too."

"Okay," Charlotte mumbled.

No way to avoid that one.

As they refilled new tacos, she realized that despite everything feeling strained between Aiden and her, it felt good to be home. Unfortunately, that made the idea of returning to the empty apartment in Athens alone even more daunting.