Stars in Your Eyes(63)

“I don’t know if it’s feeling sorry for yourself. It’s self-compassion, maybe. That’s okay, too, isn’t it?”

I shrug, eyes closed. “People say I’m just playing the victim.”

“You are a victim,” he says. “It’s like you’ve been in survival mode your entire life. It’s okay to—I don’t know, grieve that.”

Shit. I can feel tears growing. I don’t want to go down that path. “The only reason you stuck around is because you were told to. It was a job.”

He nods. “Yeah. That’s true. I probably wouldn’t have given you as much of a chance as I should have, if it weren’t for this publicity stunt. But I’m glad I had to. I’m glad I got to know you, to see you. I would’ve missed out on you, Logan.”

I can’t answer him. I don’t trust myself to speak, because if I do, I might release all the emotion I’m struggling to keep in. It’s enough to be vulnerable by inviting Matt to my family’s vacation home, to talk about all this crap, without me starting to sob in front of him, too.

I guess it doesn’t matter. He can tell I’m about to cry anyway.

He takes my hand. “I’m not going to leave.”

I don’t answer him.

“You trust that, right?” he says. “I’m not going to leave you. Not unless you want me to.”

I rub my free hand over my face, keep it over my eyes so I don’t have to look at him. “How do you know that?”

“I don’t,” he tells me. “But getting to know you. Falling in love with you. That means learning to accept all of you. If I accept you, I don’t see why I would ever want to leave.”

“You could get sick of me.” I swallow, letting my hand drop. “I could—I don’t know, hurt you. Push you away again.”

Matt bites his lip. “You could work your way through it. Talk to me, if you’re feeling that way.”

I could, sure. The question is whether I will, or if I’ll feel so trapped in my head that I won’t be able to.

Mattie rubs the back of his neck. “I should be honest about what I need to work on, too,” he says. “I’m always preaching at you to open up, right?”

“Yeah.”

He takes a breath. “I feel like I start to lose myself, after a while. Wanting to make sure you’re all right. I stop thinking of my own needs, and I start to forget my own feelings. It’s like I’m becoming a shell of a person sometimes. I don’t think that’s healthy for me.”

This is new. I sit straight up, listening, still unable to look at him. Yeah, I want his honesty—but I can’t ignore the fear, either. The fear twisting through me, making it just a little harder to breathe. I’m toxic, so toxic I’m starting to fuck up Mattie’s life, too. I’m hurting him just by being in pain, just by asking for his help.

Matt plays with my fingers. “We need to be honest with each other, right? This scares me so much. You’re afraid I’m going to leave you—but I’ve been just as afraid that you’ll push me away again.”

“I mean.” I shrug. “I don’t know, Matt. I might. I don’t know what I will and won’t do. I can’t promise you anything. You get that, right? I can’t promise you I won’t mess up, if we were actually going to try to…make this, whatever this is, work.”

“But that’s a relationship, isn’t it?” he asks. “Making mistakes and trying to learn from them together.”

“Is that what you want?” I ask him.

“Yes,” he says, without even a pause. “I want to be in a relationship with you. A real one. Not just this publicity stunt.”

I close my eyes. It really is easier, talking this through without looking at Matt. “Maybe it’ll be worth trying, you and me.”

I feel him lean closer. When we kiss, our lips linger. We haven’t kissed like this in a while—slowly at first, growing more intense with every breath. Matt pulls back. He rests his mouth against my neck and breathes. “I want to slow down,” he says. “I don’t want to feel like we’re only connected through sex.”

That’s also new. Not for Matt, but for anyone who has ever been with me. People have only ever been interested in me for sex. It’s uncomfortable, maybe too new, to sit here with Matt, arms around each other, touching without the goal of ending up in bed.

“Can we stay like this?” he whispers.

I resent him a little, too. I don’t want to be coddled, just because of the shit I’ve been through. “I don’t need you to protect me from sex,” I say.

He jerks back, eyes wide. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I wasn’t trying to protect you. It just felt nice, to be here with you without…”

I don’t know why the moment’s shifted, why this doesn’t feel okay. Maybe I’m too used to feeling like my only value is my body. It’s almost like a security blanket, I guess. Having sex with people to feel like they need me, want me, won’t abandon me. That’s pretty sad.

“Don’t you want to have sex?”

He’s watching me too carefully. “Yes, but we don’t have to.”

I lean in closer. “But I want to.”