I don’t have the best track record with guys. My last ex, Wilder Mason, was a manipulator, but I was so blindly in love with him that I tricked myself into making up excuses for the way he treated me. I thought it was normal for him to always ask me where I’d be and who I’d been with. I thought it was normal for him to regulate how much I ate and what I wore. I hate my body because of the way he treated me. When I wasn’t in the mood to be intimate with him, he’d guilt-trip me, tell me I was being selfish by not tending to his needs, and convince me that no guy would ever want a girl who wasn’t sex-crazy.
I became Wilder’s puppet, his prisoner. He isolated me from all my friends, even my family. He yearned for control, and my eagerness to please him made me the perfect target for his manipulation. After a while, I wanted out, but I was too afraid to leave. I was afraid of what he would’ve done. I was afraid that he was going to hit me.
When my brother died, Wilder was the only one I could turn to. My relationship with my parents was too strained at the time. But after hearing about Roden’s suicide, he packed up all his things and left. A selfish part of me was relieved to be free of him, but the neglected part of me suffered without a support system. Wilder promised me he’d always be there for me, no matter what happened. That he’d always love me.
I’ve been chasing after love my entire life, wanting that gratification of meaning something to another person. But life doesn’t work that way. People don’t work that way.
Wilder destroyed the hopeless romantic in me. He destroyed my hope for love. And now I stay far away from any of those feelings, because I already know how the story ends. I already know that heartache is waiting for me at the finish line.
As much as I want to let Hayes in, I can’t. I don’t think I’d survive another person abandoning me. First my brother, and then Wilder. The two people I loved most at one point in my life. I hate love. I didn’t used to, but I do.
You either love too little and watch everything you’ve built slip through your fingers like sand in an hourglass, or you love too much, and that heap of sand weighs your chest down until you can’t breathe. Love isn’t black and white. It’s a murky gray, a bleak landscape devoid of effervescent life. And it’s my crucible.
“It’s the least I can do since I ruined them,” I remind him, my hand badgering at the roots of my ratty hair. I feel greasy and disgusting. I haven’t taken a shower in two days, my deodorant has definitely worn off by now, and I’m almost positive I’m rocking a whole raccoon eye look.
Hayes sits down next to me, the mattress giving way to his weight. “You need to stop being so hard on yourself,” he chastises, startling me when he reaches out to hold my hand. The raised scars on his palm send a lance of electricity through my arm, but I don’t pull away.
This is the closest I’ve been to him, so I take advantage of the proximity. Through a sleepy gaze, I memorize every part of him—his ambrosial cologne, his well-defined dimples, the forefront curl in his blond hair, the way his upper canines hang a bit lower than the rest of his teeth, the cerulean ring around his pupils.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” I blurt out, and the minute those words windmill out of me, I want to slap a return to sender sticker on them.
Great. Good going, Aeris.
His seafoam irises turn a deeper shade as he ponders me, spotlighting the veins of gold branching out from his pupils. “Why wouldn’t I be nice to you?” he inquires.
I slam my lips together, withdrawing my arm from his grasp. “Because you don’t know me.”
“What’s your last name?” he asks, his voice sporting a warmth that’s enough to rid the goose bumps on my arms.
“Relera. Why?”
“I’m getting to know you, Aeris. Plus, I need to know the name of the beautiful girl who let me escort her home.”
That line shouldn’t have worked on me…but it did. And I’m not ashamed to admit it.
“What do you do for work?” he continues.
“I’m a content writer for a social media company called Your Ass Is Grass, which specializes in promoting unique vegan recipes,” I say, picking at my wrist—a nervous habit I’ve entertained various times before.
He cocks an eyebrow. “No way. Seriously? That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard,” he remarks, and I can tell he means every word of it.
“It’s not too bad.”
“‘Not too bad’？ Aeris, that’s awesome.”
I manage to untangle the words caught on my tongue. “What do you do for work?”
His teeth lock in place, and he rubs the length of his neck. “I’m, uh…I’m a personal trainer.”
That explains the muscles.
“Look, Hayes, you don’t have to do this. I’m not asking you to talk with me. I can be…a lot…sometimes.”
Ah, and the waterworks are right on time. Despondency wades through my bloodstream, subsequently siphoning all the air out of my lungs. My chest feels tight, my breath is bated, and tears swipe at the backs of my eyes.
“I know. I want to,” Hayes counters. “And I don’t scare easily.”
You should, I say to myself.
But instead, all I offer him is a watery smile. I begin to fumble with the zipper on the back of my corset, but my poor coordination hinders me from making any progress. My arms oscillate around, and I twist aimlessly from side to side, probably looking like a fish out of water.
With a groan, I turn my back to Hayes.
“Can you, uh…can you help me?” I ask timidly, gesturing to the death trap currently cutting off all my circulation. It’s pulled so tight that my boobs are barely contained, swelling over the tops of the sewn-in bra cups.
He gulps thickly, and I catch him blushing out of the corner of my eye. His long fingers make quick work of the zipper. My top is off within the second, and I cross my arms over my exposed chest just as Hayes disappears into the bathroom.
Once I’m in a T-shirt and some sweatpants, I call out to Hayes that the coast is clear. I hear a clanking noise come from the other side of the door, and when he emerges, he’s double-fisting a bottle of Tylenol and a glass of water.
“I, uh, found a glass in your medicine cabinet.” He hands the drink to me, along with a few pills.
“Thanks,” I say, swallowing them back and hoping that they work faster than advertised. The more conscious I become, the more the queasiness flowers.
“Do you have any crackers? Maybe they’ll help with the nausea.”
The acid in my gut sloshes around, and I place a hand on my stomach, as if I’m making some kind of unspoken truce with it. “Crackers probably aren’t the best idea.”
Hayes nods, leaning his shoulder against the wall.
The silence in the room is entirely too loud, but I’m too nervous to say much of anything. I’m afraid I’ll word-vomit on him. Or, you know, actually vomit on him…again.
Finally, after what seems like a millennium, my voice cracks when it tastes the air. “You should probably get going after your clothes dry. I wouldn’t want to keep you.”
Disappointment flashes across his features like a broken roll of film. “Right,” he agrees, though his mouth falls into a hard line.