Page 87 of Left on Read

“Did I go too far? Was I?—”

“No.” He shook his head emphatically. “No. It wasn’t you. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’ve just never done anything like that, and after I freaked out and got in my head and messed everything up?—”

“You didn’t mess anything up. But are you sure I didn’t do anything to cause the freak out?” I pressed.

He shook his head again. “It was me. I…”

“What?”

“Remember how I told you I didn’t really get into dating until college?” He dropped his eyes to his hands as he wrung them in his lap.

“I remember.”

“The first guy I dated. Or at least thought I was dating. He kind of messed me up.”

Anger rose in my throat, but I bit it back. Now wasn’t the time for my inner caveman to come out.

“He was handsome and charming and said all the right things. I was so amazed that a guy like him wanted anything to do with me that I didn’t see the red flags until it was too late.”

I fought back the rage that joined my anger. The thought of anyone hurting Hayden made my blood boil.

“He strung me along. He was my first everything, but he wasn’t nice to me.”

“Did he hurt you?” I asked before I could tell my mouth to be quiet.

“Not physically.” His neck flushed pink. “He just said a lot of stuff that stuck with me.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?” I made sure to keep my tone soft, even as more rage flowed through me. I’d happily hunt this guy down and beat his ass for hurting Hayden.

“It was mostly little things. Like he said I was a bad kisser and frigid in bed. He kept pushing me to do more, and I was so desperate to not lose him that I did.” He drew in a shaky breath. “One night I got it in my head that I should seduce him, you know, be the aggressor. I thought he’d like it because he kept saying how I needed to do more than just starfish my way through things. I got into it, and I liked it, but after he said it was the worst sex he’d ever had, and he only finished because a tight hole is a tight hole.”

I ground my teeth together so hard my jaw cracked. Thank fuck Hayden was still staring at his hands because I knew my rage face was out in full force.

“He said I was too much work and he’d gotten what he wanted, so he was done with me.”

Unable to just sit there while he was hurting, I rested my hand on his thigh and gave it a gentle squeeze.

He shifted his gaze to my hand, his eyes eerily blank and unfocused. “He wanted my virginity. Ryan found out that he and some other guys were running a game where they had a whole point system for the people they slept with. Virgins gave them a lot of points. It’s been years, but I never really got over it.”

I squeezed his thigh harder. When he finally looked at me, the blankness in his eyes was gone, but the pain left in its wake made my heart ache for him.

“That night on the phone was amazing. I loved every second of it. But after, all I could think about was how I looked and what I said. How I acted. I freaked out because I heard Greg’s voice in my head. Heard all the things he said to me back then, and I convinced myself that you had to be thinking the same things.”

“You know I’d never judge you, right?” Desperation crept into my voice. “I don’t blame you for freaking out because that kind of trauma doesn’t just go away?—"

“I know.” He put his hand over mine. “I never actually thought you were like that. I just needed some time to remind myself I’m not that eighteen-year-old kid anymore.”

“I understand why you couldn’t talk to me about this until now, but I really wish I’d known what was going on so I could have helped. Or at least not made things worse.”

“Yeah, I’m really bad for that. I tend to hide away from people when I’m struggling.” He paused, like he was trying to gauge if he should say more.

I flipped my hand over and threaded our fingers together.

“I’ve spent most of my life dealing with things alone,” he continued, his voice low and raspy. “I wasn’t allowed to be upset when I was a kid. Everyone always told me to suck it up and deal with it. Didn’t matter if I was crying because I broke my wrist or because the kid down the street used to punch me in the back every time he saw me at the bus stop or in the halls at school. I was never allowed to be a kid because everyone expected me to act like an adult as soon as I could talk.

“Any time I got mad about something or tried to tell my family I didn’t like how they were treating me, they told me to calm down and sent me away until I was ready to apologize for my outburst. Didn’t matter if I had a valid reason to be upset. They dismissed everything I said the moment I showed any sort of emotion.”

I forced myself to keep quiet. I had a bad habit of trying to empathize with people by sharing how I’d experienced something similar, but it always came off as centering myself in their story.

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