Page 53 of Play Along

“Kennedy.”

Cautiously, my eyes find his. So much concern on his typically smiling face.

He’s going to figure out eventually that I’m in my thirties and physical touch is still sometimes foreign and uncomfortable for me. That crush he thinks he has on me should disappear soon. It’s for the best. He’ll get over the idea of who he thinks he married once he learns how screwed up I actually am.

“Can I ask you something?” he repeats.

“Fine.”

His voice is soft. “Did someone touch you in a way you didn’t like?”

Oh.

“No,” I quickly reassure him. “No, that’s not it.”

“I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable and sometimes I think I make you uncomfortable.”

May as well lay it all on the line. As I said, it’s for the best that he moves on from the feelings he thinks he has for me.

My attention quickly flicks to his, hoping to memorize the stars in his eyes before they disappear for good. “It’s not that I’ve been touched in a way I didn’t like, it’s that I’ve never really been touched at all.”

Are my cheeks red? They feel warm.

“I don’t understand.”

“I um...” I clear my throat. “I think the first time someone gave me a hug was in college.”

His brown eyes widen. Here we go. This should dispel those supposed feelings he has real quick.

“My upbringing, it’s probably not what you’re used to. My childhood was kind of lonely and isolated. I was raised by nannies and sent to boarding school once I was old enough. Privileged sob story, I know.” I release an uncomfortable chuckle. “I only saw my parents at holidays and social gatherings. I didn’t realize until I was older that hugging and touching is a common part of life. I know it’s weird and I’m weird, but I’m working on it. It’s just that sometimes it surprises me, I guess, when you touch me.”

Here, standing in the dental hygiene aisle of a drugstore in downtown Atlanta, I have a front-row seat to watch Isaiah Rhodes fall out of like with me.

He doesn’t say anything, simply searches my face until finally he asks, “Do you want to be touched?”

I blink. That’s what he has to say? Not, “Now it makes so much sense why you’re such a frigid bitch to me.”

Do I want to be touched? I’ve never been asked that before.

My answer comes out in a whisper. “Yes.”

“By me?”

“Yes.”

His smile is small but genuine. “Okay.”

Isaiah immediately turns back to the wall of toothbrushes, as if I didn’t just tell him I’m an absolute freak.

“The soft bristled ones are up there.” He points to the top right corner of the wall.

That’s it? That was the whole conversation?

“What’s your favorite color?”

Yep, that was the conversation apparently.

“I like neutrals. Black. White. Beige.”

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