Page 55 of Bound

Claire

My heart is still beating from the way he lifted me up and deposited me into his lap, from that show of strength and how he didn’t give a fuck that people might see.

From the gentle way he fed me the petite dessert I should have been too full to eat, but somehow found the space for.

He refused to let me even finish my offer of paying for dinner and then bundled me into my coat, took my hand, grunted his thanks at Kurt (and passed a folded bill to our poor, innocent and now emotionally scarred waiter), and then led me out onto the sidewalk.

We’ve been all over the city today—but the path he’d taken us on was well thought out and flowed.

Case in point?

Only needing to walk a couple of blocks back to our hotel.

“Cold?” he asks as the wind picks up, tucking me closer before I can tell him that I’m fine.

But since I like being here—cuddled against his warm strength, his arm wrapped tightly around me, I don’t protest.“Tell me about your diabetes,” I say. His chest inflates and the pause is so long that I find myself adding, “I mean, I know the basics, but I just…I’d like to know the day-to-day stuff.”

I want to know how it affects his life, how I can make it easier for him.

Want to know the little things so that his plate isn’t so full.

“Or not,” I say when he doesn’t reply. “It’s okay to not want to talk about it. I know I’m being pushy?—”

“No.” He touches my cheek. “It’s strange because it’s my entire life and it’s not—or that’s always what my parents wanted for me. For it to not stop me from doing what I want. And it hasn’t. I’m here. I’m far more affected by what happened when I was in high school?—”

I suck in a breath.

The incident that made him hate me. The incident that made him hate himself.

But he keeps talking and because I’m desperate to know every part of him, I push down any questions and just listen.

“—than I am from diabetes. Has it fucked with my life in a multitude of ways? Yup. Of course it has. I have to wait to eat what I want sometimes. Have to eat when I’m not hungry other times. I’m not supposed to be too low because I might, you know, die, but I also can’t allow my glucose to trend too high because I might, you know, die, albeit more slowly. I’ve heard the jokes about eating too much sugar, heard the whispers about how unhealthy my diet must be, heard the judgments about how I’m managing my diet.”

I wrap my arm around his waist, needing to hug him, needing him to know I’m here.

“I’ve listened to the comments about being on my phone all the time, when I need it because it’s my fucking medical device. I’ve put up with bullshit comments about my pump or CGM beeping. I’ve dealt with all of the not fun stuff that comes fromhaving an invisible, lifelong illness,” he says, drawing me even closer. “But so have so many other people. If anything, it’s been far less ofwhy meand far more of giving me an understanding that we all have these challenges we’re dealing with, so we need to bring more empathy and understanding into this world.”

“That’s why you have the charity?”

He works with local kids who have health challenges.

“Why not me?” He shrugs. “I have the money, and it’s important enough to make the time.”

“And yet, you still don’t recognize how wonderful you are?”

“Kitty cat,” he begins, and it’s dark but the glittering lights of NYC mean that I can see the disbelief in his eyes.

“Don’t.” I turn further into his side, lifting up on tiptoe so I can cup both sides of his face. “All day you’ve been telling me to accept that you’re doing this for me because you like me, because I’m a good person with a good heart, because I deserve it.”

He opens his mouth, but I keep going.

“And so, you can’t do all of that,sayall of that, show me that reality, and expect me to just keep accepting the awful bullshit you spew.”

“Claire.”

“Because itisbullshit, bullshit you use to keep yourself distant from the world, to keep your heart and soul safe. If you don’t ever let anyone all the way in, they can’t hurt you?—”

“I tried that before.”

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