Page 77 of Sugar and Skulls

In this moment I realize that I’ve been acting mean to keep people away. To prevent people from taking what’s mine. To ensure everyone stays at arm’s length. Until now. But, that’s not what I want from Dirk…from Raffe. I want them to hold me. To love me. Oh god.

He reads the emotions playing out over my face like an open book.

I turn away from him and crawl on the bed concealing my face in a pillow. I’m so embarrassed and confused. Something breaks inside of me. I don’t know if it’s my will, my heart, or my strength because right now I don’t feel I have any of those things.

“Jesse,” the bed shifts as Dirk sits beside me. “Raffe and I cannot give you what you are wanting right now. I didn’t say it would never happen.”

He lays his hand gently on my back.

“Talk to me, Jess.”

“I’m sorry. I know all this is wrong. I’m wrong. There is something wrong with me. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong,” I hiccup through my tears.

“There’s nothing wrong with you.” His hand continues to tenderly caress me. “I think it best if we go back to the warehouse. Your dad is missing you.”

“I don’t want to go back. Just leave me here,” I mumble into the pillow.

He climbs over me so that he can stretch out beside me on the bed. I keep my face buried.

“We can stay if that’s what you need.”

“I need things to make sense.”

He chuckles lightly. “The world rarely makes sense, Jesse.”

I turn my head, laying my cheek on my folded arms. “I don’t want to be mean anymore.”

“Awe, Jess.” He closes his eyes. When he opens them again they are calm blue. “You don’t have to be mean with Raffe or I. You don’t have to be mean to anyone in the club. No one is going to take anything away from you. Okay?”

Nodding I roll on my side to face him. We stare at each other for a long time. This Dirk is different from the one I normally see. He dropped his mean. Maybe I can drop mine.

“I can’t tell anymore.”

“What can’t you tell?” he asks brushing my hair away from my face.

“Who I can trust and who I can’t. Sometimes I think the world is after me. I don’t know what it is about me.”

His eyes roam over my face. “It’s not you. It’s them. They are sick. You just happened to walk into their sights.” He rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling. “You have a natural instinct, Jesse. Think about it. You knew to trust Dan. You knew your friend William was good, despite what that priest asked him to do to you. You knew, Jesse.” He turns back to me. “You know.”

I sit up and hug my knees. “If I hadn’t met you that day in the school parking lot I don’t think I would have survived. There wouldn’t have been anything left of me for my father to find. Every time I had to do something hard, I thought of you.”

Dirk swallows and turns his eyes back to the ceiling.

“I keep trying to be mean, to be tough but I’m so tired.”

“Then stop fighting. Let us take the wheel for a while. It doesn’t mean your weak.”

They’ve already taken the wheel. I’m fighting just for the sake of fighting at this point. Dirk flicks his lip ring while waiting for a response. God he’s hot. I drag my eyes away from him. “Are you and Raffe taking care of me because of my dad? Because of the club?”

He reaches for me, using my locked arms as leverage to pull himself to a sitting position. His eyes level with mine. “I don’t do anything I don’t want to. Iwantto take care of you.”

I blink a few times trying to look away. There’s that funny feeling again. Like a moth to a flame I’m drawn to the this man. “I don’t understand this…” I motion between the two of us.

He smiles. “You were made for me, Jesse. The only woman in the world who is worthy of standing by my side. I knew it the minute you fell out of Dan’s window.”

I turn my head away. “I didn’t fall. I climbed out gracefully.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

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