Page 103 of Give Me a Shot

“What?” he asked.

“ ‘Seeking physical pleasure,’ ” she said flatly. She was stockstill. Her hands hadn’t budged from where she’d curled them, arms and legs in the exact same position. Not a single strand of her hair had shifted from where it had come to rest when she’d sat down. There was something about that utter stillness thatModid not like,but he couldn’t understand what it was communicating.

“Not at all,” he said. “I, um…I had been concerned aboutyou.Where your mind and emotions were. It was just tough to bring it up because I didn’t want you to think I was doubting your ability to know your own mind.”

She crooked an eyebrow. Mo had wanted to move forward and hug her, but the flash over his skin held him in place.

“You’re sure?” she asked.

“I’m sure,” he said. “You just said that your mother was right,” he added, needing to get the focus off him. “What do you mean?” He took the risk to take her hand gently.

“She said I bottle things up, stuff them away, refuse to deal with them,” Jess said, returning her gaze to the coffee table. “Another way of saying I refuse to grieve.” Fat tears began to roll down her cheeks. Mo dared to squeeze her hand. She didn’t squeeze back.

“Cassie…said I should grieve, too. It’s okay for me to do it. I’m not accepting a life without her just because I let myself grieve,” Jess said. “So, I’m going to.”

“That’s great,” Mo said, smiling.

She raised her head, meeting his eyes. But the distance in her gaze shot a foreboding, prickly chill all over his skin.

“Then I can’t do this anymore,” she said.

“Do what?” he asked, his voice scratchy. And then finally, she moved. She slipped her hand out from under his and pointed back and forth between them.

“This,” she said. “Us.”

Usually, Jess detested being wrong. At that moment, a deep loathing at being right wrapped itself around her, squeezing into her skin. She had felt like it would tear her soul to ribbons if she faced her grief, had walked into it. Looking at Mo, she knew she’d only scratched the surface of her pain.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

I don’t either,she wanted to say.

—

She’d made her way home the day before, collapsing on her couch as the sun was setting. The little spark of hope that had stuck with her after she’d cleaned herself up and gotten behind the wheel flickered out as she pulled into her driveway. Inside, the bawling had begun. Deep, wrenching cries as powerful as the ones that had thrown her to the ground in the cemetery forced her to run to her bathroom and cling to her toilet bowl. Once the retching had stopped, she slid to the floor, her gaze catching on a cracked ceiling tile. She’d understood that the path ahead of her was going to be ugly, embarrassing, and painful to live through. It would be even more so for a Highly Sensitive Man to experience by her side.

She drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around her legs and hugging herself tightly. Mo was watching her carefully.

“Do you remember, when you came over with the chorba?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said, eyes guarded.

“You told me you couldn’t eat any. Because I was upset.”

“That’s true,” he said, his eyebrows coming together.

She took a breath but couldn’t maintain eye contact with him. She let her gaze fall to his hands.

“Things are going to be difficult for a while,” she said. “Very ugly and difficult. I don’t want to subject you to that emotional ride. I don’t want you to get flooded with what I’m going through and have it impact you.”

“Isn’t that kind of my choice to make?” he asked.

“It could be,” she said. “But I know that I won’t be able to really commit to letting myself feel all the grief and the pain if I’m worried that you’re going to feel it, too. I’m not going to make you starve yourself so that I can heal.”

Mo didn’t say anything else. He shifted hard into the couch, like he’d been holding himself tight for too long.

“And even…” She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. This next part would be painful to say, she wanted to get it out in one fell swoop. “Even if I try not to run to you to avoid the pain, I may do it without realizing I am. Which might ruin any progress. Plus, I don’t know how to trust myself to be around you. What if I think I’m acting out of healthy motivations when I’m not? Until you said something about it, I wouldn’t have thought that I was using sex to escape. It’s better to remove the possibility so I’m forced to face the pain. And while I am, while I’m living it, I don’t want to harm you.”

Mo sighed, then looked up at her. The tears in his eyes clawed at her heart.

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