Page 41 of Our Secrets and Scars

“That’s fair.”

“Oh shit.” I shoot up, eyes wide as I realize the time. “I made you miss your class.”

But he doesn’t seem mad about it or even upset. He just runs his gaze over my body, breathing in the sight of me naked and sleepy in his bed. “You’re a bad influence, little one.”

I relax back down into the sheets with a smile on my face. “The worst.”

“Go back to sleep. I’ll be back around nine.”

I’m dreaming before he even leaves the apartment.

I don’t sleep for long.

It’s different being in Holden’s bed without him. Even though the smell of him is everywhere, laced into the linen of his bedding and hanging from every particle in the air around me, it’s not the same as having his skin against mine and the gentle beating of his heart beneath me as I lie with my head on his chest.

I miss him.

It’s a weird feeling. Not because I’m unused to the feeling of missing someone, but because I didn’t realize that I feel strongly enough about Holden to warrant such an emotion. My aching soul suggests otherwise.

And that scares me. Because I’m in no position to offer him a piece of my heart. Even if I was, as soon as I show him my scars and he sees who I really am, he won’t want anything to do with me, and I just can’t take that kind of rejection.

Not after Fletcher.

I gave that man four years of my life. I poured my entire essence into the words I wrote to him. I scratched my soul into every letter, whispered my secrets into every envelope, and sealed them all with a prayer to meet him one day for real.

I thought I was as important to him as he was to me.

But I’m not.

And I can’t go through the pain of losing someone again. My sister died, my friends deserted me, and Fletcher cut me off without a word as if I never meant anything to him at all. I refuse to put myself in a position to be abandoned again.

So, I’ll talk to Holden when he gets back and make sure he understands that whatever this is between us is all it can be. Maybe that makes me weak, I don’t know. But there are only so many times a heart can break before it stops beating entirely, and if anyone can fracture mine for the final time, it’s Holden.

Stopping this thing between us before it goes too far is the right thing to do, so why does it feel so wrong? Why does my stomach turn like I’m forcing myself to do something I don’t want to do?

I sit up in bed and take in my surroundings. Earlier, I was too distracted by Holden and what he was planning for me to take much notice of where I am. But I look now. I take it all in. The place where Holden sleeps and lives is all that surrounds me, and I have to fight the spiraling urge to snoop around.

Naturally, it isn’t long before I give in. I start where I am, taking in the gray bedsheets that match the color of his eyes, the bare wooden floors, and black furniture. The walls are all exposed brick, fading in color and crumbling in places. There’s little to no décor or personal touches, aside from a framed poster of a Rumi quote.

“The wound is the place where the light enters you.”

The words steal the very breath from my lungs. For a long while, I stand rooted to the spot, staring at that one sentence hanging on the wall. The tattoo on my side itches, and I absentmindedly run my fingers over it. I remember the way it stung as Holden engraved the words “scars are stories” into my skin, and I wonder if he’s downstairs tattooing his initial onto some other girl’s skin right now.

The thought makes me angry, though I know I have no right to feel that way. Not simply because it’s his job, but because I can’t stake a claim over a man I’m planning to distance myself from.

And there’s that feeling again. Like I’m forcing myself to do something I don’t want to do. It’s the kind of sickness that used to settle in my gut before I gave a class presentation in high school. It makes me want to bury myself under the bedcovers and hide there for the rest of the night.

I don’t understand it at all.

Shaking myself free of the dread nicking at me like mosquito bites, I make my way through to the small kitchen and set about making coffee.

Like the bedroom, the brick walls are bare and unpainted, but there are more decorative touches out here. The furniture is industrial and masculine, with everything made from upcycled materials like old car engines and silver piping. The coffee table in the center of the living room looks to have been constructed from a recycled rubber tire, and the single couch adjacent to it is upholstered in worn brown leather.

I prefer it out here.

It’s more personal than the bedroom. And though it requires a feminine touch to make the best use of the space, it feels like a home.

I can imagine Holden here, sketching designs late into the evening with a beer in one hand and retro indie rock playing quietly from the vintage stereo sitting in the corner. The image makes me smile.

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