Page 108 of Deep In Love
“I don’t knowhowto like who I am. Or how to get back the woman I lost.”
Before Amy can respond, a deep voice rattles through the room.
“That’s how you feel about yourself?”
Amy hangs up, and my phone slips from my grip, tumbling onto the floor as I spin to face Mateo, who stands in the doorframe. He blinks, and the sadness that flickers across his gaze is proof he heard every depressing, self-deprecating thought I shared with Amy.
He’s not supposed to know that I hate my reflection and that, some days, it’s easier to pretend I don’t exist than face the world’s icy stares.
Mateo takes a hesitant step into the room, approaching like I’m an injured animal moments away from attack. Maybe I am, because the words “Don’t look at me like that” slip from my mouth, full of vitriol and fear.
“Like what?” he asks, taking another step, closing the space between us.
“Like you pity me.”
I don’t want his pity, nor do I want to be the recipient of the look he offers: one full of understanding.
“Come here, bruja,” he demands quietly, extending a hand. When I make no effort to move, he adds, “Please, Charlie.”
It’s the use of my name in place of his nickname that moves me to place my hand in his, allowing him to pull me into the smallbathroom. There’s barely enough room for us to both stand, and Mateo’s chest is pressed against my back, where the warmth of his skin burrows deep into my bones.
He stares through the mirror until the silence is thick and I’m squirming beneath the intensity of his gaze. Mateo lifts a hand, tenderly tangling his fingers through the loose strands of my hair. I hate how his touch settles the rolling in my stomach, how it only takes one look from him for me to soften into something vulnerable. And I hate how much I need him to help me calm down—that he’s become the rock tethering me to reality.
“I’m not going to tell you you’re pretty,” he murmurs, the confession hanging heavily between us.
My stomach hollows out.
I never asked him to do that, but now he’s telling me he won’t…why does it hurt so much?
“I know what I look like.” The crumbling foundation I’ve been standing on the last few years finally breaks, burying me in the rubble. “I’m mangled.”
The confession is a whisper, and I choke on the rancid memories the words resurrect.
Embarrassment twists tightly in my chest. I don’t know how to look in the mirror and see anything other than what I am: undesirable.
A rogue tear slips out, and I turn to flee, to escape the way my heart clenches knowing how the world views me, but his arm strap me and bracket the sides of the small wash basin.
“I’m not going to tell you you’re pretty, Charlie, because that word falls so short of what you are. You are stunningly beautiful.” His finger trails down the scar cutting across my brow, the touch reverent as he swipes the tear from my cheek. “I could tell you that your eyes remind me of the Caribbean Sea, or how, when you smile, the air is knocked from my lungs.”
I lose the capacity to inhale as he tugs on a few blond strands, twirling them around his pointer finger.
“I could wax poetic about your hair, how I love the wispy bits that fall out of your ponytail, or how it’s a beaming gold beneath the setting sun. I could tell you these things, Charlie, but they aren’t a fraction of who you are.”
My back faces the mirror, and I’m glad I can’t see whatever’s written on my face or how I react to every word.
“The things I love most about you have nothing to do with your beauty. It’syou. Your brilliant mind. Your loyalty to your friends. The way you laugh with your whole chest until you’re snorting. It’s the way you devour chocolate like it’s the last piece on the planet, and how you collect trinkets and knickknacks and hoard them like they’re the greatest treasure you’ve ever found.”
“I’m not soft,” I admit quietly, tears streaming down my face.
I don’t know why it’s the first thing out of my mouth, or why the confession feels like someone is sliding a knife between my ribs. Maybe it’s because Iamsoft. A hermit crab without its shell is susceptible to death. It has no armor to protect its vital organs.
With Mateo, I have no shield, and maybe that’s why I’m afraid.
“You don’t need to be gentle. You need someone who is gentle with you. Let me be that man. Iwantto be that man.”
Clarity strikes me like a rogue lightning bolt, electricity pulsing beneath my skin as I stare at him with wonder.
I will never find a man better than Mateo, nor do I want to.
