Page 84 of Degrees of Control

James laughed, the sound as bitter as lemons. “Yeah, that’s pretty much right. Fucked in my bed by my brother’s drunk girlfriend.” He looked away, a humorless smile crusted to his face. “My sheets had these cartoon dogs on them. Don’t know why I still remember that, but I do. I was worried she’d think they were lame.” He shook his head. “So, uh—that’s how I lost my virginity.”

“How old was she?” Charlie asked, her own voice ringing inside her head like bells.

“Uh—twenty-three.”

Charlie started crying. There was no gentle sobbing, no build up, she just started gasping and sputtering and leaking tears like a broken faucet. This explained so fucking much. Why James never wanted to have sex in his bed, why he withdrew from intimacy and saw himself as worthless and untrustworthy, why the subject of his family was a no-go zone. She cried even harder, great hacking sobs that probably sounded like a cat being curb-stomped.

James threw his arms around her. “Oh, Charlotte, oh, darlin’, I didn’t want to make you sad. Please don’t cry.”

Charlie cried louder. She cried for the boy who had been hurt and for the man she loved. “That’s just so fuckingunfair,James. So fucking unfair. Did you tell anyone what happened?”

James shifted away from her and a flash of the surly teenager he had surely been surfaced. “I just wanted to act like it never happened. Or that I was glad it happened. I didn’t want people to think I was bein’ a baby.”

“I-I understand. I wish it had have been different though.”

He released another shaky breath. “Kelsey figured it out. She tried to tell Will but he didn’t want to hear it. Meghan denied the whole thing and that was it.”

“What happened to Meghan?”

James shrugged. “She and Will kept dating, they split up a few times but they got married eventually. It was their ten-year anniversary that weekend I went to Texas.”

“You still have tosee her?” Charlie leapt to her feet. “What the hell, James? All the stuff I said and the whole time I didn’t understand what you were going through…”

James stood up and practically bundled her into his arms. Charlie pulled away, needing to resist, needing to rage against the woman who hurt him. “Where does she live? I’ll call her right now, I’ll go to her house and yell at her in person, I’ll—”

“Charlotte, please, I didn’t tell you this so you would feel sorry for me. Or so you’d go and beat Meghan up.” He smiled a little, the sunlight catching the skin around his eyes and making him look ten years older. “Trust me, if anyone was going to put the hurt on her it would be Kelsey. I don’t want to stir up shit or get revenge; I just want to be able to accept what happened and move on.”

Charlie was instantly ashamed. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, it’s a hell of a thing to hear, but I told you because I felt like I owed you an explanation for acting like such a prick, being such a shitty lover and friend…I don’t think I ever really got over it. Being a girlfriend fucker.”

“You’re not agirlfriend fucker. What happened to you wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. It was a violation and statutory rape and horrible andmean.”

“I know that now, Charlotte, I just…I wish I’d known it then.” He sat down and opened his arms. “Hug?”

Fighting back a fresh typhoon of tears, Charlie crawled onto James’ lap and put her head against his chest, not caring if anyone saw them and thought they were fucking on a bench in broad daylight. She needed to be as close to him as possible, to touch his skin and hear his heartbeat and know he was okay. James wrapped his arms around her and pressed his face into her hair. They stayed like that for a long time. “Charlotte?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been seeing someone, you know, a shrink, talking about everything. Kelsey’s idea. It helps, being reminded that it wasn’t my fault, as fucking clichéd as that sounds.”

That’s why James looked different, she realized, the tension that had been as much a part of him as his blond hair or hazel eyes just wasn’t as obvious now. It was smoothing away, like a stone washed over by the tide. “I’m glad you’re seeing someone. I want you to feel better about what happened.”

“I do, but I’m still sorry I was such an asshole to you, sweetheart.”

Charlie hugged him tighter. “You’re not an asshole. I thought you’d been through a couple of bad break-ups or you had family issues, not that you’d been hurt so badly. I can’t believe the way I acted.”

James pressed a gentle fingertip to her upper lip. “What you told me that night you left? You had every right to say that. Until now I’ve been the guy that just lets shit happen. It’s just that before you, no one really noticed. Or cared.”

A thick gloss of tears coated Charlie’s eyes. “When I tied you up, were you thinking about…that?”

“Oh god, darlin’, no. What we did was fucking phenomenal. I wasn’t acting out my past any more than you were.” He huffed out a laugh. “I am a little obsessed with how people lost their virginity, reassuring myself that my first time wasn’t any more fucked-up than anyone else’s.”

Tears slipped down Charlie’s cheeks. “I understand. I’m not sure if I told you, but my boyfriend made me pay for the condoms. He was saving up for a touch-screen Gameboy.”

James snorted with laughter, and despite the hot tears dripping down her cheeks, Charlie knew everything was going to be okay. He was going to be okay.

“Charlotte…” James took a deep breath. The way he was looking at her, the world could collapse around his ears and he wouldn’t notice. “Even if you and me don’t get together, I’m so glad I met you. I was walking around half asleep and now I’m awake. That’s because of you, sweetheart. You saw right through me, showed me there was something better beneath the bullshit.”

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