Page 57 of Every Thought Taken

Argh!

“Hey.” She fills my line of sight, her hands cupping my cheeks. “What’s wrong?”

I blink a few times in an attempt to clear my rampant thoughts. Take a deep breath, then another. “Nothing,” I rasp out, and I almost believe myself.

“Ander.” Her thumbs stroke my cheekbones. “It’s me. Just me.” She presses her lips to mine for one, two, three beats of my heart before inching back and holding my gaze. “What’s wrong?”

This is Helena. I can tell her anything.

I lick my lips and swallow past any residual unease. “Started thinking about our sleeping situation and kind of spiraled.”

Her brows pinch at the middle, confusion marring her expression. “Why?”

Good question. I shrug.

“Ander.” My name rolls off her tongue like a litany. “It’s me. Just me,” she repeats her words from a moment ago. “It’s us.” Her hands drift north, combing through my hair, her nails grazing my scalp. “You never have to worry when it comes to us.”

I want to believe those last words, that I never have to worry about us or our relationship. But then I flash back to the tail end of winter and all of spring. Remember what it was like to not see her, touch her, or love her for months. Remember the emptiness, the darkness I existed in.

“I’m here, Ander,” she whispers, the fading firelight dancing on her skin. Then her lips are on mine. “I’m here.” Her hands trail down my neck, my chest, my abdomen before her fingers hook in the belt loops of my shorts. “I’m here.”

My eyes roll back as I deepen the kiss.She’s here.

She tugs me forward, her tongue tasting mine as she inches me off the chair. “I’m here.” And then she rises to her feet, pulling me up with her. Fumbling us toward the tent, our lips glued together until we duck inside and zip out the world.

Piece by piece, we slowly strip off our clothes. With each kiss, each gentle touch, we rediscover each other. Memorize curves and scars. Caress peaks and lips. Moan names and beg for more without interruption.

In a small alcove on a ridge outside Lake Lavender, I fall deeper for Helena Williams. And I never want to come back up.

CHAPTER33

HELENA

Iread the same sentence for the fifth time, huffing in annoyance at my lack of progress.

“Everything okay?” Anderson asks, his fingers brushing softly on the bare skin of my thigh.

Not really, I want to say but keep to myself. Saying such things will only stir up more questions. And the last thing I want to tell Anderson, my boyfriend, the guy I love and who loves me equally, if not more, is that his constant touch is distracting me from summer homework. Bad enough I have to read a book I don’t want to read. No sense in making the situation ten times worse.

“Fine.” I slip my bookmark between the pages. “Just having trouble getting into the book.”

Anderson bookmarks his own page and sets his book down on the side table. When I told him earlier in the week I needed to catch up on my summer school assignments, he suggested doing so on the loungers on my back patio. A little summer sun to make it less daunting.

Yesterday was a snap. I breezed through several chapters before we stopped for lunch. Then I read a few more. But yesterday, we hadn’t had this constant contact. Yesterday, I hadn’t been thrown off by his touch on my skin.

And for some unknown reason, today I don’t want it. Today, I want solitude. To dive headfirst into this book and get it over with. To be done with all this excessive work.

Does that make me a bad person? A bad girlfriend? The twinge in my gut says it does.

“Talk to me.” His words are soft, consoling. A desire to help.

His offer shouldn’t rub me the wrong way, but it does. I should be grateful. That I’m not is grating my irritation further.

I push up from the lounger and away from him. An invisible bubble forms around me, heavy and suffocating. A constant pressure, reminding me of all the things I haven’t done, all the people I need to please. Mom and Dad mean well, but every time theycheck inon my schoolwork, every time they ask if I’ve heard back from my college applications, this unbearable weight presses on my chest. Add Anderson into the mix and I feel like I’m being pulled in ten different directions.

None of this is his fault, but something needs to give.

“It’s nothing. Just stress.”

---