Page 29 of Touch Me

“Ow.”

“Sorry,” he stammers and snaps the lid on the bottle. “Is that enough?”

“Yeah.”What the hell?I look over my shoulder and see his flushed face. “Sure. I'm all set.”

I release my tank top and try to ease it down my sticky skin. I have to wiggle a little to get it down without feeling like it’s scraping and tearing my skin off.

Jace wipes his hands on his folded towel and refolds it while I wash my hands. “Umm, do you like popcorn?”

“Yes, of course. Who doesn’t like popcorn?”

“I think I have some,” he says, opening a cupboard to grab a bowl.

I walk into the pantry and pull the stool close. “I think I saw some in here while I was putting groceries away.”

There it is. On the top shelf. I reach for it and graze the box with the tips of my fingers.

Jace comes up behind me. “Be careful.”

Shuffling my feet a little closer to the edge, I get on my tiptoes, stretching my reach a few inches until I manage to grab the box. “Got it.”

When I settle my weight back on my heels, the stool tips forward and sends me flying backward. The box goes flipping through the air, and my arms flail, trying to correct my balance. Jace catches me under the arms, and suddenly, I’m suspended in the air, my back pressed to his front. Just as abruptly, I’m tumbling into a heap on the ground. He didn’t just drop me, he threw me to the ground.

I manage to get my hands behind me just in time to break my fall and not bust my ass. “What the hell, Jace?”

Before I can turn around, he’s gone, and a door slams down the hall. So, I guess we aren’t watching another episode?

NINE

THE PITY SPIRAL

I’ve beenin my room for two days. Replaying the scene over and over in my head. My hands on her skin. Her smooth, silky skin. A little burnt, for sure, but it didn’t matter to me. It was my hands touching her—exactly what I wanted. My plan to desensitize. But it still felt the same. The vibration, the uneasiness, the urge to run. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt her, and my stomach dropped when she flinched away from me.

I’m such an ass.

My eyes close and my hands clench when I remember the feeling of her in my arms. Holding her. Her heat seeping through my clothes, warming me like the sun ghosting over my skin. Before my mind could even compute what was happening, she was already in a heap on the floor. My hands remember the feeling, wanting to reach out for her, but my feet had me halfway to my room and, no matter how I tried to rationalize it in my head, I couldn’t convince them to go back.

I scrub my hands down my face, a sigh breezing past my lips. The pity spiral after an incident is something I haven’t had to deal with in a long time, but it’s one I’m well acquainted with.

Wishing for the thousandth time my brain would find another way to cope, I’m stuck sitting here, festering, like a disease. A plague of my own making. Visualizing the scene over and over. Rehashing every moment, every touch, until I’m there again. Until I’m vibrating, not from physical touch, but with the pure hatred I feel for myself. A mass of self-induced contempt. I face more self-ridicule than anyone could ever inflict.

It’s why I don’t sleep. It’s why physical exhaustion is my only option.

I’ve spent the last two days torturing myself mentally and physically. I did as much cardio as I could with no equipment, enough situps and pushups that my arms still shake with any effort and core aches. Not my best idea with no food in my room. And no, Postmates will not deliver to your bedroom. I checked.

I had a few protein bars stashed in my nightstand that got me through the first day. Last night after midnight, I went out to grab a couple more from the kitchen, along with fruit and crackers. Cassie had a meal covered on the counter with a note, but I left it so she wouldn’t know I was there.

Like that makes me less crazy.

She knows I’m in my room. I saw her shadow hovering outside my door a few times. She was probably debating on knocking and decided against it. What would she have said if I’d opened it? What wouldIhave said?

But now I’m out of food again, and all my exercising has my stomach angry and my head pounding. It’s after one in the morning, surely she’s asleep. I’ll sneak out to the kitchen and grab a few things to get me through the night. Fuck knows I won’t be sleeping.

I pad quickly down the hall and past Cassie’s closed door. Tiptoeing through the living room, I flip the soffit on to emit the smallest amount of light possible. And yes, I feel silly doing all of this in my own home, but it is what it is. I spent my whole life perfecting the art of going unnoticed, and it’s too late to change now. Before I can open the fridge, I see a note taped to the outside.

Dinner on the top shelf. Two minutes in the microwave.

The image of her crumpled on the floor flashes in my head, and I swallow hard. I don’t deserve to eat anything she prepared for me, but my body screams for real food. I hang my head, ashamed of my reaction but knowing there’s no use resisting. Following the instructions, I grab utensils and a bottle of water, sitting on a stool at the end of the island while feeling like a complete tool sneaking around my own house, hiding from a girl.

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