Page 46 of Hard to Forgive

“Jonas?” Seb’s quiet voice pulled me back from my thoughts.

“I don’t think it’s just sexually,” I admitted quietly. “I wish it were just sexually.”

“You like him?” There was no hiding the disbelief in Seb’s voice. “Last week, you were threatening to jump out of your office window because you got partnered up with him.”

I sighed. “I don’tlikehim. It’s complicated. It’s messy.” And I didn’t know how to explain what it was that I felt about Silas, because I didn’t know what exactly it was. How could I explain something to Seb that I couldn’t explain to myself?

That ball of anxiety doubled in size and my fists clenched again. Seb reached down and took my hand, massaging my clenched knuckles until they relaxed. “How about we talk this through?”

“What’s there to talk through?” I asked, hating the whine in my voice. Talking things through only worked when you had an idea of what you were feeling. When you were a hot mess over what you felt, even over beginning to decipher what you felt, it was pointless. It was completely useless.

“It’s eating you up,” Seb observed. “Meaning we have to talk it through, so it doesn’t destroy you.”

I groaned. “Fine.”

“Let’s start at the small stuff.” Seb positioned himself so he could get a better look at me, forcing me to look at him in return. “Outside of sex, are you enjoying your time with him?”

“Sometimes. Usually I’m kind of tempted to hit him with my computer, but there are other times where we’re working and he reads me the way you and the boys do. Like he can pick up on what I’m trying to say, even when I don’t know how to say it.”

Seb nodded. “That’s not a bad thing.”

“It’s terrifying.”

“But not bad.” Seb sat silently for a few moments, like he was trying to figure out where to go next. I could see the wheels turning in his head, as he tried to tiptoe on the eggshells around me. He didn’t want to deal with me having a panic attack in the middle of our conversation.Burden, my anxiety accused. I was a being a burden to him. I didn’t voice it though, because I already knew his reaction. It had happened enough times that I could hear it even without saying anything. “Does he make you laugh?”

“Sometimes. When I don’t want to strangle him.”

“Is he into that?”

I snorted. Some of the tension left my shoulders at Seb’s ridiculous question. “Do you really want the answer to that?”

“I feel like Eli knows what’s going on with you guys more than I do, so kind of, yeah.” I opened my mouth to speak, but he reached up to cover it. “Afterwe talk through the rest of it. Then I want all the dirty details.”

“Maybe not all of them,” I compromised. “Because there are some things about my sex life that no one else needs to know.” Like the way Silas could make me beg or the way he justknewthat sometimes, I needed it rough and a little painful. If I told Seb about that, he’d just worry unnecessarily. “But to answer your question: yes. He makes me laugh. He also…” I thought for a moment, trying to think of how to say all the good things about Silas without sounding like I was singing his praises. “He’s patient with me, but at the same time, he pushes my buttons. Like I swear, he was going out of his way to get a rise out of me for the past few weeks, and then this week? He was actually patient when we had to work together. He listened to my ideas, and he didn’t get weird about the fact that I draw out my ideas instead of creating them all digitally first.”

“Has he seen the rest of the sketchbook?”

“No way.” I shook my head emphatically. “He can see me naked, but he doesn’t get to see that.”

“Well, how I see it, until that answer changes, you’re not in too deep.” I breathed a sigh of relief, but Seb wasn’t finished. “Does he—Has he apologized for high school?”

I looked down at my bitten nails. It was just another bad habit, fueled by my anxiety. The only thing that kept me from chewing on them now was the fact that Seb would do that thing he did where he gently moved my hand away from my mouth and give me that worried look of his. Instead, I chewed on the inside of my cheek before shaking my head. “I don’t think he even remembers.”

“Can you move past it?”

That was the million dollar question, wasn’t it?

Seb’s million dollar question weighed in my mind all night, long after he went back home. It haunted my dreams, filling them with memories of a past I wanted to forget. All through the morning huddle, I kept replaying it. It was harder to answer with Silas standing across the huddle from me, pale gray eyes watching me with interest and confusion.

When we split into our teams to get started on the next stage of our projects, Silas was still looking at me in that knowing way of his. It was making me itch. “What?” I finally snapped, when I couldn’t take it anymore.

“You look like you haven’t slept,” he observed. “Everything okay?”

I took a deep breath, fists clenching.

“Why do you do that?” he asked suddenly. “Is it some violent impulse?”

I stared at him for a moment, not understanding what he was asking until I noticed he was looking at my hands. I relaxed them immediately. “No,” I assured him. “It’s… It’s nothing.”

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