Page 122 of Beautiful When He Breaks

I look away, breathing hard. “This is my choice.”

“Yes,” Julian says immediately. “It is.”

“Then why are you acting like I can’t make it?”

“I’m not.” He slides one hand slowly up my side, then back down. “Baby, I’m asking what choice you’re making. Because ‘make me forget’ sounds like you’re trying to leave your body, and I can’t be part of that. I won’t.”

I close my eyes at his words. It hurts being loved like this… It hurts being known like this.

“I want my first time to be mine,” I say, opening my eyes again. “That’s what I mean. I know what you’re hearing. I know how it sounds, okay? But it’s not only that. I’m angry, and I’m fucked up, and I don’t want to think about her, but I also want…”

I stop and swallow, forcing the rest out because if I don’t say it clearly, he’ll protect me from something I actually need. “I want my first time to be a memory with the person I love, not some video of something I couldn’t consent to.”

Julian’s breath leaves him slowly. I press on before fear makes me stop. “I know there’s proof now, but I still don’t remember it. My body was there, but I wasn’t. So maybe legally or technically or whatever, someone could say I’ve had sex. But I haven’t. Not awake and actually wanting or choosing it.” My voice breaks, and I hate that it does, but I keep going.

“I want my first time to be with you. Because I love you, and because you’ll stop if I say stop, and because you’ll ask me if I’m okay until it’s annoying, and because I actually want you so much I can’t think straight.”

Julian stares at me and his hands flex once at my waist. “You love me,” he says.

I let out a broken laugh because of all the things to get stuck on; of course it’s that. “Yeah, asshole. I told you that already.”

“You said it during a trauma confession.”

“And now I’m saying it while straddling you after a worse trauma confession, so apparently I have a brand.” I wipe a hand over my face, frustrated by the wetness in my eyes. “I love you, Jules. I don’t know if saying it right now makes it heavier or messier, but I do.”

His eyes shine. That almost takes me apart more than anything else tonight.

“I love you too,” he says.

It’s not the first time I’ve known. Maybe it isn’t even the first time he’s said it in all the ways that weren’t English. But hearing it now, directly, while the worst parts of my life are still breathing down the door, makes my chest crack open around warmth instead of pain.

I bend forward and kiss him again, and he lets me. The kiss is still heated because we’re still us, but the frantic edge changes.

His hand comes up to cup my face, thumb brushing my cheek. I feel him asking without words whether I’m here. I answer by slowing down, by breathing against his mouth, by unclenching my fingers from his shirt and spreading my palm over his chest instead.

When he pulls back, he keeps his forehead against mine. “I need rules,” he says, his thumb moving over my cheek again. “If we do anything tonight, we go slow. You tell me what feels good and what doesn’t. If you go quiet in a way I don’t like, I stop. If you say stop, I stop. If you say red, I stop immediately and don’t ask questions until you’re ready. If you say yellow, I slow down or change what I’m doing. If you say green, I keep going. If I ask for a color, you answer with one.”

My throat tightens at the care in it. “You’ve thought about this.”

“Yes,” he says honestly. “Not because I was planning this tonight. Because I think about how to keep you safe.”

I lean down and press my face into the side of his neck because I need one second to hide from being loved that clearly. His arms go around me, holding me close.

“I don’t want to be fragile,” I whisper.

“You’re not fragile,” Julian says into my hair. “You’re hurt. Those aren’t the same.”

I breathe him in, and the worst of the shaking finally starts to ease. Not gone but eased enough that I can tell the difference between panic and want again. Enough that my body remembers I’m on Julian’s lap because I put myself here, and his hands are safe at my back.

I lift my head. “Green.”

His eyes darken instantly. “Yeah?” he asks quietly.

I nod once. “But I don’t want you to make me forget.” I look at him and let the truth settle somewhere calmer inside me before I answer. “I want you to help me remember this instead.”

38

Eli