“How could I be mad at you? You were torturing yourself down there just to figure out what was happening to you. You’re torturing yourself right now just trying to find a way to fix this.”
He looks relieved.
Relieved and confused and afraid to be happy all at the same time. “But something’s wrong,” he says. “You’re crying. Why are you crying if you’re not upset?”
I actually laugh this time. Out loud. Laugh and hiccup and want to die, so desperately. “Because I was an idiot for thinking things could be different,” I tell him. “For thinking you were a fluke. For thinking my life could ever be better than it was, that I could ever be better than I was.” I try to speak again but instead clamp a hand over my mouth like I can’t believe what I’m about to say. I force myself to swallow the stone in my throat. I drop my hand. “Adam.” My voice is raw, aching. “This isn’t going to work.”
“What?” He’s frozen in place, his eyes too wide, his chest rising and falling too fast. “What are you talking about?”
“You can’t touch me,” I tell him. “You can’t touch me and I’ve already hurt you—”
“No—Juliette—” Adam is up, he’s cleared the room, he’s on his knees next to me and he reaches for my hands but I have to snatch them back because my gloves were ruined, ruined in the research lab and now my fingers are bare.
Dangerous.
Adam stares at the hands I’ve hidden behind my back like I’ve slapped him across the face. “What are you doing?” he asks, but he’s not looking at me. He’s still staring at my hands. Barely breathing.
“I can’t do this to you.” I shake my head too hard. “I don’t want to be the reason why you’re hurting yourself or weakening yourself and I don’t want you to always have to worry that I might accidentally kill you—”
“No, Juliette, listen to me.” He’s desperate now, his eyes up, searching my face. “I was worried too, okay? I was worried too. Really worried. I thought—I thought that maybe—I don’t know, I thought maybe it would be bad or that maybe we wouldn’t be able to work through it but I talked to Castle. I talked to him and explained everything and he said that I just have to learn to control it. I’ll learn how to turn it on and off—”
“Except when you’re with me? Except when we’re together—”
“No—what? No, especially when we’re together!”
“Touching me—being with me—it takes a physical toll on you! You run a fever when we’re together, Adam, did you realize that? You’d get sick just trying to fight me off—”
“You’re not hearing me—please—I’m telling you, I’ll learn to control all of that—”
“When?” I ask, and I can actually feel my bones breaking, 1 by 1.
“What? What do you mean? I’ll learn now—I’m learning now—”
“And how’s it going? Is it easy?”
His mouth falls closed but he’s looking at me, struggling with some kind of emotion, struggling to find composure. “What are you trying to say?” he finally asks. “Are you”—he’s breathing hard—“are you—I mean—you don’t want to make this work?”
“Adam—”
“What are you saying, Juliette?” He’s up now, a shaky hand caught in his hair. “You don’t—you don’t want to be with me?”
I’m on my feet, blinking back the tears burning my eyes, desperate to run to him but unable to move. My voice breaks when I speak. “Of course I want to be with you.”
He drops his hand from his hair. Looks at me with eyes so open and vulnerable but his jaw is tight, his muscles are tense, his upper body is heaving from the effort to inhale, exhale. “Then what’s happening right now? Because something is happening right now and it doesn’t feel okay,” he says, his voice catching. “It doesn’t feel okay, Juliette, it feels like the opposite of whatever the hell okay is and I really just want to hold you—”
“I don’t want to h-hurt you—”
“You’re not going to hurt me,” he says, and then he’s in front of me, looking at me, pleading with me. “I swear. It’ll be fine—we’ll be fine—and I’m better now. I’ve been working on it and I’m stronger—”
“It’s too dangerous, Adam, please.” I’m begging him, backing away, wiping furiously at the tears escaping down my face. “It’s better for you this way. It’s better for you to just stay away from me—”
“But that’s not what I want—you’re not asking me what I want—,” he says, following me as I dodge his advances. “I want to be with you and I don’t give a damn if it’s hard. I still want it. I still want you.”
I’m trapped.
I’m caught between him and the wall and I have nowhere to go and I wouldn’t want to go even if I could. I don’t want to have to fight this even though there’s something inside of me screaming that it’s wrong to be so selfish, to allow him to be with me if it’ll only end up hurting him. But he’s looking at me, looking at me like I’m killing him and I realize I’m hurting him more by trying to stay away.
I’m shaking. Wanting him so desperately and knowing now, more than ever, that what I want will have to wait. And I hate that it has to be this way. I hate it so much I could scream.
But maybe we can try.
“Juliette.” Adam’s voice is hoarse, broken with feeling. His hands are at my waist, trembling just a little, waiting for my permission. “Please.”
And I don’t protest.
He’s breathing harder now, leaning into me, resting his forehead against my shoulder. He places his hands flat against the center of my stomach, only to inch them down my body, slowly, so slowly and I gasp.
There’s an earthquake happening in my bones, tectonic plates shifting from panic to pleasure as his fingers take their time moving around my thighs, up my back, over my shoulders and down my arms. He hesitates at my wrists. This is where the fabric ends, where my skin begins.
But he takes a breath.
And he takes my hands.