Unravel Me (37 page)

“You,” and he whispers it, letter by letter he presses the word into my skin before
he hesitates.

Then.

Softer.

His chest, heaving harder this time. His words, almost gasping this time. “You
destroy
me.”

I am falling to pieces in his arms.

My fists are full of unlucky pennies and my heart is a jukebox demanding a few nickels
and my head is flipping quarters heads or tails heads or tails heads or tails heads
or tails

“Juliette,” he says, and he mouths the name, barely speaking at all, and he’s pouring
molten lava into my limbs and I never even knew I could melt straight to death.

“I want you,” he says. He says “I want all of you. I want you inside and out and catching
your breath and aching for me like I ache for you.” He says it like it’s a lit cigarette
lodged in his throat, like he wants to dip me in warm honey and he says “It’s never
been a secret. I’ve never tried to hide that from you. I’ve never pretended I wanted
anything less.”

“You—you said you wanted f-friendship—”

“Yes,” he says, he swallows, “I did. I do. I do want to be your friend.” He nods and
I register the slight movement in the air between us. “I want to be the friend you
fall hopelessly in love with. The one you take into your arms and into your bed and
into the private world you keep trapped in your head. I want to be that kind of friend,”
he says. “The one who will memorize the things you say as well as the shape of your
lips when you say them. I want to know every curve, every freckle, every shiver of
your body,
Juliette
—”

“No,” I gasp. “Don’t—don’t s-say that—”

I don’t know what I’ll do if he keeps talking I don’t know what I’ll do and I don’t
trust myself

“I want to know where to touch you,” he says. “I want to know how to touch you. I
want to know how to convince you to design a smile just for me.” I feel his chest
rising, falling, up and down and up and down and “Yes,” he says. “I do want to be
your friend.” He says “I want to be your best friend in the entire world.”

I can’t think.

I can’t
breathe

“I want so many things,” he whispers. “I want your mind. Your strength. I want to
be worth your time.” His fingers graze the hem of my top and he says “I want this
up.” He tugs on the waist of my pants and says “I want these down.” He touches the
tips of his fingers to the sides of my body and says, “I want to feel your skin on
fire. I want to feel your heart racing next to mine and I want to know it’s racing
because of me, because you want me. Because you never,” he says, he breathes, “never
want me to stop. I want every second. Every inch of you. I want all of it.”

And I drop dead, all over the floor.

“Juliette.”

I can’t understand why I can still hear him speaking because I’m dead, I’m already
dead, I’ve died over and over and over again

He swallows, hard, his chest heaving, his words a breathless, shaky whisper when he
says “I’m so—I’m so desperately in love with you—”

I’m rooted to the ground, spinning while standing, dizzy in my blood and in my bones
and I’m breathing like I’m the first human who’s ever learned to fly, like I’ve been
inhaling the kind of oxygen only found in the clouds and I’m trying but I don’t know
how to keep my body from reacting to him, to his words, to the ache in his voice.

He touches my cheek.

Soft, so soft, like he’s not sure if I’m real, like he’s afraid if he gets too close
I’ll just oh, look she’s gone, she’s just disappeared. His 4 fingers graze the side
of my face, slowly, so slowly before they slip behind my head, caught in that in-between
spot just above my neck. His thumb brushes the apple of my cheek.

He keeps looking at me, looking into my eyes for help, for guidance, for some sign
of a protest like he’s so sure I’m going to start screaming or crying or running away
but I won’t. I don’t think I could even if I wanted to because I don’t want to. I
want to stay here. Right here. I want to be paralyzed by this moment.

He moves closer, just an inch. His free hand reaches up to cup the other side of my
face.

He’s holding me like I’m made of feathers.

He’s holding my face and looking at his own hands like he can’t believe he’s caught
this bird who’s always so desperate to fly away. His hands are shaking, just a little
bit, just enough for me to feel the slight tremble against my skin. Gone is the boy
with the guns and the skeletons in his closet. These hands holding me have never held
a weapon. These hands have never touched death. These hands are perfect and kind and
tender.

And he leans in, so carefully. Breathing and not breathing and hearts beating between
us and he’s so close, he’s so close and I can’t feel my legs anymore. I can’t feel
my fingers or the cold or the emptiness of this room because all I feel is him, everywhere,
filling everything and he whispers

“Please.”

He says “Please don’t shoot me for this.”

And he kisses me.

His lips are softer than anything I’ve ever known, soft like a first snowfall, like
biting into cotton candy, like melting and floating and being weightless in water.
It’s sweet, it’s so effortlessly sweet.

And then it changes.

“Oh
God
—”

He kisses me again, this time stronger, desperate, like he has to have me, like he’s
dying to memorize the feel of my lips against his own. The taste of him is making
me crazy; he’s all heat and desire and peppermint and I want more. I’ve just begun
reeling him in, pulling him into me when he breaks away.

He’s breathing like he’s lost his mind and he’s looking at me like something has broken
inside of him, like he’s woken up to find that his nightmares were just that, that
they never existed, that it was all just a bad dream that felt far too real but now
he’s awake and he’s safe and everything is going to be okay and

I’m falling.

I’m falling apart and into his heart and I’m a disaster.

He’s searching me, searching my eyes for something, for yeses or nos or maybe a cue
to keep going and all I want is to drown in him. I want him to kiss me until I collapse
in his arms, until I’ve left my bones behind and floated up into a new space that
is entirely our own.

No words.

Just his lips.

Again.

Deep and urgent like he can’t afford to take his time anymore, like there’s so much
he wants to feel and there aren’t enough years to experience it all. His hands travel
the length of my back, learning every curve of my figure and he’s kissing my neck,
my throat, the slope of my shoulders and his breaths come harder, faster, his hands
suddenly threaded in my hair and I’m spinning, I’m dizzy, I’m moving and reaching
up behind his neck and clinging to him and it’s ice-cold heat, it’s an ache that attacks
every cell in my body. It’s a wanting so desperate, a need so exquisite that it rivals
everything, every happy moment I ever thought I knew.

I’m against the wall.

He’s kissing me like the world is rolling right off a cliff, like he’s trying to hang
on and he’s decided to hold on to me, like he’s starving for life and love and he’s
never known it could ever feel this good to be close to someone. Like it’s the first
time he’s ever felt anything but hunger and he doesn’t know how to pace himself, doesn’t
know how to eat in small bites, doesn’t know how to do anything anything anything
in moderation.

My pants fall to the floor and his hands are responsible.

I’m in his arms in my underwear and a tank top that’s doing little to keep me decent
and he pulls back just to look at me, to drink in the sight of me and he’s saying
“you’re so beautiful” he’s saying “you’re so unbelievably beautiful” and he pulls
me into his arms again and he picks me up, he carries me to my bed and suddenly I’m
resting against my pillows and he’s straddling my hips and his shirt is no longer
on his body and I have no idea where it went. All I know is that I’m looking up and
into his eyes and I’m thinking there isn’t a single thing I would change about this
moment.

He has a hundred thousand million kisses and he’s giving them all to me.

He kisses my top lip.

He kisses my bottom lip.

He kisses just under my chin, the tip of my nose, the length of my forehead, both
temples, my cheeks, all across my jawline. Then my neck, behind my ears, all the way
down my throat and

his hands

slide

down

my body. His entire form is moving down my figure, disappearing as he shifts downward
and suddenly his chest is hovering above my hips; suddenly I can’t see him anymore.
I can only make out the top of his head, the curve of his shoulders, the unsteady
rise and fall of his back as he inhales, exhales. He’s running his hands down and
around my bare thighs and up again, up past my ribs, around my lower back and down
again, just past my hip bone. His fingers hook around the elastic waist of my underwear
and I gasp.

His lips touch my bare stomach.

It’s just a whisper of a kiss but something collapses in my skull. It’s a feather-light
brush of his mouth against my skin in a place I can’t quite see. It’s my mind speaking
in a thousand different languages I don’t understand.

And I realize he’s working his way up my body.

He’s leaving a trail of fire along my torso, one kiss after another, and I really
don’t think I can take much more of this; I really don’t think I’ll be able to survive
this. There’s a whimper building in my throat, begging to break free and I’m locking
my fingers in his hair and I’m pulling him up, onto me, on top of me.

I need to kiss him.

I’m reaching up only to slip my hands down his neck, over his chest and down the length
of his body and I realize I’ve never felt this, not to this degree, not like every
moment is about to explode, like every breath could be our last, like every touch
is enough to ignite the world. I’m forgetting everything, forgetting the danger and
the horror and the terror of tomorrow and I can’t even remember
why
I’m forgetting,
what
I’m forgetting, that there’s something I already seem to have forgotten. It’s too
hard to pay attention to anything but his eyes, burning; his skin, bare; his body,
perfect.

He’s completely unharmed by my touch.

He’s careful not to crush me, his elbows propped up on either side of my head, and
I think I must be smiling at him because he’s smiling at me, but he’s smiling like
he might be petrified; he’s breathing like he’s forgotten he’s supposed to, looking
at me like he’s not sure how to do this, hesitating like he’s unsure how to let me
see him like this. Like he has no idea how to be so vulnerable.

But here he is.

And here I am.

Warner’s forehead is pressed against mine, his skin flushed with heat, his nose touching
my own. He shifts his weight to one arm, uses his free hand to softly stroke my cheek,
to cup my face like it’s spun from glass and I realize I’m still holding my breath
and I can’t even remember the last time I exhaled.

His eyes shift down to my lips and back again. His gaze is heavy, hungry, weighed
down by emotion I never thought him capable of. I never thought he could be so full,
so human, so real. But it’s there. It’s right there. Raw, written across his face
like it’s been ripped out of his chest.

He’s handing me his heart.

And he says one word. He whispers one thing. So urgently.

He says, “Juliette.”

I close my eyes.

He says, “I don’t want you to call me Warner anymore.”

I open my eyes.

“I want you to know me,” he says, breathless, his fingers pushing a stray strand of
hair away from my face. “I don’t want to be Warner with you,” he says. “I want it
to be different now. I want you to call me Aaron.”

And I’m about to say yes, of course, I completely understand, but there’s something
about this stretch of silence that confuses me; something about this moment and the
feel of his name on my tongue that unlocks other parts of my brain and there’s something
there, something pushing and pulling at my skin and trying to remind me, trying to
tell me and

it slaps me in the face

it punches me in the jaw

it dumps me right into the ocean.

“Adam.”

My bones are full of ice. My entire being wants to vomit. I’m tripping out from under
him and pulling myself away and I almost fall right to the floor and this feeling,
this feeling, this overwhelming
feeling
of absolute self-loathing sticks in my stomach like the slice of a knife too sharp,
too thick, too lethal to keep me standing and I’m clutching at myself, I’m trying
not to cry and I’m saying no no no this can’t happen this can’t be
happening
I love Adam, my heart is with Adam, I can’t do this to him

and Warner looks like I’ve shot him all over again, like I’ve wedged a bullet in his
heart with my bare hands and he gets to his feet but he can hardly stand. His frame
is shaking and he’s looking at me like he wants to say something but every time he
tries to speak he fails.

“I’m s-sorry,” I stammer, “I’m so sorry—I never meant for this to happen—I wasn’t
thinking
—”

But he’s not listening.

He’s shaking his head over and over and over and he’s looking at his hands like he’s
waiting for the part where someone tells him this isn’t real and he whispers “What’s
happening to me? Am I dreaming?”

And I’m so sick, I’m so confused, because I want him, I want him and I want Adam,
too, and I want too much and I’ve never felt more like a monster than I have tonight.

The pain is so plain on his face and it’s killing me.

I feel it. I feel it killing me.

I’m trying so hard to look away, to forget, to figure out how to erase what just happened
but all I can think is that life is like a broken tire swing, an unborn child, a fistful
of wishbones. It’s all possibility and potential, wrong and right steps toward a future
we’re not even guaranteed and I, I am so wrong. All of my steps are wrong, always
wrong. I am the incarnation of error.