Blinking slowly, she brings me into focus.
“Rocco?” she stutters quietly.
“I’m here,” I assure her.
Hands lifting to touch mine, she looks at me like you would a ghost. Both afraid and intrigued.
“Are you real?” she whispers.
My heart thunders in my chest, my ribs piercing it in pain. “Yeah, baby, I’m real.”
She can’t tell the difference between her own nightmares and reality. To her, they’re one and the same.
After a softly, stuttered breath, her head nods in relief. Eyes closed, she leans forward, pushing the damp touch of her forehead against mine, needing to feel me to believe me.
“You’re here.”
“You’re safe,” I murmur, the salty smell of her tears tickling my nostrils.
“Safe,” she repeats, moving to touch her lips against mine.
“Safe,” I hum against her mouth, too afraid to move.
She kisses me tentatively. A soft press of her tear-stained lips tasting mine. I don’t kiss her back, not confident enough to know that’s what she wants. This is her coping, managing whatever is fucking with her head enough to make her need to kiss me.
She explores my lips slowly, gentle brushes of her mouth caressing mine.
It’s a foreign feeling to be kissed without frantic need. Without the carnal need to fuck. I feel more exposed than I care to be. Stripped bare for her to read with her heart on her lips.
I should pull back, push her away, stop her before I’m tangled up enough to let her keep going. But she stops herself. Her mouth pulling back, teeth grazing along her bottom lip to savor my taste.
What we shared wasn’t a spike of need. It wasn’t a push of desire surging through. A thirst needing to be quenched. There were no lustful urges fusing our mouths together or forcing my hand to grip her hair to not lose her taste. We weren’t fighting to tear off one another’s clothes, to feel each other, skin to skin. I didn’t need to fuck away her fears in the same way she couldn’t fuck away mine.
It was more. So much fucking more.
What Camryn just shared with me was a broken moment full of gratitude. A not-so-simple thank you. An intimate recognition of bearing your soul completely. Of letting another see it, in all its ugly glory and recognizing they didn’t make the decision to turn their back.
Her eyes open, looking directly into mine. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“We’re good,” I refute. “Nothin’ to apologize for.” An uncharacteristic gruffness catches along my throat, making me cough.
Comfortable that she’s settled, I pull my hands from her face, dropping them to the couch.
“You taste like tequila.”
I smile. “You brought the salt.” I glance to her lips, annoyed at the craving I have to touch them again with my mouth.
She pushes my chest, her cheeks darkening in embarrassment. “Twice now you’ve rescued me from me battling monsters in my sleep.”
“Hey.” I grab her chin, forcing her to look at me. “Don’t you dare ever be embarrassed about that. I told you, I’m no stranger to nightmares, Camryn. Do I look weak?”
She shakes her head as best she can with my hand still gripped against her jaw.
“The shit that haunts you in your sleep doesn’t make you weak. Fuck, even the shit that haunts you when you’re awake doesn’t make you weak. Those monsters up there…” I lift my chin, gesturing to her head. “They’re weak, having to wait until we’re at our most vulnerable to gain traction. Fuck them for being too pansy-ass to go up against us at our strongest.”
Her eyelids drop in acceptance, a small smirk pulled along her lips at my bad joke.
“Do your nightmares cause you physical pain?”
Desperate to know she’s not alone, her eyes widen in anguish, begging me to tell her that they do. She wants to hear that I wake up with a rope tied around my heart, the frayed edges squeezing tight enough to stop it from beating. She wants to know that my body aches, recalling every blow I’ve taken against my skin, my bones feeling brittle enough that they’ll break if I breathe. She needs me to acknowledge that the simple act of breathing feels like the world’s greatest burden.
Fear grips my vocal cords. It strangles my voice box, stopping me from speaking. I look like the world’s biggest cunt, but I can’t tell her there are days I wake up in so much pain, I wish for death to claim me. To rescue me from this existence I’ve twisted myself up in.
I can’t confess that my nightmares are enough to make me bleed. That I wake up with tears tracking down my cheeks, making me feel like the fragile little boy who lost his mom and not a grown-ass man who shouldn’t be crying over something that happened almost twenty years ago.
“Pick a movie,” I sniff, standing abruptly, ignoring her plea in favor of my own self-preservation. “I’ll make you a herbal tea.”
She looks torn down, humiliated that she showed me the inner workings of her mind and I all but shit on them. I, like her bad dreams, have taken her power. I pushed her down. Happy enough to let her feel fragile to save myself.
“I’m just gonna use your bathroom,” she mumbles.
Standing in the kitchen, I launch my knuckles against the marble of the counter, infuriated at myself, at her, at whatever fucked her so badly in the past.
I should’ve just told her. I should’ve just admitted that I live in a constant state of pain. That she should be stronger than me. That I’ve let my past mistakes define who I am now and I pay for it in blood.
“Fuck.”
Without second-guessing myself, I follow her to the bathroom, ready to confess my sins. Wanting, needing her to know that if she’s alone in this world, she doesn’t have to be. My mind is as chaotic as hers. We share a devotion to pain neither of us can evade.
“Cami,” I call out, pushing at the bathroom door, still currently ajar.
She doesn’t speak, choosing to keep her silence. Her breathing is thick. Long, measured breaths forcing the hairs along my arms to stand on end.
“Look, I’m sorry.” I step into the bathroom, refusing to let her ignore me.
Sitting on the closed toilet lid, her eyes are mesmerized by the river of blood sliding down her thigh, tracking along the back of her knee and along her calf in a ribbon of red.
“What the fuck?” I bellow. “What are you doing?”
My voice startles her enough that the small grey razor blade in her hand falls to the ground, bouncing in a chime that resembles the elevator down to Hell.
I rush forward, grabbing a towel to push it against the cut along her tanned skin.
“It feels better,” she tells me. “To hurt from something I’ve done. I’m in charge.”
It’s then that I see them. Too many to count. Scars littered along her upper thighs confirming this isn’t the first time she’s harmed herself in the search for power.
“Cami,” I whisper.
“You wouldn’t understand,” she accuses quietly. “My nightmares hurt, Rocco. They—”
“Why the fuck do you think I fight?” I yell. “I lied. Of course, my nightmares fucking hurt. They carve away everything that I am, slicing me open and letting me bleed out.”
Her hand grabs onto mine, still grasped tightly to the towel at her skin. She’s shaking, or maybe that’s me. I can’t tell.