Lovers & Fighters

It was Sunday morning, and streaks of sunlight were just beginning to peek through the slits between the curtains in Ryan’s bedroom. He’d woken up before me and slowly roused me awake with sweet kisses, warm flicks of his tongue, and cool, slick fingers opening me to him. He always treated me as some fragile thing, as though he was afraid to break me. I wanted to tell him, yearned to tell him that I was much stronger than he gave me credit for, but I didn’t have the heart to let him know that I wasn’t some delicate thing he needed to treat as such.

He reached out a hand and ran his fingers over my jawline and down along my neck. “I adore looking at you first thing in the morning, just as you’re waking up. You look so young.”

I smirked at him. “Just how young do you like your men, Ryan?”

Ryan laughed as he ran his hand up his chest and rested it there, nestled against the fine hairs over his heart. “That’s not what I meant. You just look so peaceful, less troubled. You walk around every day like there’s a storm cloud over your head.”

My smile slipped away.

I had started to sit up when his arm reached out and he wrapped his fingers around my elbow. “I didn’t mean anything bad by it, Scott.”

I stared down at the floorboards below my feet but didn’t pull any farther away from Ryan. Right then, I wanted to pull away from him, but I knew the more distance I kept putting between us, the further I was pushing Ryan away. And I didn’t want to push Ryan away. I wanted him by my side, my rock, my something secure, real enough to hold me down and brush away the looming clouds that hung over me. And some days it almost worked.

I thought back to that night a few weeks before when I’d dropped Julian off at his apartment. He’d recognized how empty I felt inside.

Stormy didn’t mean empty, did it?

I couldn’t let Ryan know. I couldn’t let Ryan see. If I did, I knew he’d leave me.

Turning back toward him and looking over my shoulder, I gave him the most believable smile I could muster. He looked relieved, like he’d watched me dodge a bullet he thought had come much too close to my heart. It was a good thing he had no clue that nothing ever came that close to my heart.