by Bethany-Kris
Ben had been right at his side the whole time.
“Look at what your selfishness caused, Dino,” his uncle had said. “Look at the heartbreak they feel because of you.”
“I’m sorry,” he’d managed to mumble.
He’d said it only because that’s what Ben had wanted.
More so, he’d said it because he knew Ben was right.
“Dino!”
Finally—finally—he saw a blackness begin to saturate the edges of the memory, promising to take it away soon and drag him back from the hell he lived in every time he closed his eyes. There was always a small part of him that held onto the memories, like a punishment of sort, because he absolutely believed that he deserved to live inside them forever.
It was his life, after all.
He should own it.
“Jesus, Dino!”
It was only the frantic panic in Karen’s voice that made his eyes peel open to see the darkness of the bedroom staring back at him. His heart beat hard in his chest, sending heat and fear spinning through his bloodstream.
But he was awake.
Dino took a breath, and then another.
He blinked up at the ceiling as Karen leaned over him to turn the bedside lamp on, illuminating her worried face looking down at him.
“You feel like you’re made of rocks,” she muttered.
Her hand slid up his shaking arm, then down to his clenched fist, and skipped over the tautness of his stomach, and more carefully up to his chest. She rubbed the hardness settling in his muscles, as if willing the stress and pain away with her movements. It helped a bit, but not entirely.
Silently, she placed her palm over his racing heart, and he soaked that feeling in for a moment.
Just her hand over his heart.
Calming him.
“Bad dream,” Dino said at her questioning stare.
Karen nodded slowly. “I got that.”
He almost wanted to feel embarrassed, given what he knew about how he could act in the midst of his nightmares. Sometimes he talked a lot, other times he thrashed about, and drenched the bedsheets in sweat.
It was why he fought sleep as much as he could.
He’d thought he’d be okay with Karen—he had been before.
“It happens a lot?” she asked.
It came off like a question, as though he had some control in whether or not he wanted to answer, but just by the look on her face, he could tell she had already drawn her own conclusions. That was fine, because he figured it was probably obvious, given his odd nature about certain things, especially sleep.
She’d mentioned on more than one occasion that he didn’t sleep nearly enough.
“‘A lot’ would imply I get a break from it,” Dino settled on saying.
Karen winced, but she didn’t try to hide it from him. “Have you ever thought about talking to someone for it?”
Dino shifted higher on the bed until his back was resting against the headboard, and used his arms as a pillow. Karen mimicked his position, albeit she didn’t move far from his side. He stayed quiet for a long while, considering how exactly he wanted to answer her question. She didn’t mean anything bad by it, he was sure of that fact, but it still didn’t sit right with him.
“I don’t talk about it with myself; I’m not about to go to someone else,” he said.
“Ever?”
“No.”
“Why?” she pressed gently.
Dino sighed heavily, scrubbing a hand down his bruised face. “A lot of reasons. None I’m particularly willing to share.”
He was well aware he sounded like an asshole in that moment. He wouldn’t blame Karen a bit, had she demanded he get the hell out of her bed and her life. However, like she always did, she managed to surprise him.
“What about the … other stuff?”
Dino’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Karen fingered the hem of the sheets pooled at her waist, her gaze firmly stuck on her fiddling. Rarely had he seen her act nervous, but that action spoke entirely of unease. Dino didn’t know why; he’d never given her a reason to be nervous with him, or he didn’t think he had.
“Come on, Dino. It’s one thing to shut down because you don’t want to deal, it’s another to shut off because you can’t deal.”
Dino didn’t reply because he didn’t want to repeat himself.
Karen didn’t seem to mind. “If you don’t want to talk to a professional about your issues or the dreams because … whatever … that’s fine. Not understandable, but fine.”
“There’s nothing to talk about, Karen.”
“There is.”
“Nothing I’m willing to share.”
“You don’t have to share anything to admit you’re depressed, Dino.”
She could have slapped him, and he was sure it would have felt better than those words.
“I’m not—”
“Everything about you screams differently,” Karen interrupted before he could deny her statement. “The way you act, how you see yourself, and the way you go about life like you’re constantly closed off. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Dino wasn’t willing to delve into that topic very far. “And you think I should talk to someone about it.”
“I asked if you considered it.”
“No.”
“Would you—”
“No,” Dino interjected firmly.
Karen pursed her lips, staring up at the ceiling as if she wished it would swallow her whole. “Okay.”
That was it.
That was all she said about it.
As quick as the conversation had come on, it seemed like Karen was over it. Without a word, she leaned over Dino, turned the lamp off, and then settled into the bed, tucking herself back under the blankets.
For a long while, Dino sat where he was, never moving and staring at the dark wall across from him.
He knew she had a point.
The majority of his life had been spent in the belief that he was disposable.
Forgettable, even.
Worthless.
It was hard to believe anything else, when that was all he’d ever been told and shown.
But it was a place he understood—somewhere he felt comfortable.
It was only with Karen that he didn’t feel so entirely disposable, forgettable, or worthless. She’d never treated him like he was a passing moment in her life, one that she could toss away without care, and not think about again.
Not once.
It was exactly why he kept coming back even though he was constantly reminded she was not one of the things given to him, she was something he had taken himself.
“Dino?” Karen asked in the darkness.
“Hmm?”
“Who is Julia?”
Dino stiffened, feeling a familiar spike of dread drive hard into the base of his spine. “Why?”
“Curious.”
He was pretty sure he knew exactly why she was asking him about Julia. His dream that she’d woken him up from had been about her—he’d probably talked in his sleep and mentioned her name.
“There’s nothing to know,” Dino said quietly.
“Nothing at all?”
“Not now.”
“Oh,” Karen whispered, her back still turned to him. “It didn’t really sound like nothing, though.”
Dino wished his throat didn’t feel so goddamn tight. He wished he had the right words to fend off Karen’s questions without his asshole nature showing itself again. He wished he was better at this whole thing.
For her, he wished he was just better.
“She was someone that wasn’t given to me, so she was taken away,” Dino said.
He didn’t need to peer down at Karen’s profile to know she was probably confused as hell over his vague explanation of Julia Trentini.
It was the best he could offer.
It was the only thing that had ever been explained to him, after all.
Then, almost too quiet for Dino to hear, Karen asked, “Well, did you love her?”
His answer was immediate and honest. “No.”
He certainly cared for Julia, but he hadn’t the first clue what something like love even felt like back then, let alone now. He was sure, had he been given the chance, he would have learned what love was with her, but that wasn’t the case.
Still, he’d heard that hesitance in Karen’s question.
Like she’d expected a different answer from him, one that might explain his behaviors and oddities away.
He heard her fear.
And then he heard it again.
“Are you sure?” Karen pressed on.
“Karen.”
She didn’t turn in the bed, never mind responding with words.
Dino stared down at her through the darkness, wondering why she had that hitch in her words, or why she would feel like she would need to ask him that at all. Or follow it up by asking again.
“Karen,” Dino said a second time, firmer.
Sighing, she turned to her back, her gaze drawn down. “What?”
That fear he heard in her voice—he knew what it was.
Somewhere inside, he understood she was worried that he wasn’t all here with her because he was scattered somewhere else with someone that wasn’t her.
He got that.
“I’m here,” he told her.
Karen’s gaze didn’t lift to seek his out, she stayed like she was, stiff like a board beside him with her arms crossed under the blankets. “I’m aware you’re here, Dino.”
“Are you?”
“I know what you mean, okay. Let’s go to bed. It’s late.”
No, not now.
He definitely wasn’t going to let her sleep now.
“HEY, listen,” Dino said, shifting a bit to face Karen.
It didn’t matter, as it seemed like she wasn’t interested in hearing what he had to say, instead turning back to her side. The action was clear to him. She’d turned her back; she wasn’t open to talk anymore.
Dino wasn’t having it.
“Karen, come here.”
Her cold shoulder burned, but the silence was deafening.
It cut like a fucking razor blade straight through his skin and down to his black heart.
Being injured like he was, Dino didn’t need to be throwing his weight around or moving all that much for that matter, but that didn’t make a difference to him in that moment. Right then, all he wanted was for Karen to actually hear what he wanted to say to her.
That was important to him.
It would be important for her, too.
“I’m not asking again,” Dino said.
Actually, it was more like a warning.
One she ignored entirely.
Sitting up fully, Dino grabbed Karen’s blankets and pulled them away, ignoring her cry of indignation when the cool air of the room hit her bare legs and barely dressed body. She only ever wore oversized T-shirts, or tank tops and boy shorts to bed—tonight was no exception.
Turning to glare at him, Dino let her attitude bounce right off.
He quickly slid an arm—ignoring the pain shooting through his ribs—under her body, pulling her toward him at the same time he rolled over. He clenched his teeth, letting out a soft grunt at the sharp ache settling in his side as he got her rolled to her back, and he rested overtop her angry form.
Arms crossed, she still glared.
Dino settled in, elbows on either side of her body and comfortable where he was.
At least for the moment.
“I’m here,” he told her again.
Karen frowned. “You already said that.”
“With you.”
“I’m aware, Dino.”
“Then maybe you should start figuring out what that really means, huh?”
Karen looked less than impressed by his statement. “Maybe if you talked a little more about things, I could—”
“I’m not a talker. I don’t talk.”
“No, you stew. You live in silence—in your head. You don’t let me in there, either. I don’t know what you want me to think, Dino.”
He propped his chin in his hand, contemplating her anger and how she verbalized it.
“I want you to think that I’m here, Karen.”
“You keep saying that!”
“Because it matters. It’s important,” he murmured.
Karen rolled her eyes.
“And,” Dino added quieter, “this is the only place where I am here.”
She softened … a bit.
It wasn’t quite enough for Dino, though.
“There’s no one else,” he said. “Hasn’t been for a long time.”
“How long?” Karen asked after a long stretch of silence.
“For something like this? A decade.”
“What about something not like this?”
Dino had to think about that one. “A while—long before you.”
Karen’s anger slowly began to dissipate, and eventually her tight, crossed arms relaxed to lay out at her sides. She still wasn’t looking at him, but it was something.
He would take it.
“I worry about you,” Karen said, her brow knitting together while her fingers traced the veins in his arm. “I sometimes think you could be happy if—”
“I’m happy.”
He’d interrupted her statement only because he knew his words were the truth. With Karen, he was happy. Or as happy as he was going to get. It was not something he took for granted, regardless of what Karen might think, because he knew how fleeting and easily taken happiness really was. There were monsters in his life that made it a game to make sure he was perpetually unhappy.
“Happier,” she corrected, “if you’d let me in a little more.”
“You don’t get it,” Dino said in a harsh exhale.
Karen looked up at him, sadness coloring her brown eyes. “I do.”
“You don’t, because if you did, you would know you’re already in. You’ve been let in for a while. It’s why I keep telling you I’m here. If you understood that, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now at all.”
“Oh.”
“Is that all you’re going to say?”
“I’m not sure what else I should say,” Karen admitted. “Maybe I keep thinking this should be normal, or something. That if I ever want to get somewhere with you, I need to expect other things.”
“Things like making me talk or making me happier?”
Karen tipped her head to the side. “It sounds stupid when you say it.”
“I bet.”
“You know, it’s not lost on me that being here is what makes you happy, Dino.”
“Good,” he said, finding that smile he rarely wore but always gave to her if he could. “That’s the only thing that matters.”
“That, and me not telling you to go.”
Dino nodded. “And that.”
“As long as it’s enough, right?”
“For you, sure.”
Karen frowned slightly. “What if I wake up one day and it’s not enough? What do I do then?”
He didn’t have an answer for her. Not one that she would like, or one that he liked. He struggled for an answer, and Karen didn’t miss it.
“Are we just waiting that moment out?” she asked.
Dino didn’t—wouldn’t—say yes to that.
He was not going to agree to that.
“No,” he said.
Karen’s brow rose. “No? I’m not sure what else we’re working toward, Dino.”
“Not that.”
He was all too aware that she was not given to him. That she was not a part of the life he wanted to keep her safe and far away from. He understood perfectly well that she would need things he couldn’t give, and the good life was not a part of the plans he offered.
What he gave was what she got.
Late nights.
Short conversations.
Private moments.
Them.
He didn’t have much else to give.
But honestly, he didn’t give that to anyone else.
“Karen,” Dino said, cupping her face in his hands so he could make her look at him. In the brown eyes staring back at him, he found solid ground. He didn’t like to feel as though he were constantly falling, never able to stand. It was good to be grounded somewhere—with someone. He couldn’t help that the rest of his life, barring the spots she brightened, were such a mess. “We don’t have to work toward anything at all. Isn’t this good?”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”
“But you don’t say it is, either.”
Karen smiled faintly. “It is good, Dino. But I wonder if it could be better.”
“By making me better, you mean.”
“If you think you need to be.”
“Not when I’m with you, sweetheart.”
“Oh.”
Leaning down, he captured her soft lips with his own, lingering there to hold that kiss for as long as he could. And when she sighed, pleased and happy at his surprise, he took that small opening she gave to deepen the kiss so that he had her warmth and taste on his tongue.
It took practically nothing at all for that innocent kiss to turn into something far hotter when Karen’s lips broke away from his, her kisses dotting over his bruised jaw and then over the racing pulse point in his throat.
She was always so soft—gentle.
Her touches never hurt, her actions never stung.
He liked that a lot.
When he’d lived his whole life in a world where it seemed as though everyone wanted to hurt him, to find the one person who wanted to care for him was everything.
“Careful,” she whispered against his cheek when he reached for the clothing keeping him from finding what he wanted. “Don’t hurt—”
“Hush.”
His demand worked; Karen quieted, a tremor working its way over her flushed skin as Dino worked to get her boy shorts down her legs and then once they were gone, pulled off her tank top, too. And yeah—it hurt a lot. His ribs ached with every movement, his injuries and wounds protesting each time he bent down to kiss her again.
But the silkiness of her skin under his hands was easier to focus on.
The way she bent into him, her back arching like a pretty bow under his touch, was far better to feel than the pain.
There and yes, please and more, Dino breathed in his ear when his fingers found her wet and hot between her thighs was a much more pleasant sound to hear.