Love Me For Me

by Lauren Hawkeye

  If he had, I would have shattered.

  I had no words. I looked up at him helplessly, my feelings seeping from the wound in my chest.

  “I’ll give you some time.”

  I could tell from the tightness in his voice that this was the last thing he wanted to do.

  It was the last thing I wanted, too, but it was what I needed. Tears began to fall, hot and heavy, and I felt a sob rip through my chest.

  “Go.” I shook my head, my hair falling into my face until I was hidden in a curtain of yellow. “Please, just go.”

  ***

  It had been two weeks.

  Alex had given me two days, and then he’d started to call. Once a day, before bed, just to let me know he was thinking of me.

  Though I yearned for his touch, I also shuddered at the thought of intimacy, physical or otherwise, with anyone.

  I’d finally been forced to come face to face with my own personal demon. I’d won, but I know had five years of baggage to work through.

  I had to do it on my own.

  His calls dwindled to every two days, and then every three. And then he left me one final message.

  I played it, alone in my dorm room in the dark.

  “I won’t say that this is okay, because it’s not. We were made for each other, and you know it.” Every frustration that I felt was in his voice. “I won’t keep bothering you, but I just want you to know. You don’t have to be alone.”

  I listened to the message sixteen times, deleted it, and then cried for hours because I’d fucked up so badly.

  A month after we’d gotten back from Lodenville, Felicity showed up at the dorm again. Kaylee looked at me with alarm when she answered—she’d watched me go through enough trauma in the previous weeks, she was probably wondering what calamity would fall if she let Felicity in the door.

  “It’s okay.” Standing, I shrugged into a plaid shirt, for the sake of warmth, not because I wanted to hide my scars.

  I didn’t care who saw them anymore.

  “Can we talk?” Felicity waited until we were outside the building to ask. I stopped, turned, and took a hard look at my mother.

  She was dressed in jeans and a camp shirt, rather than her usual fancy clothes. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, and instead of contacts she wore her glasses, which sat heavily on her face.

  “Here is fine.” I looked out across the quad, looked at all the twenty-something’s scurrying about, seemingly without a care in the world.

  I had been so close to being that way myself. I wondered if I would ever be that way again.

  To my surprise, instead of speaking, Felicity folded me into a fierce hug. I was stiff in her arms, having no idea what to do with the embrace. She wasn’t discouraged by my lack of response; if anything, she held on even tighter.

  When she pulled away, there were tears streaming down her face. I blinked at the sight, certain that my eyes were playing tricks on me.

  “I’m so sorry,” She finally managed. Pulling a tissue from her sleeve, she noisily blew her nose, seemingly oblivious to the students giving her funny looks and a wide berth.

  I had no idea what to say, and so I stayed silent.

  Felicity looked me in the eyes then, and I was struck again by how much I resembled her with that feature. Setting her face, she tucked the used Kleenex into her purse and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Bob is gone.” She nodded decisively.

  “I see.” My words were flat, monotone.

  “I can’t... I can’t ever make it up to you.” The wound that had just begun knitting itself back together tugged, trying to separate.

  It held.

  “I should have believed you. I just... I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that someone I loved, someone I trusted, could do such a thing.” She seemed to need a response, so I nodded, jerkily.

  “All I can say is I’m sorry.” She held out a hand, then snatched it back. I felt that same strange sensation that I’d felt in the hospital, that hint of warmth, trickling back over my skin.

  “That’s a start.” I forced out. The wound stopped trying to tear itself apart again.

  We stood in silence for a moment, each of us lost in our thoughts. When Felicity again spoke, I was surprised by her question.

  “How’s that boy? The one who...” Her words trailed off. I thought of Alex, thought of how I’d made such a mess of things.

  “It... it wasn’t serious.” At least, it wasn’t anymore. And as I went back inside, the truth of that hurt most of all.

  “Really?” I was surprised that Felicity seemed disappointed. “I liked him.”

  Yeah, I thought. I did too.

  ***

  Time marched on, as time does. And things got... better. I stopped hiding behind my hair, stopped feel nauseous when someone used lavender shampoo in the bathroom, and stopped flinching when people got in my space.

  I tried not to think of Alex. It hurt too much.

  One night, not quite two months after that day in Lodenville, I went to the campus pub with Maddy.

  I drank vodka and seven. She drank beer.

  “I’m scared.” She told me as we started into our final round. She was dating someone new, someone far nicer than Brett had been. “I’m scared of being hurt again.”

  I said nothing, because her words had made me realize something.

  We were all scared. Relationships weren’t fairy tales, and love wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows.

  I pondered this as I slurped the dregs of my drink. I was reaching into my purse for cash when I saw him. Alex.

  He was walking to the exit of the pub. He was with a girl.

  He caught my eye, and my heart seized painfully in my chest.

  He smiled, the smile somewhat sad. And then he was gone, leaving me gasping for air like a fish out of water.

  “Ex-boyfriend?” Maddy had watched the exchange with sympathy written all over her face.

  “Something like that,” I muttered, and changed the subject.

  Alex had made me happy. So happy. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t be happy on my own.

  Still, my heart was tender as I trudged back across campus, and up to my dorm room. The nightmares had mostly gone, but I knew I wasn’t going to sleep well that night.

  There was a figure standing outside my door. I startled, the way I thought I always would when taken unawares. But then I saw the lean lines, the dark hair, the gorgeous face.

  It was Alex.

  “Serena.” The sound of my name on his lips liquefied my insides. My knees wobbled as I made a show of fumbling for my key card in my purse.

  “Hi, Alex.” My heart was pounding; I looked anywhere but at him.

  And then my back was against the door, his lips on mine. He kissed me like he was drowning, and I kissed him back with every bit of pent up need that I’d held in check for the last eight weeks.

  Down the hall, someone whistled. We broke apart, both of us panting. His eyes were slightly wild, and I suspected mine were the same.

  We fit together like two pieces of the same puzzle. Another piece could be forced against either one of us, but it wouldn’t ever be the same.

  “Hang on.” I slid the card through the reader, then silently led him into the dorm room. Kaylee was sitting on her bed playing with a flatiron.

  She took one look at me and Alex and promptly slid off the bed.

  “I’ll be back... later. Ish.” She said vaguely, then slid out the door.

  We were alone.

  I wanted nothing more than to fold myself into his arms, to kiss, to explore, to reacquaint myself with every inch of him. Instead I gestured to my bed, and when he sat as I’d asked, I perched on the edge of Kaylee’s.

  “I owe you an explanation.” My words were still breathy from the kiss.

  Alex held out his hands. “Serena, I get it. You do what you have to do to get by.”

  I shook my head vehemently.

  “No. I mean, yes, I gue
ss so, but... I have to tell you this.” Sucking in a great mouthful of air, I steeled myself to speak the words I’d never spoken before.

  “It started when I was fifteen...”

  It took me an hour to tell, with fits and starts and tears. I told Alex about how I had once loved Bob. About how I’d been so happy when I was twelve and my mom had married him, excited that I was going to have a dad.

  I told him about how my mom had started a new job when I was fifteen. About how the job took her out of town sometimes, and that was when he would come visit me in my room. The next day, as if in apology, he would leave me a bouquet of fresh cut lavender, in a crystal vase on my dresser.

  “He told me no one would believe me if I told.” By this point we were lying side by side on my bed, our foreheads pressed together, our legs intertwined.

  I’d forgotten how safe it felt, being close to him.

  “I kept quiet for two years, and then I told my mom. She... didn’t believe me. Didn’t want to believe me, I don’t think.” Alex traced a finger over the lines of the scars on my shoulders, and I didn’t feel the need to pull away.

  He’d been silent since I’d started talking, letting me get it all out.

  “I started sleeping around, taking any attention and affection that I could.” I wasn’t angry at myself anymore. I’d done what I had to do to get through. “I put on a bunch of weight in self defense. And then I started cutting myself. It was a relief, really, the way it let the pain drain away.”

  “Never again.” Alex’s fingers tightened on my shoulders; they were the first words he’d spoken in almost an hour. “No harming yourself. You’re not alone anymore.”

  “Never again,” I agreed. The ghost of a mile whispered over the corners of my lips. “When I came to college I decided to make a fresh start. And that day in Lodenville, I was forced into making another one, all over again.”

  “And... how do you feel now?” His words were casual, but I understood what he was asking.

  Had he given me enough time?

  “I’ve never told anyone that story before. Not all of it.” I propped myself up on one elbow. Tracing my fingers over the edges of the tattoo that peeked out of the neckline of his shirt, I closed my eyes and savoured the sensation of being near him again.

  While my eyes were closed, he moved in and kissed me. Initially a soft, sweet brush of the lips, it quickly turned hot, a frantic need to once again be together.

  As his hand slid down to cup my hip, Alex broke the kiss for just a moment. I moaned in protest, but when I heard his words I had to smile.

  “I love you, Serena.” I leaned forward, captured his lips with my own again, reveling in the warmth his words brought.

  “I love you, too.” I closed my eyes, and gave myself whole heartedly.

  Alex loved me for me. And that was all I had to say about that.

  Want another tale from Safe Haven?

  Check out Love Me Twice, available now!

  Jax Kennedy isn’t interested in girls.

  Kayla Connor isn’t just some girl, though—she’s his best friend Nick’s girlfriend. That means hands off, even if she’d been his type.

  But there’s a little something between Kayla and Jax—and Nick knows it. When he asks Jax to be part of a wild experiment involving all three of them, Jax knows he should say no.

  But what do you do when the guy you’ve secretly loved forever and the only woman to ever catch your eye both want you?

  Well. That’s complicated.

  About the Author

  Lauren Hawkeye is a proud Canadian who loves beer, coffee, kickboxing and books. She loves to hear from her readers. She writes New Adult romance and falls a little bit in love with each hero that she writes.