by Tracey Ward
“Kellen—“
“It went on for nearly a month,” I continued, ignoring him. “I slept on the floor every night and every night she came to the room and told me to be sweet. To be quiet. That it would feel good if I let it, if I was a man. But I wasn’t so it didn’t and she started getting angry at me. She was more forceful. It started to hurt. Finally another kid moved into the house. An older guy. Miguel. He was sixteen, cocky, and not shy about walking around the house with his shirt off all day. Sophia loved him. She gave me my furniture back when she moved him into the house and stopped talking to me altogether. She stopped coming to our room but I heard Miguel sneak out a few times to go down the hall and laugh and moan with her. Then he’d come back reeking of her perfume and I’d dream of crawling out the window into the dark and never coming back. He ran away before me, though. He beat me to it and with him gone it was just Sophia and me again, and without explanation my furniture disappeared. That’s when I started getting into fights at school. That’s when the animal was born.”
“The animal?” Ben asked. His voice was hushed, almost reverent.
“It’s the anger,” I explained. “It’s the only thing that keeps the doors closed.”
“What doors?”
“The doors on the cages for the demons. For Sophia and all the others.”
“All the other people who hurt you?”
“Yeah.”
“The animal, the anger, it protects you?”
“Yes.”
“You feel like the animal right now, don’t you?”
I looked at him dispassionately. “It’s the only way to talk about it without losing my shit.”
He nodded slowly. “I can see that. It’s good.”
I laughed. “I’m going to have to go straight from here to the gym and beat the hell out of my own body to calm down. I won’t feel human until I do. None of this is good.”
“Yes, Kellen, it is. The animal is very, very good.”
“How?”
“It’s a coping mechanism. Exactly like the hollow feeling you get during sex, only it’s the exact opposite. The animal as you call it, the anger, that’s your emotional response to what happened to you. I can see it in your eyes. If you had that woman in front of you right now you’d—“
“I’d murder her with my bare hands and I wouldn’t be sorry.”
Ben pursed his lips tightly. “Yes. I believe that to be true. And while morally we both know murder to be wrong, that response, that emotion you’re feeling is good. The fact that you’re feeling anything in relation to those events is good. Burying your emotions is dangerous. Feeling murderously angry, believe it or not, is healthy.”
“Not for her.”
“We’ll pray you never see Sophia again.” Ben scooted forward eagerly in his chair. “But this is your solution, Kellen. This is your first step toward recovery.”
“The animal?” I scoffed. “He’s a feral monster. He’s insane. He’s no good to anyone.”
Ben cocked his head to the side, studying me. “He’s you, Kellen.”
“You want me to be the animal?”
“I want you to be yourself. All of you. The fear, the anger, the love you have for Jenna. What I don’t want you to be, what Jenna doesn’t want you to be, is nothing. Be angry or be enamored, but don’t be vacant.”
“You want me to feel my feelings.”
“Yes!” he replied excitedly.
I stared at him for a long silent moment, trying to decide if I should take him seriously or not. “Did you pick that advice up from your receptionist because it’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard?”
Ben grinned. “I think it’s totes brilliant.”
Chapter Ten
Jenna
“You watched what?”
“Dirty Dancing,” he replied, swatting at my hand as I reached over and stole a strawberry from the cutting board.
I frowned when he succeeded in knocking it from my hand. “Why? Did you lose the remote again?”
“No. I saw it in a movie.”
“You saw a movie in a movie?”
“Yeah.”
“Like a turducken?”
He looked over at me where I sat perched on the counter next to him. His hand hovered the knife steadily over the strawberry I was eying. “No. Nothing is like a turducken.”
“How do you know? When did you eat one?”
“I haven’t yet. It’s on my bucket list.”
“Of course it is.”
I dove my hand in to take a strawberry. He knocked it away again because dammit Kellen was fast.
“Give me a strawberry,” I demanded on a laugh.
“Can’t. They’re for desert.”
“But I want one.”
He smiled, turning back to the cutting board. “I see that.”
“Just one, Kellen. I’m so hungry.”
“One strawberry won’t fix that. It’ll make you hungrier.” He nodded to the chips and salsa sitting on the kitchen table. “Go snack on those.”
“Those aren’t what I want.”
“Sucks to be you.”
“You’re so mean.”
“I know.”
I glanced around the kitchen, in awe of the delicious smells coming from the oven. He was making some kind of roast with potatoes bubbling and boiling happily on the stove. A can of whipped cream and a plastic wrapped angel food cake waited on the counter on the other side of him.
“I can’t believe you cooked. You hate cooking.” I paused, examining his face as reality began to dawn on me. “I also can’t believe you watched Dirty Dancing. You hate chick flicks. What’s happening here? What’d you do?”
“Nothing,” he chuckled.
“Something’s off.”
“Nothing’s off.”
“Are you a pod person? Be real. You can tell me. I’ll still love you. Aliens? Is it aliens? Did they take over your body and make you watch Dirty Dancing?” I took his face in my hands, forcing him to stop and look at me. “I’ll avenge you. Take me to their leader.”
Kellen smiled that breathtaking, heart shaking smile he had, dropped the knife on the counter, and came to step between my legs. He leaned back, looking down his nose to appraise me. “You’d kill for me, huh?”
“In an instant.”
“You think you can take an alien king?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never met one.” I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “Do you think I could take your king?”
“You wouldn’t stand a chance,” he laughed, leaning in and kissing me softly. “But I love that you’d try.”
Kellen kissed me again, more slowly this time, and I scooted forward on the counter to get closer to him. His arms wrapped around my waist loosely, his hands in no hurry.
When I pulled back I draped my arms over his shoulders, smiling contentedly. “What movie was the movie in?”
“Crazy Stupid Love.”
I scrunched up my nose. “The Ryan Gosling one?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you like it?”
“No. I hate that guy.”
“He’d probably hate you too.”
“I would hope so.”
“Let me have a strawberry.”
He laughed at my persistence. “No.”
“Why?”
“You didn’t say please.”
I linked my fingers behind his neck, shaking him gently. “Kellen, please, please, please can I have a strawberry?”
He grinned, leaning in again. “No,” he murmured, his voice so low and so deep, reverberating through the room. Through my blood.
When his lips met mine I didn’t let him take it slow. I didn’t encourage him to be patient or gentle. I kissed him hard because I missed him harder. I missed the feel of him against me, the touch of his hands, the adoring look he got in his eyes when he laid out on top of me – loving me moments before he left me.
It would hurt when he went under. There was no getting around that, but the build-up
was too much to escape. I wanted it, I wanted him, and even though I’d lose him and a part of my heart in the end it was worth it be that close to him. To have him body and soul for one moment before he disappeared entirely.
When I wrapped my legs around the back of his and pinned our bodies together I felt him groan in the back of his throat. I could feel him hesitate, unsure what to do. Unsure of what was right.
“Jenna,” he mumbled against my mouth.
I wove my fingers into his thick brown hair, denying him an escape. “It’s okay, Kel. I know. It’s okay.”
He hesitated for one breathless second before descending on me. Before taking my mouth with his, my sides with his hands, and my heart with his heat. He missed me too – I could feel it in the rush of his skin over mine.
He undressed me quickly, desperately, fighting between pulling aside my clothes and tasting my skin. My breasts, my chin, my shoulder, my stomach. His mouth followed my pants as they left my legs and when he breathed over my pussy I shivered violently. I felt like ice there on the counter, cold and exposed and transparent, my desire etched in every vein under my skin. Written across my face in swirls of red and pink, screamed through the quiet room under every exhale. Every whimper that escaped me as he mastered me. As he touched me from head to toe, warming me. Thawing me. Puddling me in his hot hands and molding me to something smooth and fluid, so sinuous I felt like a song being sung by his lips.
When his mouth found mine again I attacked him. I lunged, wrapping my body around his in a move that surprised him and toppled us to the floor. I landed on top of him, laughing and bracing myself so I didn’t crush him, not that I could.
“Nice tackle,” he chuckled, smoothing his hands over my thighs that straddled his hips.
He still wore his jeans, his body still hidden from me, and I smiled as I slowly slithered down his body, dragging my naked skin against the rough fabric and mewling lightly in pure pleasure. Kellen watched me go lower and lower, his eyes hooded and full of that love and need that made me feel powerful. It made me feel safe. This was my moment. This was when he was his most raw and open and I wanted to bottle it forever. I wanted to live here with him on the floor wearing nothing but our hearts on our sleeves and our love on our lips. I wanted to draw it out and enjoy it, enjoy him, for as long as he’d allow.
I unhooked his jeans slowly, pulling them down as he lifted his hips to help me. His underwear followed.
I lightly traced my fingers along his legs. Up to his hips. Across his stomach. Down again the other side, drifting closer and closer with every movement. I made sure not to touch him there, though. It was his trigger. That was when I’d lose him, when he’d go under. I had to be careful and I was. I was patience personified as I leaned down and breathed hot and soft across his exposed skin. I heard him moan as his back bowed off the floor with the feeling, so I did it again. I hovered over his erection without touching him. I was close but never close enough. I tortured him the way he always did to me until finally I couldn’t take it. Finally I let my tongue drag over his bare thigh and up higher. Higher. So close but never making contact.
“Jenna,” he groaned.
“Are you still with me?” I whispered.
“Yeah,” he grunted. “Yeah. I’m here.”
I slowly licked my way back up his body, careful to never touch his dick. I tasted his taught, sun browned skin. Dragged my lips over the rolling hills of muscle on his stomach. I touched every golden inch of perfection that made up the man under my hands and he watched me as I did it with a small grin and a groan that I felt in my own chest. Down in my gut and lower.
When I came up to kiss him he took my face in his hands and looked up at me seriously. It stopped my heart because I knew. I knew that this was where we parted ways.
“I’m going to stay,” he whispered roughly.
“I—you can—“
“I’m going to try. I want to try. I have to.”
“No, you don’t. Not if it hurts.”
“Yes, I do because I love you. I need this with you.”
“Kellen,”
He pulled me down and kissed me deeply, his tongue invading my mouth. His scent was in my nose, his taste on my tongue and I almost cried when he lifted his hips and his cock pushed roughly against my pussy.
I tried to pull back, to tell him no because I didn’t want this if it hurt him, but he held me firm. He put one hand at the back of my head to keep my lips on his, then his other hand touched my hip. It guided me gently down. Lower, lower, lower. Insistent and hesitant. Tiny movements that tensed his body underneath me with every inch until the grip he had on the back of my head was almost painful. His fingers clutched at me desperately and his lips stilled, going rigid against mine.
I moved my head so we broke apart and our foreheads met. His breath came hard and shallow against my face, and when I brought my hand up to caress his cheek he shook under my palm.
“Kel,” I whispered brokenly, tears in my eyes and my voice. “You don’t have to. It hurts you.”
“I’m here,” he breathed, his voice strained in a way I’d never known. He pushed on my hip a little harder, guiding me down onto him. Pushing himself into me. “I’m here. I’m here, Jenna. Fuck. I’m here.”
I rolled my forehead against his, back and forth in a soothing motion. “I love you.”
He didn’t answer me. Instead he shoved against my hip until he was all the way inside, full inside my channel and I was straddling him and encompassing him there on the cold, hard floor of the kitchen. We were silent but for his breathing, labored and growing in intensity. I stayed quiet and calm as he adjusted. As he fought whatever demons were coming for him. I didn’t know what to do or what not to do so I did the only thing I could think – I held him. I put my hands on his face and caressed his stubbled cheeks with my thumbs, soft and slow.
He shook harder. His hand twined in my hair, pulling until my scalp ached.
Still I didn’t move.
Kellen’s hand on my hip hurt. His fingers dug into my flesh so hard I wanted to weep.
I held perfectly still. Perfectly silent.
That’s when he started to cry.
I’d never seen it before – Kellen Coulter crying. Not in all the years I’d known him, and to see it now was the single most devastating thing I’d ever known. Tears poured from his eyes, his entire body was wracked with silent sobs that turned into hyperventilating and I suddenly realized what was happening.
He was having a panic attack.
I fought against the grip he had on my body and lifted myself off of him until he was free and untouched. His hand still held onto my hair, his other gripping my arm tightly like a vice holding my body near his.
“Kellen, let me go,” I told him. “You need space to breathe.”
He didn’t answer, he didn’t move, and when I looked into his eyes he was gone. He was empty in a way I couldn’t begin to fathom.
“Kellen?”
Nothing. Only a violently shaking, dead eyed man who was going to pass out if he didn’t slow down his breathing soon.
But I had no idea how to pull him out of this spiral.
My heart cracked, my blood spilling onto his body trying desperately to enter his chest and keep his heart alive. To beat for him, to breathe for him, to live without pain. I would have died for him then if it could have saved him from this thing that consumed him.
I pressed my hand to the side of his face more firmly, afraid to touch him. Afraid he’d crumble under the lightest touch and blow away on the wind like dust. Like ash. He felt that fragile to me – his large, muscled body shivering underneath mine. Convulsing with a blind fear that washed over his eyes and left them dark like marbles.
“Listen to me,” I whispered as steadily as I could. “Breathe slow and deep. In one, two, three… out one, two, three.”
His breathing didn’t change. He didn’t hear me.
I shoved his hand off my arm, swung my leg over his lower body, moving my
self off of him and hovering my face close over his ear. “Come on, Kel. Come on. Listen to me!”
No response.
I watched helplessly as he lay there naked on the floor shaking and scared and so far from me that I couldn’t reach him. He was so far gone I was certain I’d finally lost him and the tears that poured from my eyes were hot as fire against my face. I let them fall, let them burn, and I cursed myself for letting things get this far. I never should have let him try. I never should have been so selfish.
“I’m sorry,” I wept brokenly, crouched on the floor beside him. “Je suis desole. S'il vous plaît. S'il vous plaît. Come back, please.”
The French poured out of me in stilted, desperate utterances of remorse accented by my tears. By my fear. It reminded me of the days in the hospital after the accident when he refused to wake up, when he started speaking to us through the fog in French about ice cream. When he nearly wept and whimpered and I spoke to him the best I could in the language that was ours. That had brought us together on the floor of my family’s living room for hours and hours as he tutored me and taught me. Teased me and gave me the confidence to speak it freely and fearlessly, no matter how poorly I did it. He wrote me letters in French, beauty burned on a page that I could feel under my fingers. That only I could understand in the language he had given me. That his mother had given to him before the world took its toll.
“Kellen, listen to me” I said sternly. “Ecoute moi. Breathe. You’re safe. Respire. Tu es en securite. Respire. Respire!”
I nearly collapsed with relief when he took a deep, shuddering breath. His body continued to tremble and his hold on my head refused to lighten, but he was breathing. He was listening.
“Bien,” I sighed. “Bien, Kellen. Again.”
He breathed again, deeper this time. Thicker and stronger. His body began to relax.