A. Jackson - When We Met

Kier’s head jerked back and his eyebrows rose. “Look, I’m sorry if I embarrassed you yest—”

“For a guy who doesn’t talk a lot, you’ve sure seemed to do nothing but talk the last couple days. I’m sorry, but I need you to leave.”

Even as I said the words, I wanted to take them back. I didn’t want Kier to leave. I wanted him to keep talking to me. I wanted to know everything about him. I wanted this safe feeling to never go away, but I hated knowing he could see how close I was to breaking for the second time today. I hated knowing he probably thought I was some ridiculous girl. And right now . . . right now—no matter how much I wanted him here—I needed to be alone.

With a small nod, he took two steps backward before turning and walking down the stairs.

I didn’t even wait until I heard the front door shut. Ignoring the hunger pains in my stomach, I turned and bolted up the stairs and into the attic as the sadistic cravings got to be too much and a tortured sob burst from my chest.

I tripped over pillows and blankets, falling onto a mass of more of the same as hard sobs racked my body and tears streamed down my cheeks. My hands fisted, and I pressed them against the tops of my thighs as I chanted the words over and over again until sleep finally claimed me.

I won’t do it. I can’t. For Ian. For me. I won’t do it. I can’t. For Ian. For me.

Kier

I spent the entire next day doing nothing but thinking about Indy and the way she’d looked when I saw her the day before. It wasn’t hard to miss the bloodshot eyes and blotchy cheeks, but she hadn’t even wanted to talk about our conversation from the morning before—and I know that had been my fault. But if she wouldn’t talk to me about that, I knew bringing up the fact that she looked like she’d been crying would only make everything worse.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I couldn’t stop wondering what had been wrong. I couldn’t stop the need I felt to go take care of her. Just like I’d always felt with her. From the beginning there’d been something about her, something calling me to her—to protect her. Only now I was having more and more trouble staying away from her. Like today. It’d been storming all day, the temperatures borderline freezing, and the lightning and thunder constant. Obviously she wasn’t alone in her house like I was, but her housemate had mentioned something about two of them being at work all day, and I figured today would be the same. So she was alone again and I’d been thinking of a hundred different excuses to show up like I had done yesterday. Keep her safe from the storm—douche line. Bring her food—which I didn’t have any of. Take her out—which I doubted she would agree to. Ask her if she was ready to actually remember me—but I knew I couldn’t.

I was reaching, and I knew it. I needed to stop. I just didn’t know if I could.

I sat up quickly on my bed when the power went out in the house. After waiting a few seconds without it flickering back on, I fell back and raked my hands down my face.

“Fucking perfect.”

Slapping my hand around on my bed until I found my phone, I slid my thumb across the screen to light my way so I could go check the breaker in this old house. I stopped when I realized there was no light coming in my window from outside, either.

Walking over to it, I looked out the blinds to find a dark street that only lit up from the random lightning. Glancing to the left, I saw Indy’s car parked in front of their house, and fought with myself for only a minute before I was pulling on a hoodie and jacket. With a douche line or not, I was going over there and keeping her safe from the motherfucking storm.

I ran through the rain and up the stairs to the girls’ porch just as the front door opened, revealing Indy with wide eyes, like she’d just been caught.

“Kier,” she breathed.

This was such a bad idea. “Uh . . .” I’m checking on you again. I’m protecting you like the badass I’m not. “I wanted to see you.”

Her lips curved up. “You wanted to see me?”

“Yeah,” I said on a defeated sigh.

“Even after the way I treated you yesterday, and embarrassed myself the day before, and I could go on to the other times we’ve spoken . . .” She started to laugh, but jolted when a bolt of lightning flashed, almost immediately followed by a deafening clap of thunder.

“Yeah, still wanted to see you. But if you’re going some—”

She stepped back, holding the door wider. “I was coming to you. You just beat me to it.”

I kept my eyes trained on her as I walked into the house, not missing the way she was looking everywhere but at me as I did. I was used to the drunken Indy forgetting me, and the sober and adorable-as-sin Indy—but I wasn’t used to what I’d encountered yesterday, and I wanted to know what had made her act that way. I wanted to fix it. I wanted to make sure it never happened again.

“So you—” I started at the same time she blurted, “I’m so sorry, Kier. I—wait, what were you about to say?”

I smiled even though I doubted she could see me clearly. “I was just trying to figure out why you were coming to see me.”

There was a long pause. The only sound was our breathing, the rain against the house, and the occasional thunder. When she spoke again, her words were soft and slow. “I needed to apologize for yesterday, and . . .”

“And?” I prompted.

“And I didn’t want to be alone tonight,” she breathed.

My heart beat harder in my chest and heat flooded my veins, but I tried to stop my initial reaction. Telling myself that if her housemates had been here, she wouldn’t have come looking for me, and that it was possible she would have gone to any of the guys in my house. But it was damn hard to keep telling myself that when she’d been coming to me sober for the second time.

When I didn’t respond, she huffed. “I can’t see you very well, so I can’t try to figure out what you’re thinking and it’s bothering me.”

I bit back a smile and reached out until the tips of my fingers brushed her stomach. Her muscles contracted at the contact, but she didn’t pull away. I let my fingers trail across her stomach until I found one of her arms, and then I slid my hand down her soft skin and intertwined my fingers with hers.

“Well, then, you won’t be alone.”

Her breathing deepened and she curled her fingers around mine, and my body relaxed at the simple movement. “What is it about you?” she asked.

Even though she’d asked me before, I knew this question wasn’t meant for me. Just her tone told me she’d asked herself that question at least a hundred times, and I wondered what answer she’d started coming up with.

“I told you—”

“When I’m ready.”

I swallowed roughly and nodded in the dark room. “Yeah.”

“And you’re not going to tell me when exactly it is that I will be ready?”

“No.”

“But I still feel safe with you.”

God, I hope so.

Indy cleared her throat and took a step back, her grip on my hand tightening as she did. “The pillow room has a lot of blankets. I, uh, don’t really feel comfortable having you in my room yet—even though you were already in there yesterday. But it’s comfortable up there, and even though it’s probably colder up there than the rest of the house, we’ll be able to stay warm.”

If only she had any clue how many times I’d been in her room. My lips twitched into a smile. “Lead the way.”

After stumbling our way up one flight of stairs, down the hall, and then up more stairs, she suddenly paused in front of me.

“I wasn’t joking when I said it’s full of pillows. We didn’t turn this room into a bedroom. The carpet is covered with dozens of pillows, and there are probably another dozen blankets at least in here. You have to walk very carefully or you’ll trip and go down.”

“Okay . . .” I could see enough so I could make out the silhouette of her body, and the lumpiness of the floor, but that was about it.

She started walking painfully slowly, and after she took a few calculated steps, I took two—and immediately fell, taking her down with me.

“What the hell kind of death trap is this room?” I grunted into the mass I’d fallen into, half of which felt like a pillow, and half of which seemed to be a blanket. At least the landing was soft.

Indy was laughing so hard she didn’t respond for a few seconds. “I told you to be careful where you walked!”

“I was!”

“Obviously not.” There was a rustling noise before the blanket was yanked out from underneath me. “If you find blankets, grab them.”

“You just took mine.”

She huffed. “You’ll find more. Come on, it’s freezing up here, and it’s only going to get worse the longer the power stays out.”

Not wanting to risk standing, I crawled around on the pillows, grabbing anything that felt like a blanket as I moved toward where Indy was already waiting by the window. I could see her silhouette and breaths coming out in little white puffs.

“I think I got five?”

“I got six,” she said as she began wrapping blankets around herself.

Dropping mine, I wrapped the ones she’d collected around her until she was completely covered. “You look like a burrito.”

Her soft laugh filled the space between us. “I can’t move my arms.”

“Doesn’t matter, you don’t need to. At least you’ll be warm.”

“Oh, there’s no doubt of that.” She smiled at me in the dark room before frowning. “But now I can’t make you look like a burrito.”

“I don’t want to be a burrito. I wouldn’t be able to move my arms.”

“What the hell, Kier?”

I laughed and grabbed the blankets I’d dropped. “You’ll get over it.”

After I covered myself, we huddled closer together and talked for an hour about classes, housemates, and why she had always been afraid to say anything to me since she never saw me talking to anyone. Like I’d known it would, that topic led to her asking again why she felt safe with me, and when I couldn’t give her an answer, she stayed quiet for a few minutes.

“I haven’t felt safe in a long time,” she finally admitted softly, and then shook her head. “I don’t mean I’ve felt like I was in danger or anything. I just—I’ve felt—it’s hard to explain. . . .”

I just waited.

“I’ve felt like I was on the verge of destroying myself for so long, and I just couldn’t stop. It made me feel like I was drowning, and even when I thought I had people helping me keep it together, they weren’t. And they never made me feel as at peace as you do just by being near me. This feeling is so different—such a nice change. Like I’ve said, I don’t know how to begin to explain it, but it’s just this feeling I have around you.”

And this was it. That tone. It was the same one she’d had yesterday when I tried to talk to her and she asked me to leave. And I knew at that moment that she was ready to know about all those Saturday nights I’d been taking care of her. I didn’t know how I knew; I just knew wherever this conversation was leading this time, it would lead there. She’d told me she’d felt safe before, but never like that. Everything was different this time.

She laughed awkwardly. “I don’t even know why I’m bringing this up. I know you won’t tell me why.”

“It’s because all I want to do is take care of you,” I said before I could stop myself, and risked a glance at her wide eyes.

“Wh-what? Take care of me?” She laughed. “Kier. You don’t even know me. I’m—I’m a mess. I’m apparently a slut—”

“Don’t. Don’t say that about yourself.”

“You don’t know—”

“Yeah, Indy, I do.” I held her gaze for a minute and watched as she bit down on her bottom lip, like she was trying to stop herself from saying something. “Destroying yourself . . . ,” I mumbled, echoing her words, and let that hang in the air for a few seconds. Taking a deep breath, I looked away as I said, “Indy, you always seem so surprised that you’re hearing me talk—or you say something about how I’m quiet. And yeah, I’ll admit I don’t talk to a lot of people—and last year, we didn’t talk at all. But we’ve talked a lot over the last three months, more than you realize. That’s not the only difference in this year, though. I saw you at the parties at our house last year, and you were never like how you are now. You’re wild; you’re out of control. You’re with multiple guys, and you never remember a thing.”