“Stop it, you evil wench.” He struggles trying to remain stoic, but when my fingers continue their relentless torture, he wriggles his body away from me.

“I’m not letting you get away.” I laugh with him as I wrap my arms around him and try to prevent him from escaping.

He’s laughing, the razor thrown and forgotten into the sink, his towel dangerously close to falling from his hips, and my arms wrapped around him from behind. Unintentionally, I’ve maneuvered him into the one position I‘d just been thinking about. I know he realizes it the moment that I do because I feel his body tense momentarily and his laughter fades off before he tries to cover it up. Colton’s eyes glance up to the reflection of the mirror to meet mine. The look I’ve seen in any one of my boys’ flickers through them, and it breaks me apart inside, but as quick as it flashes there, it’s gone.

Regardless of the length of time, I know how much that small concession is a huge step between the two of us.

Before I know it, Colton’s twisted out of my grip and is assaulting my rib cage with the tips of his fingers.

“No!” I cry, trying to escape him but unable to. The only way I can think to get him to stop is to wrap my arms around his torso and press my chest to his as hard as I can. I’m breathless and know that I’m no match for his strength.

“Are you trying to distract me?” he teases as his fingers ease up and slide up the back of my shirt to the bare flesh beneath. The protest on my lips fades as I sigh into him and welcome the warmth of his touch and the arms that he tightens around me. I find comfort here, a peace I never thought I’d know again.

We stand here like this for some time—the length I don’t know. It’s long enough, though, that his heartbeat beneath my ear has slowed significantly. At some point I press my lips into his neck and simply absorb everything about him.

I’m so overwhelmed with everything. I know that he’s just shared something monumental with me—bestowed a depth of trust to me—and maybe subconsciously I want to give him a piece of me in return. I speak before my head can filter what my heart says. And by the time I do, it’s too late to take it back.

“I love you, Colton.” My voice is even and unfaltering when the words come out. There is no mistaking what I’ve said. Colton’s body stiffens as the words suffocate and die in the air around us. We stand there in silence, still physically entwined for several more moments before Colton unlaces his fingers from mine and deliberately removes my hands off of him. I stand still as he steps to the edge of the counter to grab his shirt and shove it over his head, an exhaled “Fuck!” coming from between his lips.

I follow him in the mirror and the panic in his eyes, on his face, reflected in his movements are hard to watch, but I’m silently pleading with him to look into my eyes. To see that nothing has changed. But he doesn’t. Instead, he briskly walks past me into my bedroom without looking at me.

I watch him drag on yesterday’s jeans before sitting on the bed and shoving his feet in his boots. “I’ve got to get to work,” he says as if I hadn’t spoken.

The tears that threaten fill my eyes and blur my vision as he rises from the bed. I can’t let him go without saying something. My heart is hammering in my ears, the sting of his rejection twisting my insides as he grabs his keys off the dresser and shoves them into his pocket.

“Colton,” I whisper as he starts to walk past me to the doorway. He stops at the sound of my voice. His eyes remain focused on his watch as he fastens it on his wrist, his damp hair falling onto his forehead. We stand there in silence—me looking He stops at the sound of my voice. at him, him looking at his watch—the chasm between us growing wider by the second. The silence so loud it’s deafening. “Please say something,” I plead softly.

“Look, I—” He stops, sighing heavily and dropping his hands down but not meeting my eyes. “I told you, Rylee, that’s just not a possibility.” His rasp is barely audible. “I’m not capable of, not deserving...” he clears his throat “...I’ve got nothing but black inside of me. The ability to love—to accept love—is nothing but poison.”

And with that Colton walks out of my bedroom and what I fear most possibly out of my life.



I can’t breathe. Fuck. My chest hurts. My eyes blur. My body shakes. The panic attack hits me full force as I grip the steering wheel, knuckles turning white and heart pounding like a motherfucking freight train in my ears. I try to close my eyes—try to calm myself—but all I see is her face inside the house in front of me. All I hear are those poisonous words falling from her mouth.