All I can think to do is swallow and keep my eyes fixed on blades of the ceiling fan above as they rotate endlessly.

“Why?” My voice croaks as I speak for the first time since we’ve come back to the room, asking the same question he’s asked me. “Why did you tell me that you slept with Tawny?”

“I…I don’t know.” He sighs in frustration as he shoves a hand through his hair. “Maybe because since that’s what you thought of me—expected of me without even letting me explain—then maybe I wanted you to hurt as much as I did when you accused me of it. You were so sure that I slept with her. So sure that I’d use her to replace you that you wouldn’t listen to me. You shut me out. You ran away, and I never got a chance to explain that whole fucked up morning to you. You wouldn’t let me…so a part of me felt like I might as well give you the affirmation you needed to think of me like the bastard-asshole that I really am.”

I remain silent, trying to process his rationale, understanding and not-understanding all at the same time. “I’m listening now,” I whisper, knowing full well that I need to hear the truth. Need it all laid out on the table so I can figure out where to go from here.

“I truly didn’t know how alone I was, Rylee,” he starts on a shaky breath and for the first time, I can sense how nervous he is. “How isolated and alone I’ve made myself over the years, until you weren’t there. Until I couldn’t pick up the phone and call you or talk to you or see you…”

“But you could, Colton,” I reply, confusion in my voice. “You ran from me…not the other way around. I was the one sitting and waiting for you to call. How could you think otherwise?”

“I know,” he says softly. “I know…but what you said to me—those three words—they turn me into someone I won’t ever let myself be again. It triggers things—memories, demons, so fucking much—and no matter how much time has passed, I just…” he fades off, unable to verbalize what the words I love you do to him.

“What? Why?” What in the hell is he talking about? I want to scream at him, but I know that I have to have patience. Look where my obstinance has gotten us thus far. Verbalization is not his strong point. I have to just sit back and be quiet.

“Ry, the explanation—when, as a kid, those words are used as a manipulation…as a means to hurt you…” He struggles and I so desperately want to reach out and hug him. Hold him and help him through it, so maybe I can understand him better—comprehend the poison he says sears his soul—but I refrain. He looks at me and tries to smile but fails miserably, and I hate that this conversation has robbed him of that brilliant smile of his. “…it’s too much to go in to right now and probably more than I’ll ever be able to explain.” He exhales on a long, shaky breath. “This, talking right now, is more than I ever have…so I’m trying here, okay?” His eyes plead with me through the shadow of darkness, and I just nod at him to continue. “You said those words to me…and I was immediately a little boy, dying—wishing I was dead—hurting inside all over again. And when I hurt like that, I usually turn to women. Pleasure to bury the pain…” My free hand grips the sheet beside me for the little boy that was in so much pain he’d rather die and for the man I love beside me that’s still so haunted by it and for what I fear is going to spill from his lips next. His confession. “Usually,” he whispers, “but this time, after you, there was no appeal in it. When the thought crossed my mind, it was your face I saw. Your laugh I missed. It was your taste I craved. No one else’s.” He shifts onto his back, keeping his fingers still laced with mine as my heart squeezes at his words. “Instead, I drank. A lot.” He chuckles softly. “The day before…everything happened…Q came by my place and read me the riot act. She told me to clean myself up. Told me to find some friends other than Jim and Jack to hang out with. Becks showed up an hour later. I know she called him. He didn’t ask what was wrong—he’s good like that—but knew I needed some company.

“He took me out surfing for a couple of hours. Told me I needed to clear my head from whatever was fucking it up. He had to assume it had something to do with you, but he never pried. After we surfed for a while, I told him we needed to go out, hit a couple of bars, something to make me numb.” He rubs his thumb softly back and forth over our clasped hands, and I turn onto my side so now it’s me watching him staring at the ceiling. “We did and in the process, Tawny called and had some documents she needed me to sign since I hadn’t been in the office for several days. I told her where we were and she showed up. I signed the documents and the next thing I knew, a couple of hours had passed and all three of us were shitfaced. Lit like you wouldn’t believe. We were closer to the Palisades house, so I had Sammy drive us there and figured we’d pick up their cars in the morning.

“We walked through the front door, and I realized that I hadn’t been there since that night with you. Grace had been there of course—the shirt I’d thrown on the couch before we…” He fades off remembering. “It was folded neatly on the back of the couch for me to see the minute I entered the house. My first reminder. When I walked into the kitchen, she’d taken the cotton candy and it was sitting in a container on the counter. I couldn’t escape you—even drunk, I couldn’t escape you. So I drank some more. Tawny and Beckett followed suit. Tawny was uncomfortable in the clothes she had so I grabbed a shirt for her so she could be more comfortable. We were all sitting in the family room. Drinking more. I was trying anything to numb how much I needed you. I don’t remember the exact sequence of events, but at some point I reached for my beer and Tawny kissed me…”

Those words hang in the darkened room like a weight on my chest. I grit my teeth at the thought even though I’m appreciative of his honesty. I’m starting to think that maybe I don’t need to hear all of the story. That in this case truth might not be the best policy. “Did you kiss her back?” The question is out of my mouth before I can stop it. I feel his fingers tighten momentarily around mine, and I know my answer. I worry my bottom lip between my teeth as I dread hearing the confirmation come from his lips.

He sighs again and I can hear him swallow loudly in the quiet of the room. “Yes…” he clears his throat “...at first.” Then he falls silent for a few moments. “Yes, I kissed Tawny back, Rylee. I was hurting so much and drinking wasn’t helping to numb it anymore…so when she kissed me, I tried my old fallback method.” I audibly suck in my breath and try to pull my hand from his but his grip remains firm. He doesn’t allow me to pull away from him. “But for the first time ever, I couldn’t.” He turns on his side again so that although the darkness of the room doesn’t allow us to completely see each other, I know that he is staring into my eyes. He reaches his free hand up to run the backside of his fingers over my cheek. “She wasn’t you,” he says softly. “You ruined casual for me, Rylee.”

I sniffle at the tears burning the back of my throat, and I’m unsure of whether they’re a result of the fact that he did try to start something with her or if they’re because of his reasons why he couldn’t. “I told you I loved you, Colton, and you ran away. Basically into the arms of another woman,” I accuse. “A woman who has harassed and threatened me no less in regards to you.”

“I know…”

“What’s to say you won’t do that again, Colton? What’s to say that the next time you get spooked you won’t do the same damn thing?” Silence falls around and between us, wiggling its way into the doubts in my head. “I can’t…” I whisper as if talking normally is too much for the words I’m about to utter. “I don’t think that I can do this, Colton. I don’t think I can let myself believe again…”

Colton shifts suddenly in the bed and sits up, grabbing both of my hands in his as I fall onto my back. “Please, Rylee…don’t decide yet…just hear the rest of it out, okay?” I can hear the desperation in his voice, and it undoes me for I know exactly how it feels when that tone is in your voice.

That was the same one I had right after I told him I loved him.

We sit there and his hands hold mine—our only connection despite feeling as if he is the only air that my body can breathe. I feel the tension radiate off of him as he tries to put the thoughts swarming in his head into words.

“How do I explain this?” he asks the room as he blows out a loud breath before beginning. “When you race, you’re going so fast that everything outside of your car—the sidelines, the crowd, the sky—everything becomes a big, stretched out blur. Nothing specific can be identified. It’s me in the car, alone, and everything outside of my little bubble is part of the blur.” He stops momentarily, squeezing my hands to stop the nerves trembling through his as he regroups to try and explain better. “Kind of like when you’re a kid and you spin in circles…everything in your line of sight becomes one big continuous image all blurred together. Does that make sense?”

I’m unable to find my voice to answer him. His anxiety seeping into me. “Yes,” I manage.

“I’ve lived my life for so long in that state of blur, Rylee. Nothing is clear. I never stop long enough to pay attention to the details because if I do then everything—my past, my mistakes, my emotions, my demons—will catch up to me. Will cripple me. It is always easier to live in that blur than to actually stop, because if I stop, then I might actually have to feel something. I might have to open up to the things I’ve always protected myself against. Things ingrained in me from the shit that happened to me as a kid. Shit that I don’t ever want to remember but that I constantly do.” He releases one of my hands and scrubs it over his face. The chafe of the stubble against his hand is a welcome sound to me, a comforting one.