Page 60 of Lessons In Grey

“Emily, this is normal.”

“What is?”

“This,” he said, gesturing towards me, his hand pulling my attention back. “You had a great high for the first time in a very long time, falling further back is normal afterwards. Your mind spent the allotment. It needs to recover.”

Was that why I felt as if I had no energy these last two days? Because I hadspent my allotment? That seemed like such a crock of shit. I really hated my head sometimes.

“Have you been taking care of your arm?”

On instinct, I pulled it closer. “Yes,” I muttered, eyes falling to where the tips of my fingers just barely peeked out from under my sleeves.

“Have you cut yourself since Friday night?”

The brashness of it caused my eyes to flick to his. It was so blatant that I couldn’t help but open and close my mouth several times before words finally spit out. “No.”

Word, just one.

I had thought about it though. Early this morning, just past midnight, I had sat in my bathroom with the door locked, the blade in my hand, until the alarm went off.

I frowned. “Do you ever sleep, by the way? Every thirty minutes you kept sending me messages. Clingy.” I liked it. I liked that he couldn’t not text me because it was how I felt. I was just too damn scared to be like that.

Even now, I wanted to touch him. I wanted to literally justtouchhim. Even if it was just my hand on his thigh or our fingers brushing together, literally just the smallest amount of it and I’d be okay, but fuck, society has properly ruined that.

Women were called crazy, men were called whipped, but couldn’t we all just fuckingbewithout labels. Why wasn’t it okay to be obsessed with someone if they were obsessed with you? Yet here we all were, sitting in perpetual craziness, terrified of telling that person how much we actually wanted to be around them because society had brainwashed us all into thinking we should all be in love but only partially. We shouldn’t let it consume us because that was crazy and if we did, we should be committed.

A soft smile touched his lips. “What can I say, I’m unashamedly obsessed.”

I wanted to be like that, but the fear was still there. I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop because it would, eventually, I was sure of it.

“It kept you from doing it, didn’t it?” he asked when I was too far in my own thoughts to respond.

I turned away from him, staring at the other end of the hall. Yeah. Yeah, it had.

I pulled at my sleeves, my eyes eventually falling to my fingers. At one point, I had painted my nails black, but the nail polish had chipped off so much, that all that remained were little blobs of the color right in the middle. “In your line of work, did you ever have to learn about psychological warfare?” I finally asked.

He was quiet for a long time. “Yes,” he finally said. “Is that what’s happening? Is that why I haven’t seen any bruises on you lately?”

Of course, he had seen. From what little I knew of him, it seemed like it wouldn’t have mattered how much makeup I would have put on, he always would have seen.

I shrugged in response. Saying it out loud made it sound sodramatic. I wasn’t in a way. I wasn’t overseas fighting against people with guns. It just seemed so…extreme talking about it, especially with him. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s all in my head.”

He slid his hand over both of mine. “Tell me about it,” he requested gently.

I swallowed, the warmth spreading up my arm and across my chest. Fuck, I had missed that. I studied his tattoos, wondering how old he had been when he had gotten them. “Since dad took the alcohol out of the house, he hasn’tdoneanything,” I explained, staring at his hand intently. “He just glares and smiles and follows me around the house. Sometimes he even knocks on the wall, the one we share, in the middle of the night. I don’t know if that qualifies, but it sure feels like it.”

“Emily, if he’s causing you to lose sleep, to fear every second of every day, it qualifies.”

I inhaled deeply, my eyes filling as I slowly shifted my own hands until I was clinging onto his. “How do you survive it?”

He released my hands and lifted his arm, carefully wrapping his arm around me.

I fell into him, inhaling his familiar cologne as he adjusted himself until we were comfortably laying against each other. “You keep focusing on the things that bring you joy,” he murmured against my head, the vibrations of his words echoing across my skin.

My eyes fell shut as I pulled my legs up, letting my knees fall onto his legs.

His arm fell around my waist as I melted into him, my heartbeat slowing, the relief of his euphoria swimming over me in waves as the exhaustion pressed through me. “I haven’t been happy in a really long time,” I whispered back.

He kissed my head. “Then let me teach you.”