Page 97 of I Think He Knows
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He pulls back enough to look into my eyes, then kisses my forehead. His lips burn against my skin, and despite my tears, I shudder at the sensation.
“You want to talk about it?”
I swallow. Nod.
“I’m sorry,” I start as I sink to a seated position in the bed of the truck. Cross my legs and wrap my hands around my knees, holding on tight as if to hold myself in place.
“You don’t ever have to be sorry for the way you feel.” He pulls off his hoodie and drapes it over my shoulders, pulling it snug around me. He sits opposite me.
I sniffle as I rub my cheek to the sweatshirt, breathing in his scent as I try to form a cohesive sentence. “I guess I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed,” I finally say.
“Why’s that?”
“Because that was, like…wow.”
“It was.”
“And the last time we kissed, it was no different.”
“I agree.”
“And you’re always so nice to me.”
His mouth quirks. “You think I was kissing you likethatto be… nice?”
That draws a smile out of me. “Well, no.” He leans over and wipes my nose with the sleeve of his hoodie, and I laugh through my tears. “I don’t know much, but I’m pretty sure nice boys don’t kiss likethat. What I mean is that I just appreciate you looking out for me, making sure I’m okay, no matter what.”
“Lan, you mean the world to me. I’llalwayslook out for you.”
“I just… I wasn’t lying the night of our engagement party when I said that I hadn’t been touched in, like, a decade. I haven’t even come close to kissing anyone else since, well… since Steven.”
His face falls for a moment. Then, his expression changes. Becomes carefully stoic. “Was it that you weren’t—aren’t—over him, even though you want to be?”
“No!” I exclaim sharply. Take a deep breath. We might’ve never talked about dating in the past, but this is something I should tell him. Something he should know before things go any further between us.
I inhale through my nose and look up to the sky as I breathe out. The stars are arriving for the night, flickering overhead like candles in the darkness.
“I… only slept with Steven once.”
Carter’s face is a question mark, but he remains silent, his eyes calmly telling me that I can keep talking if I want to. And I do.
“Don’t get me wrong, it was my decision to do it. I’m not saying he pressured me or anything, I just want to make that clear.” I hold up my hands, and Carter nods. “But at the same time, he used to become distant whenever I said I wasn’t ready. Was kind of hot and cold with me; one minute telling me nice things about myself, the next minute talking about so and so girl he thought was hot. It made me insecure. And I thought that, if I slept with him, it would make him like me more. Which was dumb, I know.”
“Not dumb,” Carter corrects immediately. “You were seventeen, Lan. And that sounds like gaslighting to me.”
I shrug, my shoulders slumping. “That’s exactly what Dr Lemay said. But he didn’t pressure me. I made the decision. And the second it was over, I felt the shift in him. It was like the very thing I thought would make him love me more pushed him away. I felt so inadequate, like I’d done something wrong.”
His hands come to rest gently on my shoulders, his big hands anchoring me. “Still gaslighting. You did nothing wrong.”
My bottom lip trembles. “And I know this is stupid, but a part of me thought that maybeIwas the problem. Like I’d done something wrong, and that was why he slept with other girls while we were still together.”
Carter’s hands tense, then slide off my shoulders as he makes a sound in his throat that’s akin to a growl. “He slept with other girls ‘coz he was a complete jackass. Not because of anything you did.”
“Deep down, I know that. But at the same time, I carried that insecurity with me. And when I started dating again, it all bubbled back up to the surface, amplified by the fact that I am now a single mom with stretchmarks and ten years of being out of practice.” I fist his sweatshirt in my hands, exhale before I continue. “Even though I knew, logically, that it wasn’t true, I couldn’t fight the nagging feeling that I was a disappointment, or bad at sex or something.”
Carter shakes his head at me. “I can assure you that it definitely wasn’t that.”