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I sit up in bed choking, spitting up a scream, my teeth breaking at the edges with the force of it. The night is dark and cold and loud. Warner's bed is an ocean around me and I sit up so I can float on the waves my nightmare has created. I can see nothing but the sliver of light from Warner's office and it's almost more than I can bear. I prop my back against the wall breathing, counting the breaths like that's enough to convince me I'm alive. Is that all life is? One breath after the next? Was every moment with Adam, every kiss, every touch just a perk I hadn't even deserved? Has the world realized its mistake and yanked it away from me, so I'm left with nothing but a memory of what I could have had if I wasn't a monster, if I was worthy, if I was normal?
I don't even realize I'm crying until the office door opens and suddenly I'm horrified. Here I am sniveling in Warner's bed, crying over a nightmare while he sleeps on a couch, while hundreds, thousands, people I know, people I love are sleeping on floors with barely enough blankets to shield them from hypothermia and eternal sleep.
"Juliette?" His voice is soft and delicate and gentle and I love hate him for it. "Are you all right?"
Have I ever been all right, are the birds still birds if they can no longer fly? I'm like a rock in an ocean, sinking, drowning, and oh so still. I don't move, fearful of the waves I'll create if I do.
"I know you're awake, love," Warner says, stepping closer to the bed and I want to grab him pull him closer feel him push him away, tell him to go back to the office, but I can't say anything, the forgotten scream having decimated the insides of my mouth. He sits, closer than I expected, and pulls my hand so it's bound between both of his, protected trapped in his warmth. "Please talk to me."
Maybe it's the late hour or the dream I'm trying to wash away or maybe it's because he sounds as vulnerable as I feel but the words spill end over end out of my mouth, off my tongue, slowly, like honey but bitter. "When I was ten, my teacher had us write up a list. A birthday list or a Christmas list. A list of things we wanted. Most kids asked for a bike. Or clothes. Some asked for a home or their loved one to not be dead anymore. Almost everyone asked for more food. To not be hungry anymore. Do you know what I asked for?" Warner doesn't answer but his fingers are stroking my knuckles. He's listening. "I asked for a hug." I close my eyes though I don't need to, remembering the fantasies, the daydreams, the nights when I held myself together with my own arms wrapped around myself, holding so tightly and yet never tight enough. "That was the first time they sent me away." I'm whispering now but it doesn't matter because the room is so quiet, I'm still afraid my words will break something. "They thought I meant I wanted to kill someone. I didn't understand..." The tears are back and I hate them, I hate them so much, and Warner shifts but I clutch his hand to stop him. "I hurt you," I whisper, more softly than before, but he still hears me.
"No, love. You don't hurt me, remember?"
"You called it cruel." I hear his breath hitch. "You called me cruel. And I don't want to be. Not now. Not to you."
He shifts and I could stop him but I don't and suddenly he's a boat pulling me aboard, his back against the wall and I'm floating in his arms and I love it hate it. "I will never deny you this," he says and I squirm, I want to fight, I want to pull away, I want to burrow inside his arms, his warmth, his love. "Take," he says.
"I don't want to be selfish," I say, the tears falling and drenching his shirt, and he says,
"Be selfish. Just for tonight. I don't mind."
And I want. I want so much to believe him, but I remember his voice, his face, his words, and I'm shaking my head into his chest.
"Do you know what I'd write? On my wishlist?"
I still.
"I'd wish for you to be selfish."
I break, maybe because of his words, maybe because of his arms, maybe because for once I can want and have at the same time and I don't even know what I'm doing before I'm in his lap, our fronts flush against each other, my nose against his neck, my arms locked around him, and he's letting me, his arms around me not pushing me away but holding me even closer. It's like with Adam but so, so different. His hands aren't roaming, only fingers spread across my back, solid but unobtrusive, wanting but not demanding, and I press my lips against his throat and he tenses. My hands slip under his shirt and he tenses further and I know I should stop but oh the feeling of feeling. Every touch against skin still feels like the first time and my lips are still pressed against his skin because I can, because he can, and I'm crying because my heart is breaking or bursting or maybe both and Warner makes a sound that vibrates my lips.
I know he's going to ask me to stop, he's going to push me away, like I always push him away, like I pushed Adam away, but my mind has latched onto the word selfish and I want, I want, I want, I say, "Please" and the words die on his tongue, his head thumps against the wall, and I scoot closer, I smell him, I press my lips against him, my hands mapping his back, the pristine and the damaged, and Warner says nothing.
I wonder then about pain and all the different ways it can break us, but when I try to pull away, his hands are a solid weight on my back. So I nuzzle back into his neck loving him for it hating myself but unable to insist. Seventeen years I went without this and I was suffocating from the lack and now I have oxygen and I can't stop breathing.