Growling in frustration, he also rolled onto his side so he was facing me, punching his pillow into a more comfortable shape before his face settled on top of it. “I can tell you’re exhausted. After your shower, you looked about ready to collapse. Why can’t you sleep?”
“I just can’t.”
He was silent for a long beat. His throat cleared and his voice softened before he spoke again. “You’re safe here, you know. You’re… safe with me.”
I nodded, unable to think of a coherent response. And, if I was being honest, somewhat afraid of what might come out if I risked opening my mouth.
“No one is going to come after you.”
“I know that.”
His eyes narrowed a shade. “Then why can’t you sleep?”
“I don’t…” A blush heated my cheeks and I merely shook my head. “I can’t…”
“Is this about what you told Flo, back in the car? You said you can’t…what?”
Goddess, he didn’t miss a trick. I could tell he wasn’t about to let this go until I gave him an answer. Running a hand through my still-wet hair, I heaved a heavy sigh. “I don’t sleep with people.”
He made a strangled sound of disbelief. “You’re not a…”
“No, I’m not a virgin.” I rolled my eyes. “I screw people, Graham. I just don’t sleep with them.”
I think I’d shocked him silent. He was quiet for a very long time. When he finally did speak again, all he asked was, “Why?”
My chest felt like there was an anvil resting on it, slowly compressing all the air out of my lungs. I never talked about this — about my past. But for some reason — maybe it was the dark, maybe it was the sleep-deprivation, maybe it was because there was some deranged part of me that still went weak in the knees whenever this infuriating man came within a half-mile radius — the words started to spill out. Words I’d never told anyone. Not even Flo. Not even Aunt Colette.
“I didn’t grow up like you. Silver spoon, perfect family, all that. I didn’t even grow up like Desmond or Florence, comfortably middle class, not rich but not poor. My mother was — still is, I suppose, though I haven’t seen her in almost a decade — a pretty big mess. She could barely take care of herself, let alone me. Though, honestly, she didn’t ever express much interest in taking care of me. Or in me, period.” I took a shaky breath. “We bounced around from town to town, from trailer park to trailer park. Never the same place for long. Mostly because Mom moved through boyfriends even faster than she moved through employment opportunities. Which was to say,warp-speed. I learned pretty quickly how to take care of myself during the day. Got myself to school, figured out how to use the microwave. But at night, if she wasn’t working she’d be home… and that was somehow worse than being by myself all the time. Because she never came alone.”
Graham listened without interruption, so still he was like a shadow. If I didn’t look at him, I could almost convince myself he wasn’t there at all. Or that he’d fallen asleep, and I was just speaking to the darkness.
“She partied a lot. Drugs and booze and other stuff, with whatever dickhead she happened to be dating at the time. I saw a lot of things no little kid is supposed to see — especially when their mother is the one doing them. And I never had any way to escape it. It was a trailer. So, I never had…”
“A room of your own,” Graham finished softly.
“A room?” I laughed without humor. “Try a door. Try a lock. Try a bed.” My voice lowered, barely audible. “My so-calledbedwas the convertible dining room table where she snorted lines of coke and rolled joints. I can’t count the number of times I fell asleep curled up in a ball on the cushions, and woke up to some random skeezeball, drunk off his ass, staring at me.”
Graham’s body went solid as he tensed. The air seemed to charge, like a live current had started spitting raw power into the room. “Did anyone… did they ever…”
“No. No, I suppose I was lucky in that regard. When they got too interested, Mom would drag them off into the back bedroom and shut the door.”
Some of the tension ebbed.
“But even then, with that door shut… I could never sleep. It wasn’t until I came to Salem… until I started spending summers with Aunt Colette… that I finally got a good night’s sleep.”
Graham blew out a long breath. “How old were you? When you started coming here?”
“Eight.”
“Been a long time since then.”
I nodded at the ceiling, saying nothing. He was right. It had been a long time. But some scars don’t fade. Some wounds alter you on a molecular level, rearrange your body-chemistry in such a way that there’s no undoing the damage.
“You’ve never shared a bed with anyone?” he asked after a while, a dubious edge to his voice. “Even in college?”
“I requested a single every semester.”
“And… relationships?”