Bend Me, Break Me (16 page)

He was talking about sex. Yes, I liked kissing him, but I definitely wasn’t even remotely close to THAT. With Coen? No way.

I stared at him as if he’d been speaking in another language.

“Ummm,” was all I could say. I could feel how red my face was and I really wanted to dive under my bed so he couldn’t see me.

“And I just put my foot in my mouth and totally killed the mood. My bad.” He looked embarrassed too and there was awkward silence for a few horrible moments.

He caressed my arms up and down, causing my skin to erupt into goosebumps that I knew he could feel when he touched me.

“It’s okay,” I said and climbed off his lap. I could have sworn I heard him sigh a little as I settled back in next to him.

“Now I feel like kind of an asshole, I’m so sorry.” He was making way too much of this. I knew he treated me like a precious piece of glass that was liable to shatter, but that was taking things a little too far.

“Hey, it’s okay,” I said, touching his arm. “I was the one who attacked your face with my face.” He choked out a laugh and I joined him.

“I am not complaining. At all,” he said and I snorted.

“Well, good because I’m liable to do it again at some point.”

“Anytime, anywhere, Ingrid.” Hot. I was hot all over and the air got heavy again.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, scrambling to my feet and dashing for the bathroom.

Too much. He was too much. We were too much together.

Whoa. Things went from zero to… well, I was definitely adjusting my pants and praying that Ingrid didn’t notice. I was almost relieved when she escaped to the bathroom because it gave me time to breathe and talk myself down, so to speak. I got up and paced her small room, trying to think of anything but the kiss that had just happened. My eyes fell on something poking out from under her pillow.

I shouldn’t have touched it. It was wrong. But in hindsight, right and wrong were so much clearer. I reached for it and pulled it out.

A journal. Yeah, I definitely shouldn’t have touched that. I struggled to put it back before she returned, but the book slipped out of my clumsy hands and fell open on the floor.

The heaviness of your leather jacket,

Our shoulders greeting one another,

Your chipped perfection,

The way you said my name,

The way you said my name,

The way you said my name…

I shouldn’t have read it. I shouldn’t have read it. I shouldn’t have read it. My hands trembled as I closed the book and put it back under her pillow. I wanted to wipe off the cover. Like Ingrid was going to dust it for fingerprints periodically.

The one good thing about the journal was that it helped fix the issue I had going on south of the border, so by the time Ingrid came back, I wasn’t popping out of my jeans.

“You okay?” she asked. I was probably looking pretty guilty, but there were a lot of other things that I could feel guilty about so I just shoved this in the box with the others. They clattered around in my head and I fiddled with the food containers to distract myself.

“Yup, just thinking about stuff.”

“That can be dangerous, you know,” she said. Her smile was so much easier now. I still cherished every one of them and they stopped my heart each time.

“Yeah, so I’ve heard.” She flopped down on the floor again with me, her hair falling in her face. I fucking loved her hair. Just the few times I’d gotten to run my hands through it…

Shit. I was getting hard again. Everything she did was so sexy and seemed to be designed to turn me on. She had no idea the effect on me she had and I kinda wanted to keep it that way. Constantly pitching a tent wasn’t going to do anything toward getting her to trust me.

“So, I hate to break it to you, but I actually have to do homework. You can either stay and not talk and pretend you’re not here, or you can leave.” I’d been so blind when I thought she was fragile and delicate. She had these moments where I could see her natural personality coming out. The
her
that was untainted by the things she’d been through.

“Well, those are awesome choices. I think I’ll take the first, since I also have work to do and I just happen to have brought it with me,” I said, pointing to my overflowing backpack. That had been good planning on my part.

She rolled her eyes and pulled out everything she needed and set up on her bed.

“Any room for me?” I asked, raising one eyebrow at the space that was dominated by her notebooks, textbooks, highlighters, laptop and body.

“Sorry, you’re outta luck. But the floor is definitely available.” She was sassy tonight. Yet another turn-on. Her wit was razor-sharp and I loved that too.

I pretended to scowl at her and set myself up on the floor. A few seconds later, a pillow hit me in the head.

“Thanks,” I said and she smirked down at me.

I would love to say that I tuned Ingrid out and was able to have enough concentration to focus on my homework and not her, but then I would have been a liar.

I had my earbuds with me, but putting them in and cranking up the music seemed like cheating so I didn’t. Instead, I spent the entire three hours just waiting for her to make another sound. Whether she was turning a page, uncapping a marker, sighing or humming quietly along with her music, every sound she made sent a little jolt through me. I wanted to live in a world with these sounds. With these Ingrid sounds.

I didn’t risk looking up at her very often.

I managed to slog through about a third of what I needed to do, so I was definitely going to have to squeeze in some time alone the next day to finish it all, but it was totally worth it just to exist in the same room with her.

“Ugh,” she said and I looked up to find her rubbing her eyes.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, just tired. Do you ever feel like your brain is tired but your body isn’t? Like, intellectual exhaustion.” I closed my book and shoved it aside, focusing my attention solely on her.

“All the damn time,” I said. To be fair, most of my mental exhaustion was self-inflicted. I could have stayed back home and gone to a state school and never come here. Never thought about Ingrid or sought her out. Never chased her here, or approached her, or tried to be her friend.

She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and looked down at her books.

“I’m glad I have you, Coen. I don’t have anyone else.” I knew that, but she didn’t know that I did, so I feigned being puzzled and asked her what she meant.

“I don’t have any f-family. It’s just me. And you know I don’t have any friends.” She stumbled on the word “family” and I was surprised she’d even gotten it out at all.

I didn’t want to ask, but I wasn’t supposed to know, so I had to.

“What happened to your family?” She glanced up and I was nearly knocked over by the raw pain in her eyes. I’d never seen her look like that and it killed me.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

“Okay,” I said hastily. “You don’t have to. But if you ever wanted to, you could. With me. You can talk to me about anything, Ingrid. I won’t tell, or judge you. Ever.” She turned away and nodded, but I could tell she was getting lost in her head again.

“Hey, do you want to watch a movie or something?” Anything to pull her back from where she was going. It was a deep, dark place and often, I worried that I would lose her in there. That she’d never find a way out.

“Sure,” she said, her voice flat. I scrambled up from the floor and fiddled with her TV, trying to find something, anything, that would bring her back. I wasn’t having any luck until she made a sound.

“Oh,” she said and I looked back and forth from her to the screen. I didn’t know what show or movie it was, but it could have been paint drying for all I cared. She was sitting up and some of the storm had faded from her eyes. Good. Fantastic.

She slid some of her books aside and patted the place next to her.

“Oh, I’m allowed to be on the bed now?” She rolled her eyes and patted the space again as I moved to occupy it.

“What are we watching?” I asked, still confused. She gaped at me.

“Have you never seen
House Hunters
?” I shook my head.

“No, what is it?” Ingrid just shook her head slowly and snatched the remote from me.

“Watch and learn, my young Padawan.”

Two hours later we were both screaming at her television.

“You can change paint color, you morons!” Ingrid screamed.

“Do they even know what an open floor plan is?” I asked to no one.

“Seriously, I hate this show and I love how much I hate it at the same time,” Ingrid said, sighing and turning down the volume. “I mean, it’s just so predictable every time. There’s something comforting about that. I’m pretty sure it’s because this thing is scripted, but who cares?” I shifted a little until our shoulders were touching and I was violently reminded of the poem I’d seen in her journal.

I knew it was about me and I hated that I’d seen it. It was like sneaking into her mind without permission. I couldn’t undo it, but I wished that I could.

“What?” she asked as I jolted with the memory. My eyes went to her pillow, but I couldn’t see the journal peeking out from underneath it anymore. I’d made sure to tuck it further back. I really, really hoped she didn’t notice.

“Oh, nothing. Just annoyed by these terrible people. I’m pretty sure when I buy a house, I’m not going to be that much of an asshole.” Buying a house was weird to think about. It seemed like something that would happen so far into the future that I couldn’t even begin to think about it.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’d be okay with ugly paint color since you can always just paint over it. But unless you want to do a huge renovation, you can’t fix a bad floorplan. Sometimes I have no idea what people are thinking when they build their houses.” She talked about a few other episodes of the show (clearly, she’d watched it a lot) and we laughed about random things. There was a pause as our laughter died and she looked like she wanted to kiss me.

And then she did. Her hand gripped my chin and she pulled my face right where she wanted it. It felt like when she’d climbed on my lap and taken hold. There was something wild and reckless about her that I’d only caught glimpses of so far. It reached out to me and I had no choice but to answer to it.

Her kiss was death and life at the same time. It wasn’t just how her mouth fit against mine. It wasn’t just about how she tasted or used her tongue or the way she sounded when I did something she liked. It was good. It was all good. It was too good.

It made me feel out of control and crazy, in the best way. Somehow I found myself pushed back on the bed, with her straddling my lap again. I gasped and looked up at her. Her eyes were filled with liquid heat and she looked at me like… like she wanted me. I had had girlfriends before, but never like this. I’d never been wanted like this.