The last several weeks had been the best of my life, but in a messed-up way, they had also been the hardest. Because every day, I woke up and lied to the one person I wasn’t to keep secrets from. It was bearable when our relationship was platonic, but the shift that had come over me since we became more was like night and day.
I felt so tired all the time, like I was carrying this massive weight around that was becoming more unbearable with every day that passed.
It wasn’t until the morning of the winter ball that I finally came to the conclusion that I couldn’t do this anymore.
I couldn’t carry this weight another day.
It was too much.
It was too crippling.
With my arm wrapped tightly around the naked girl in my bed, and my attention fixated on my bedroom ceiling above us, I thought about my options.
Could I say it?
Could I truly get the words out again, knowing that the one and only time I had spoken them before, they had fallen on deaf ears. I wasn’t believed then, so what was to say that Claire would believe me now? Yes, she loved me, I knew that was true, but love didn’t have anything to do with someone’s ability to believe in monsters.
Concentrating on my breathing, I tried to repress the feeling of uneasiness, and when that didn’t work, I held my breath in the hope that I might pass out and get a few minutes of sleep before my alarm clock went off for school. But all that seemed to do was make the sound of my pulse even louder in my ears.
Finding no comfort within myself, I flicked my attention to the tux hanging on the back of my bedroom door before settling my gaze on the sleeping beauty in my arms. She’d been asleep for hours, while I hadn’t closed an eye. I wasn’t comfortable in my own bed, having spent ninety percent of my nights sleeping in hers, so it didn’t exactly soothe the anxiety ebbing away at me.
But having her here, in my space, with her body touching mine, gave me a semblance of peace in this room that I didn’t have before. She made me want to stay in this bed with her. She made me want to relax. Because I loved her. Every part of me. With every bone in my body. Defective and all as I was. I couldn’t help it. It was instinctive. It was ever-consuming. It was forever.
As my eyes trailed over her, I felt my heart anchor itself to her, both attaching and wrapping itself up in intricate knots around every part of her. I knew that I would never get over this girl, which made lying to her almost as unthinkable as disclosing to her.
Fighting an internal war that had me losing either way, I waited in silence until she finally roused from her sleep, bringing with her a smile that shone brighter than any sun over Ballylaggin.
“Morning, Mr. Smiley Face,” Claire mumbled sleepily, as she rolled onto her side and draped both her arm and leg over my body. “Mm, my human radiator.”
“Morning, Mrs. Smiley Face,” I replied, feeling my entire body ignite now that she was awake. “Are you okay?” Her soft little puffy breaths tickled my chest, but I didn’t move an inch. I needed the warmth that emanated from her. The light. “Are you sore?”
“I feel great,” she replied sleepily, shifting closer until our bodies were once again melded together. “Last night was super fun.”
Super.
I smiled when she used the word.
It was so fucking adorable.
And last night was more than just super fun. It meant everything to me. She would never understand how many demons she chased out of my room with her body. Being with her in this bed, the same bed where I’d endured countless nights of torture throughout the course of my childhood, was so cathartic, it was almost surreal.
Tell her, my heart commanded, just tell her.
“Do we really have to go to school?”
“No,” I croaked out, pushing down my memories once more to live in the moment with the person responsible for keeping my heart beating since I was seven years old.
“Yeah, we do,” she said with a sigh. “Mam will get a call from Dee if I don’t show up at school, and then we’ll be caught because she’ll call Edel, and will find out that I’m not at Shannon’s house.”
I shifted in discomfort.
“Are you okay?” She lifted her head up to look at me. “Your body just went all stiff.”
“I’m grand,” I assured her, while trying to figure out what to do or how to phrase what I knew I had to disclose. “I need to tell you something.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” I swallowed deeply and closed my eyes while I mentally prepared for the very real possibility that she was about to walk out on me. “It’s about Dee.”
No, my heart protested, it’s about Mark.
One thing at a time, another part of my mind whispered.
Tell her everything.
“Dee?” Claire asked with a frown. “Tommen office Dee?”
“Yeah.” Licking my lips, I tried really fucking hard to think about my next choice of words, knowing that I couldn’t screw this up. “I, ah, I … ”
“You what?” Claire teased, reaching up to pinch my nipple. “What’s got you tongue-tied, Gerard Gibson?”
Just fucking say it.
Be a man and tell her, dammit.
She deserves the truth!
“I was with her a few times,” I blurted out, and then held my breath in trepidation.
But Claire didn’t react. Instead, she continued to smile up at me, waiting for the confession. Because she was too pure to consider something so fucking wrong. Jesus, Johnny was right. Saying it out loud sounded all wrong. It was icky. It made me feel dirty.
“Dee,” I repeated, when she didn’t get my drift, or was just too sweet to comprehend the crap I’d gotten myself twisted up in. “I’ve been with her, Claire.”
“What do you mean?” she replied, confusion etched on her pretty face.
“I mean I’ve been with her,” I repeated, enunciating the word been in the hope that she didn’t make me go into detail. “In the past.”
“The past?”
“Yeah.” I nodded slowly, feeling my heart rate rack up a dangerous volume of beats per second. “But nothing has happened since fifth year, and nothing has happened since we’ve been together.”
When she continued to stare at me, unblinking, I released a pained groan.
“Please say something, baby.”
“I don’t know what to say,” she replied, slowly pulling herself into a sitting position. “Because I don’t understand what you mean when you say you’ve been with the school’s receptionist.”
“Dee’s Catwoman, Claire.”
Now she got it.
Pain encompassed her features and I wanted to die.
“Did you sleep with her?”
“No.” I shook my head. “No, I didn’t, I swear. I’ve only been with you like that.”
“Then what … ” Her voice trailed off and she pressed her hand to her forehead. “You’ve been intimate with her in other ways?”
“Yes.”
“In ways you’ve been intimate with me, or the ways I’ve been intimate with you?”
I knew what she was asking, and I fucking hated myself for the answer I had to give her. “It was all me. I was the one doing the touching … ”
“Shh!” She clamped a hand over my mouth and shuddered violently. “I can figure it out without the finer details.”
“I don’t know why I let it happen,” I admitted when she dropped her hand from my mouth. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Why?” She stared at me like she didn’t know me. Like I was a stranger instead of the person she’d spent her whole life with. “Why would you be with her, Gerard?”
“I don’t know,” I offered, feeling helpless. “There’s something fucking wrong with me, in the head.”
“Why?”
You know. “I don’t know, Claire.”
“You have to know.”
Tell her. “I don’t have an answer for you.”
She didn’t respond to that, but she didn’t run away either. Instead, she sat in the middle of my bed, with the sheets wrapped around her, and stared at her hands.
“What are you thinking?” I asked when I couldn’t take another minute of her silence.
“I’m thinking,” she began to say only to pause. “I’m thinking … ” Shaking her head, she balled her small hands into fists and glared at me. “I’m thinking she’s going to get into a hell of a lot of trouble for going anywhere near my boyfriend!”
“Whoa, Claire,” I quickly tried to reason with her, but I could tell by the way she bolted off my bed and started to dress that it wouldn’t be easy. “You can’t tell anyone.”
“Can’t tell anyone?” She looked at me like I had two heads. “Gerard, she’s a grown up, in an authoritative role, who’s been making moves on a student!” Sounding furious, she quickly threw on her school uniform before searching my bedroom floor for her shoes. “She’s not getting away with this, Gerard.”
“Claire, I told you because I didn’t want secrets between us, not because I needed you to storm in and save me,” I snapped, feeling myself go on the defensive. “I don’t need you to do anything, okay?”
“Don’t do anything,” I warned shakily. “This is my business, not anyone else’s.”
“Gerard, she shouldn’t have laid a finger on you!”
“I know that,” I snapped back and then dragged a hand through my hair in frustration. “But it’s over and done with now, so let it go.”
“No, it’s not.” She shook her head. “Because if your mother knew—”
“Jesus Christ, Claire, I’m trying to talk to you here and you’re not listening to me! You’re not hearing me, dammit!”
“I am hearing you, Gerard.”
“Then keep your mouth shut,” I strangled out. “I don’t need action. I just needed you to know, okay? I thought I was doing the right thing by telling you, but clearly, I was wrong. Either way, I told you that in confidence, so don’t screw me over by telling anyone, Claire.”
“She screwed you over, Gerard,” Claire urged, throwing her hands up in despair. “Dee did that to you, not me!”
