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YOU CAN HOLD MY HAND

Lizzie

DECEMBER 18, 2003

T HE HIGH I WAS RIDING QUICKLY DEFLATED WHEN I RETURNED TO MY ROOM TO FIND Hugh looking utterly devastated.

I couldn’t understand why.

He’d blown his load on top of me.

He should have been thrilled.

Instead, he looked like he wanted to cry.

“What?” I demanded, taking in the sight of his remorseful expression. “Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy that because the cum I just washed off my face says otherwise.”

“Jesus, Liz.” Hugh shook his head and started to pace my room. “Can you not say it like that?”

“Why not?” I laughed, tracking him with my eyes. “It’s the truth.”

“Because I shouldn’t have done that,” he strangled out, looking genuinely torn up. “That was not okay, Liz.”

“Why?” I demanded, feeling insanely furious in this moment. “You love me, and I love you. You watched me cum, and I watched you. We didn’t break your no-touch rule. So where’s the fucking problem in that, Hugh ?”

“Because we’re broken up, Liz!” he shouted back at me, hands in his hair as he paced. “Because you aren’t you right now and I know better!”

“Oh, relax!” I sneered, full-on raging now. “You didn’t crawl into my bed in the middle of the night and fuck me like he did!”

Hugh gaped at me. “What are you talking about?”

“The monster!” I screamed, throwing my hands up. “You know he fucks me in my dreams, don’t ya? He’s been doing it for years!” I choked out a maniacal laugh. “Oops. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you I’ve been sleep-cheating on you for years!”

“Jesus, Liz.” Hugh shook his head and released a furious growl. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”

“Why can’t you just love me!” I screamed, stalking toward him when he tried to leave. “Why can’t anyone fucking love me!”

“I do love you!” Hugh roared into my face, chest heaving. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here!”

“Then fix me,” I begged, clawing at his shirt. “Make it go away!”

“I’ve tried!” he strangled out, stepping around me and stalking out of my room. “For ten years! Nothing worked! And I can’t keep letting myself feel this way!”

“What way?”

“Miserable!” Hugh shouted. “You’re making my life a fucking misery, baby!”

“So you’re just going to leave me?” I called after him as I leaned over the banister, watching as he quickly descended the spiraling staircase. “That’s how it’s going to be, huh?”

“You left me, Liz,” he tossed over his shoulder when he reached the ground floor. “Not the other way around.”

“Fine!” I screamed, thundering down the staircase after him. “If you don’t want me, I’ll go find someone who does.”

“Liz!” Hugh snapped when I stormed past him in the doorway and ran outside. “Get back here!”

Nope.

I wasn’t going back to that house ever again.

Breaking into a run, I bolted down the gravel driveway with only one destination in mind.

Freedom .

When I reached the gate, I thought I was in the clear, but nope. “Don’t do this,” Hugh growled, grabbing my shoulders before I reached the road. He spun me around to face him and said it again. “Don’t do this, Liz.”

The rain was beating down on us, plastering his halo of dirty-blond hair to his forehead.

Raindrops trickled from his brow to his nose and then his lips, and I couldn’t take it.

Looking at him hurt so fucking much.

I wasn’t sure if I was screaming or crying, but I knew there were strange noises coming out of my throat.

“You don’t want me!” I hissed, breaking free of his hold and booking it toward the road. “He does!”

“He doesn’t deserve you,” Hugh roared, snatching me back up. “And you don’t deserve this demon fucking disease!”

“Let go of me!” I screamed, thrashing against Hugh’s impossibly strong hold as he carted me out of the road. “Now!”

“So you can go back to that prick and lay on your back for him? Or worse, go back inside and carve yourself like a fucking pumpkin?” Hugh roared, beyond livid. “Not a chance in hell.” He shook his head again and pulled me flush against his chest. “You’re coming home with me. Where I can look after you.”

“Why would you even want that?” I choked out, roughly shoving him away. “You said it yourself: being around me makes you miserable!”

“Yeah,” he snarled, closing the space between us. “And not being around you makes me feel even worse!”

His words seemed to resonate with something inside of my subconscious and I felt myself slowly calming.

“Hugh.” Shivering, I reached up and brushed his full bottom lip. “I don’t want to make you feel worse.”

His subconscious reaction was to reciprocate my affection by kissing my finger, only to groan in frustration when he realized his mistake.

Because I was a mistake.

His greatest mistake .

“Listen.” Clutching my face between his big hands, Hugh hunched down to lock eyes with me, forcing me to focus on those magical, whiskey-brown irises. “You can’t stay here on your own. Not right now, okay? So I’m going to take you home with me.”

“You are?”

“Yes.” His voice was steady and reassuring and soothed something deep inside of me. “We’re going to walk to my place, and you are going to hang there until your parents get back from wherever the fuck they went.”

“Just us?”

“Just us,” he confirmed gruffly.

“Can I hold your hand on the walk?”

“Yeah, Liz.” Pain flickered in his eyes, and he nodded slowly. “You can hold my hand on the walk.”