Page 11

11

LOVE IS A SILENT KILLER

FULTON

S hiloh plops down on the bed with a French fry half-lodged in her mouth, bundled in a fuzzy robe that she donned after her second shower of the day to get the germs off her unintentional exile. I feel terrible that I locked her outside the room for thirty minutes. I honest to God didn’t hear any knocking. Then again, I do like to belt Celine Dion at the top of my lungs when I’m lathering myself up, so that’s probably why.

I watch with pinched breath as she chomps off an impressively large bite of her hamburger. Even in the jaundiced light of the hotel room, she shines brighter than the roadmap of stars sprawling over our balcony, backdropped against a slate sky that would normally summon a baptism of rain if it wasn’t for Cabo’s torrid climate.

I don’t have an appetite, even though I ordered nearly one of everything off the menu. It’s the nerves…I think…which is weird, because surely I should feel comfortable around her by now, right?

I’m not sure why something as mundane as sharing a meal makes my heart cavort faster than being intimate with her, but it does. I get overwhelmed that she exists, you know? And just being next to her, watching her inhale food…there’s a simplicity in it that I’ve missed amongst the whirlwind of hockey, after-parties, interviews, and sponsorships.

“Are you always this nervous?” she asks me out of nowhere, making a decent dent in her burger.

I blink, flush, then resort to rubbing my nape. “I’m not nervous.”

There’s a little smear of ketchup by the corner of her mouth, though she doesn’t realize it’s there. “Fulton, your tongue was inside my cunt forty minutes ago. And now you’re sitting far away from me like I’ve got some kind of contagious disease.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumble, anxiety trickling into my empty stomach like cave water off cambered limestone. I didn’t realize the distance was so noticeable. But she’s right—there’s practically a ravine between the two of us, and I get this urge at the tips of my fingers like I need to drag my nails against her soft, flawless skin. A predatory instinct.

“Don’t be sorry. Just come closer.”

Closer. Closer is…good? Bad? My vision practically blacks out like the sequence after an explosion in an action movie. Gleaning confidence is going to take time, but I obey her, consciously leaving at least a respectable sliver. Though knowing Shiloh’s stubbornness and her inexplicable superpower to see right through me, it’s not surprising when she demolishes my act of chivalry by sitting a centimeter away from my body…in nothing but flimsy cotton. From this angle, the neckline of her robe droops low enough to show me the tops of her breasts, and my eyes immediately slide to anywhere else in the room.

I’m suddenly ravenous, but it’s not the food that calls to me.

Shiloh’s staring at me so intently that her gaze could rive concrete. “Have you dealt with anxiety your whole life? ”

Jeez. I don’t usually like talking about myself, but you’d think she just asked me to kill the president.

It feels like I’ve swallowed a bucketful of grease. “Unfortunately. I, uh, don’t remember a time in my life when anxiety wasn’t at the forefront of my mind. My childhood was great, thanks to my mom, but I can’t remember any of it. It’s like there’s this mental block standing between me and my memories. I think it’s because I was constantly worrying as a kid. I could never just be in the moment, you know?”

She stops chewing, and the silence is unnerving. “Did something… bad …happen?”

“No, but my life was always this roller coaster of fear and unease. School was a big stressor for me, and it certainly didn’t help that some subjects were significantly harder for me to understand than they were for the other kids in my class. And to widen the gap, making friends was never my strong suit. I didn’t—and still don’t—know how to read social cues or situations. I speak before I think. I just have this bad habit of making everything awkward.”

That ketchup is still there, and it takes everything in me not to reach out and wipe it away. Not because it’s bothering me, but because I want an excuse to touch her.

“You don’t make everything awkward,” she reassures, sympathy slashing across her face.

I’m not sure if she’s reading my mind right now, but she stretches her arm out toward me, and the warmth of her hand is like a conduit that sucks all the negativity out of my body.

Brow puckering, I give her a seriously? look.

She shrugs. “I’m awkward too. It’s not a bad thing, Fulton. I think you care a lot about how people perceive you, and you prioritize that over your own comfort. You shouldn’t have to make that choice.”

I think, deep down, I knew that was the truth, but hearing it come from someone else has a different impact. And fuck, the way she says it pulls at my goddamn heartstrings. Like there’s years and years of suppressed relatability haunting every one of her words. If the roles were reversed, I’d tell her the exact same thing.

Her pupils swallow up the outer rings of her irises as her touch grows into something hungry—a bone-crushing grip, a nonvocal declaration that I’m hers and she’s mine. The speed of my pulse is the equivalent of a bullet train.

Shades of sorrow affix to her face, soul-deep, thicker than the sediment at the bottom of a tannin-colored swamp. “Have you ever thought that maybe you could be neurodivergent?” she questions.

“I don’t know. A part of me doesn’t want to put a label on anything because it makes it that much more real. Like it’s confirming what I know to be true.”

“And that is?”

A plaintive answer, forthright in delivery. “That I’m broken.”

For a split second, Shiloh looks… angry . At me? At the world?

“You’re not broken. And just because you’re not like everyone else doesn’t make you broken.”

I never thought of it that way. I mean, I never had anyone tell me otherwise. I always assumed that everyone else saw what I saw, and that those who did so kept quiet to spare me from embarrassment.

“I think you’re the first girl who hasn’t been put off by me,” I admit quietly.

“I could never be put off by you.”

Usually, if a girl said something as seemingly unbelievable as that, I’d question her genuineness, but I don’t have to do that with Shiloh. She’s always honest with me. She wears her heart on her sleeve, and all I want to do is cup my hands around it and protect it so that maybe, one day, I’ll be worthy of holding it myself .

I don’t know how, but I finally get the courage to reach my thumb out and clean the tomato sauce from her skin. She freezes—as if we’ve never been in a compromising position before—so tentative to move in fear that I’ll stop touching her. I don’t want to imagine a world where that’s ever a possibility.

Her gaze combs over me in a way that kicks up cinders in my belly. Despite not wanting to break contact, I eventually wipe the ketchup off on my towel-clad hips, and the low-grade fever that rakes over me is paradoxical given my shirtlessness.

“Enough about me. What about you?”

“What about me?”

“You mentioned living in a constant state of anxiety on the beach,” I explain with a shot voice, unsure if I’m trespassing on “Do Not Pass Go” territory. I don’t want to make her uncomfortable, but I want to understand her. As best I can.

Instead of the high-voltage smile I’ve grown to anticipate, a frown bows down her lips, extirpating any evidence of the carefree girl I’ve seen in lingering flashes. “Oh, right. I guess…I guess managing the shop just sets off this chain reaction of worry. One second, I’m worrying about not making payroll, and the next, I’m worrying about what would happen if Deja Brew went out of business. It’s this never-ending spiral, you know? And there’s so much pressure to be perfect. For my parents, the customers, to succeed and meet my own expectations.”

“I’m not much of a perfectionist, but I can understand how draining that would be.”

I’m not just looking at a girl who’s given her whole life in the pursuit of living up to impossible standards, but a girl who knows nothing besides compromise. She shouldn’t even be thinking about work while she’s on vacation. That in itself tells me that her needs and desires usually come second to those around her. I wish I knew how much she was struggling. Maybe if I’d just grown a pair of balls and talked to her sooner, I could’ve helped .

Even though we’re almost shoulder to shoulder, I don’t rush to embrace her. Instead, I curl my fingernails into my palms. “I’m sorry you’ve had to carry all that pressure by yourself. If I’d known, I would’ve?—”

Suddenly, Shiloh’s small hands are holding my large ones, and instinctively, my nails let up the pressure against calloused flesh. Whenever she touches me, I’m putty in her hands—a docile beast purring in the lap of its savior. She’s the first person who’s never judged me for my flaws. She’s the first person to accept me despite the baggage hanging from my shoulders.

“It’s okay, Fulton. It’s just how my brain works. I know I’m hurting myself, but it’s like…it’s like I can’t stop because it’s all I know. I’m constantly striving for validation. I’ve become dependent on it at this point. I always need to do better so I can make my parents proud.”

It’s not okay.

I don’t want to make her feel worse—because I can tell this is a touchy subject—but there are so many things I wish I could say to her. Knowing that she’s trapped in this mentally abusive cycle kills me. How am I supposed to help her without overstepping any boundaries?

“If it’s any consolation, I think they’re proud of you,” I tell her, squeezing her palm gently.

“They say it all the time, but I…”

“You can’t accept it?”

“I don’t know why I can’t.”

Please let me be the one to tell you instead.

Maybe I don’t know the inner workings of Shiloh’s occupation, but I know how hard it was for her to accept my invitation and temporarily leave the job she has dedicated her life to. Simply going on a date is a step out of my comfort zone, so I can’t even imagine flying to a whole other country and staying with a stranger for three weeks. I’m proud of her for that. In fact, I could learn a thing or two from her.

Even if she hates what I have to say, I’d rather have her hate me than live without knowing how she’s resuscitated my own love for life. “You punish yourself because deep down, you can never live up to your own expectations. You’re so used to running everything by yourself that you’ve forgotten what it feels like to be put first.”

Her eyes—two quarries of unprocessed emotion—evade me, but I don’t let her rip her hand away. “It’s easier to rely on myself than others. Things need to get done a certain way or?—”

I cut her off, not caring that my voice has risen an octave or that my fingers have locked around hers with a detested kind of desperation. “But can’t you see how it’s hurting you? Can’t you feel it?”

“I haven’t felt anything in a long time.”

And just like that, my whole world caves in. The only thing worse than feeling too much is feeling nothing at all. Numbness. Rigor mortis. A stillness that reminds us of how fragile our lives are.

Unlike Shiloh, I feel everything. So greatly. And I wish I didn’t.

I’d kill for a brain that isn’t always fighting for approval from strangers. In some sick and twisted way, Shiloh and I are mirror images of each other, aren’t we? Both trying to live up to internal expectations that can never be met—both willing to die for validation.

“Let me take your pain, Shiloh. Let me drown so you can finally breathe,” I beg, bringing our intertwined hands to my heart, where I’m hoping she can feel the way it flitters from her touch alone. Her poor hand feels so cold in comparison to my chest, like there’s no trace of life humming through her veins.

“Maybe I’m just destined to barely keep my head above water. ”

No! Take me. Use my body as a raft to keep yourself afloat. Swim. Survive. Don’t do it for me. Do it for you .

Unfallen tears singe the backs of my eyes. “I refuse to believe that.”

She pockets her dispute, instead settling for a simple, “Why?”

I know our “relationship” is a little more than friendly, but what I want to say has the capability of abolishing any remaining platonic parameters. So, when I should hold my tongue, I take the idiot’s way out and do the exact opposite. Letting my heart spearhead this whole thing is like threading a needle with shaky, unpracticed hands—bound to end in failure.

“Because you, Shiloh Nguyen, are destined for something greater. You’ll always be too good for this world. So, this so-called ‘life’ you’re living, it’ll never fulfill you. It’ll never fulfill you because you know you deserve better.”

Holy shit. What did you just do, Fulton? Please stop talking. You’re going to freak her out. The next best course of action is to change the subject before the damage is irreversible.

“I wish you could see what I see. I wish you could see how incredible you are,” I confess.

That is so not changing the subject!

Shiloh’s concerningly speechless. And not in a good way. Something changes in that split second of time, unknowingly rewriting our future.

To my dismay, she withdraws her hand, erecting a distance between us that might not be noticeable to the outside eye but can be felt nonetheless—a disappointment so profound that it drives the serrated edge of a hunter’s knife straight through my heart. The lack of warmth and comfort hits me instantly, and the cold air from the overhead vent bracelets around my Shiloh-less arm.

“And I can say the same for you,” she murmurs, upholding a pastiche of happiness that’s nothing if not unconvincing, split by hairline fractures of an indigestible truth. “You’re so much more than your anxiety, Fulton. You’re so much more than your past.”

How can I think about my past when all I want is for you to be my future?