Page 111 of Under Her Skin

She looks up at me with tears in her eyes. “Blake, why do you continue to let me know you love me when I’ve never returned thesentiment?”

I touch the tip of her little nose. “Because I want you to know how I feel. And I can wait for you to tell me the words. I do long to hear them come out of those rosy, red lips, but I can wait until you know you meanthem.”

She takes in a deep breath and lets out a long sigh. “See, you’re perfect and here I am looking a gift horse in the mouth. The intense way I want you has me afraid. I can’t really handle it. My body has never overruled my mind before. I kinda hateit.”

“So tell me what your mind is telling you to do,” I say and let my hand touch her opposite shoulder. Heat fills me with just the touch and I see her look at my hand and a shudder runs throughher.

“My mind is telling me that you will hurt me. My mind is saying that I could fall so hard in love with you that it would change who I am.” Her face goes pink as she’s embarrassed she let me know thatmuch.

“Change is inevitable. We all change, baby. Why do you think you need to fight it?” I press my hand to her shoulder a little, and the heat that’s running through me starts to make my pulse gofaster.

“I’m okay with life the way it is now. Can I be really honest with you?” She turns and looks atme.

“I hope so. It’s all I want fromyou.”

“Why can’twe just be friends with awesome benefits? Every once in a while you come to me and make me feel special and wonderful then you go on about your life as if I’m not your entire world. And I can do the same.” She smiles and I die a littleinside.

My head shakes and I groan with the information she wants me for sex and nothing else. “How can you even lie to yourself and say all we have is great sex? I mean really, Rachelle. Has anything we’ve done felt cheap to you? Has any way I’ve touched you felt like that’s all Iwant?”

“No. As a matter of fact I feel you want it all. The whole thing. The life, the love, the happiness. The crazy part of that is you think that’s something I’m able to give you. I’m not.” She drops herhead.

“So, you can’t give me your heart? That’s what you’re telling me. The thing I want is your heart and you can’t give it to me.” My mind spins in a horrible circle as I try to process what she’ssaid.

“Blake, I don’t feel I have it to give.” Her voice goes sad and weak, terribly weak. “I don’t think I have a whole heart to give anyone. See, you’re right about me having issues. The way my mother left me, took a piece of my heart, my soul. I’m not a whole person and may never be. I can pretend for a little while I have it in me to be someone’s true love, but the reality is Idon’t.”

“She took so much from you,”I say in a whisper. “You're magnificent and she took the ability for you to see that in yourself away when she dumped you like an animal unworthy of her love. I could kill her and never feel bad aboutit.”

“Don’t say that, please.” She wraps her arms around herself. “She’s a weak person and not capable of love herself. I can’t fault her. I can’t blame her. It’s just what life had in store for me. When I was sixteen she came to Christmas, and I asked her who my fatherwas.”

“So you know who your father is? We should find him,” Isay.

“No, she said she didn’t know who he was. She was drunk most of the time and slept with random men. Many she didn’t even know their names. She said she never wanted to pin me on anyone anyway. It was her burden to bear and hers alone. She found me too much of a burden and had to leave me at that children’shome.”

I hold in what I want to say as she obviously thinks she’s forgiven her mother for her awful deed. I rub her shoulder though and try to comfort her though she thinks she needsnone.

“So, no father. Okay. Well, what about your mother now? I mean she’s alive and what’s stopping you two from finding a relationship now?” Iask.

“She still drinks too much for me to be able to stand to be around her. The last time I saw her was two years ago. By ten in the morning she was stumbling drunk and still held a bottle of cheap Vodka in her shaking hand. I’m not sure why she has to stay so drunk all the time. But I’m sure it has a lot to do with the men she lets into herlife.”

“Tell me about some of the men you let into your life, baby.” I don’t really want to know, but she needs to see she lives a parallel life to her mother’s and maybe if she talks about it, she’ll realizeit.

“You really don’t want to know about any of them. Some were a little mean and others a little abusive. And all saw fit to stop seeing me with no explanation what-so-ever.” She shakes her head, slowly. “And you willtoo.”

“Are you positive that all of them broke it off with you? Because I’d like to know how you think it went with us. I mean how do you look at the way you and I partedways?”

“I stopped it before it had a real chance to start.” She wraps her arms tighter around herself. “I don’t feel like what you and I had was a relationship. At that point it hadn’t begunyet.”

“I told you I loved you, but you felt it hadn’t begun. Okay, Rachelle, do you see how that’s anything but true?” I tap her shoulder with my finger and she looks atit.

“Well, not exactly. I mean, I hadn’t said it to you and we hadn’t talked about it, notreally.”

I let out a huff and have to wonder if she’s got it in her to love anyone. Something in me says I need to help her and I’ll be rewarded in the end, but my self-preservation says to run likehell.

“Okay, so how did you and the last guy you dated break up? Really dig deep,Rachelle.”

After a few minutes of her silently contemplating, she says, “He took me to dinner with his parents. I was quiet, like I always am when I meet new people. Afterwards when he was taking me back home to my apartment he got on to me. He told me his parents thought I was rude. I told him that I couldn’t change a thing about how I am. He just didn’t call or come around afterthat.”

“And you feellike he dumped you?” I ask as she has to be in denial about so manythings.