MASTERLIST // WRITING BLOG
“Can we um— can we stop?” At her request, Rowan’s thrusts came to a pause. He lifted his head from her neck, his silver hair plastered to his sweaty forehead. Concern had already begun to fill his features with a deep line between his brows as he assessed her.
“Am I hurting you?” He asked, eyes glancing down to where their bodies were joined. Quick to pull out, he sat back on his heels between her legs while she shook her head. Rowan’s hands rested on her thighs with soothing circles being rubbed into her skin. He was hurting her— just not physically. Not in a way she really cared to get into, and it would be better if they could either go to sleep or if he would just leave altogether. As the tears began to prick the corners of her eyes, Aelin knew the latter wasn’t going to happen. He cared too much to bolt while she was upset, and yet…
Yet he didn’t care enough.
“I’m not hurt.” Her voice was a whisper, as much sound as she was able to push out of her lungs.
Their friends with benefits situation had been working out really well for both of them. It had been months of being inseparable to do everything from each other to running mundane errands in the middle of the afternoon. Rowan’s girlfriend had died last year and Aelin’s last relationship had been bordering on mentally and emotionally abusive. So that they were able to hang out and have sex met everything they wanted out of another person. Rowan was emotionally unavailable, and Aelin was scared. It was a perfect fit.
Until about a month ago when Aelin had so foolishly caught feelings for the man before her. For the longest time, she had been able to keep those feelings bottled up. Lately, though, she felt like someone had been shaking that bottle as hard as they could and it was all ready to explode. Every day it seemed like she was trying to tighten the cap, and every day it seemed more like it was being unscrewed. She was a ticking time bomb and there was little she could do to stop it.
She had tried. Gods, she had tried. There had even been a handful of days where she’d kept their contact as minimal as possible, only replying with short texts and later saying she’d had a headache or was tired. He had bought the excuses for the most part, but he’d still started asking if they were okay every time they hung out. Rowan was too smart for her own good.
“What’s going on?” With his hands still running up and down her thighs it was hard to focus and Aelin found herself sitting up, tugging the sheet up to cover her body. Rowan moved to sit beside her, covering his own waist as he did. The worry never relaxed from his features, the tension didn’t release from his shoulders.
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“What?” It was genuine confusion that laced the word. Even without looking over at him, she knew the wrinkle between his brow had somehow deepened.
“I just can’t. I don’t know if I can be friends with you anymore, I—”
“Aelin.” Her lips set into a thin line while she found a wrinkle on her blanket to focus on. She used the feeling of the sheets beneath her fingers to anchor her as she took a deep breath, doing her best to ignore the heady scent of sex, to avoid the smell of Rowan’s pine bodywash that seemed to cover her skin from being pressed so tightly against him. “Look at me.”
“I don’t understand what’s happening right now.” True to everything that Rowan was as a man, he didn’t sound angry. No, he sounded concerned and worried, maybe even nervous and bordering on upset.
“I can’t keep doing whatever the hell it is we’re doing. I just can’t.”
“You think that we—”
“I can’t keep getting fragments of your heart in return while I keep giving you everything that I am. I need you to leave.” There was a finality to her voice that seemed to make him freeze, that had him peeling back the blanket and dressing in silence at the foot of the bed. Aelin said nothing, leaning her head back against the headboard while the quiet rustling of clothes being tugged over skin filled the room.
It finally stopped, and for several moments Aelin stared at the backs of her eyelids but she couldn’t ignore his heavy gaze forever. When her blue eyes opened, tears spilled over like waves crashing into the shore. There was an emotion in his eyes that she had seldom seen and couldn’t quite place.
“Whatever it is you’re thinking about what we are,” his voice cracked and created earthquakes in her bones, “you are entirely fucking wrong.”
Aelin didn’t move until long after the front door quietly clicked shut behind him. She heard the tumble of the lock, because of course he would take a few extra seconds to make sure she was safe. It only made the pain worse, widening the fissures in her chest into chasms that had her gasping for breath while she sobbed into her hands.
Even after washing her body twice and changing the sheets, the last thing she could smell was his scent, a brand that had been burned into her life that she clung to as she drifted fitfully into a dreamless sleep.
