I feel my lips trying to pull into

I feel my lips trying to pull into a smile, and I fight it as I say, “Good.”
His gaze lingers on my mouth. “I’m going to say it.”
“What?”
“The thing I wanted to say to you a few weeks ago.”
“And it is?”
“I want to know you.” His eyes rise to mine. “That’s it. I’m not great with words.”
I stroke his hair away from his face. It’s like something I might do for Jude, except every time I touch Caleb, my heart flutters. “Not like you are with images and color,” I murmur. “But you know how to express yourself.”
He looks away. His jaw is tense. “Why do you say stuff like that?” he asks. “Is that some language only therapists know?”
“I’m not a therapist, not yet.”
He gives me a sidelong glance. “You’ll be good at it, though. You know how to … I don’t know how you think of those things you say.” He pushes himself up and turns back to me. “All I know is that once you say them, they hit me so hard, and I can’t forget them.”
“Is that a good thing?” I ask, but it comes out wavering and broken. Being this close to him is messing with me, like it always does.
He shrugs. “I don’t know yet. Right now it feels pretty okay.” His smile is sad, like he’s already missing me even though leaving is the last thing on my mind. “So will you?”
“What?” I breathe.
“Let me know you?” He brushes the backs of his fingers over my cheek, like I did to him. Testing, maybe.
And I react the same way he did, letting my eyes fall shut and dwelling in the caress for a moment. “What do you want to know?”
His thumb strokes along my jaw. “Tell me why you stopped painting.”
“I just got busy…”
His touch disappears. “No. Please, Romy. You said no games, so tell me you can’t talk about it if that’s true. But don’t lie. I’m too tired for that.” And he does sound tired. So weary that he can’t bear the weight of a single ounce of pretend.
My eyes open. I have a choice. I could push this away, or I could give him what he asked for. And for some odd reason, I feel like he has a right to know. “When I moved here for graduate school, I met a guy. He was really charming, and even though I wasn’t looking for anything serious, he changed my mind.” I stare at Caleb’s hands while I speak, because looking at his face would steal my courage. “It was really romantic at first. He bought me flowers and all that stuff.”
I fiddle with a loose thread on the couch cushion. Caleb starts rubbing at a smear of black paint between two of his fingers. His skin is turning red.
“I don’t know when I first noticed it didn’t feel quite right,” I continue. “I actually think it was when I realized I hadn’t seen Jude for two months, except in class. Jude finally got so pissed off at my excuses that he called me out on it. So I tried to plan something with him, and Alex got so mad.”
“Alex,” Caleb says, almost a whisper.
“Alex,” I confirm. “He accused me of cheating on him.” I laugh. “And he didn’t calm down, even after I told him Jude is gay.”
“He was the jealous type.”
“I guess you could say that.” I pull my knees to my chest. “But I let him treat me like that. I let it happen.”
Caleb moves a little closer, but he doesn’t touch me. “You’re being too hard on yourself, I think.”
“That’s what my therapist said,” I say with a smile, finding the courage to look him in the eye. “See? You know the language, too.”
“I’m just halfway decent at stating the obvious,” he replies, leaning his head against the back of the couch. “But you’re not with Alex anymore.”
I shake my head. “I left him in January.”
“And he was the reason you stopped painting.”
“He thought it was a stupid hobby, and he was mad because it meant I wasn’t available for him.”
Caleb winces. “So he was trying to put you in a little box to keep for himself.”
I pause, caught by what he’s said. Really, no one’s ever captured it quite so well. “Alex did it with words. They were his weapons, and he’s very good with them. But it wasn’t enough for him after a while. He ended up using his fists.”
Caleb goes completely still. It’s like he’s not even breathing. And in that space, my confession hangs, ugly and unreachable. I can’t take it back or make Caleb forget he heard it. I don’t know what makes me feel more pathetic—that it happened or that I’m telling him about it now.
My flight instinct takes over and I start to get up, but Caleb’s hand shoots out and closes over my wrist. Not hard. I could pull loose if I wanted to. But it’s enough to make me sink into the couch cushions again.
“You got away from him,” he says. “In January. You got away.”
I look at his fingers curled over my forearm. “I left him the night he hit me. I ran and didn’t go back.”
“And now you’re getting back everything that belonged to you. The things he took away.”
“That’s the idea,” I say, my voice catching. When I saw Alex at Sammy’s, it felt like he took everything from me all over again.
Slowly, so amazingly slowly, Caleb lifts my forearm and pushes my sleeve to my elbow. With the gentlest of touches, he turns my wrist and looks at the inside of my arm.