Chapter Four: I Hate This Precious Pain

"You okay, SG?" asks Kathleen after the morning lecture ends and before I manage to gather my stuff and leave. "You look out of it."

I feel like bragging a little, so I do. "I had amazing sex last night."

Mari and Prisha both perk up at my words. It's the first time I mentioned even having a sex life. "New guy?" Mari asks.

I shrug. That's all the talking they'll get out of me.

I can't stop thinking about last night. I barely got any sleep, my whole body is sore and I'm finding it hard to concentrate. My only thought is that tonight it will happen again and the hours tick by too slowly, way too slowly. I'm going to die of impatience, I swear.

It feels great.

Sometimes, I want to bitch about Shawn's behaviour and confront him for being a coward and not making any sense at all. Then I remember that this is Shawn Henderson we're dealing with here.

When Shawn wants something he's not 100% sure he can have, he creates a ridiculous 'game' with rules by which he lives. The conclusion is supposed to be him 'winning' what he wants. Take high school, for example. Apparently, Shawn had a crush on me and knew that I hated his guts. So his 'game' was to make a list of all the girls he slept with, and he'd 'win' if the 20th and final girl on that list would be me.

Pretty stupid, huh?

It happened. I was the 20th girl but Shawn didn't 'win'. He lost, we both lost. If he'd have just gotten to the point instead of doing everything like an ass, maybe I wouldn't've fallen for that jerk Landon. Shawn and I dated after my first, traumatic break up with Landon, and the lack of closure from my previous relationship pretty much ruined everything for us.

Yeah, it's complicated as fuck. Man, I hate that it is.

But I don't know what he's aiming for with this particular game which leads me to suspect that there's something else going on with him. It feels like there's a bigger reason, but what the hell could it be? Shawn changed a lot since high school. Sometimes I can see, underneath the surface, a shadow looming over this heart. Maybe it's just the stress of college and the imminent doom of 'adult life' that's drawing closer and closer with every passing day. Shawn doesn't have a clear idea about what he wants to do with his life — not like me. He's running the rat race without any knowledge of the destination ahead. There're these nights when he wakes up screaming, but he tells me that he can't remember his nightmares.

Except that one time, beginning of Sophomore year, when we had our first 'mistake'.

Throughout Freshmen year of college nothing happened between us. Right after graduation, when I was still crushed about my dad and about Landon, we had a few instances, which I initiated, that only went as far as second base. I rolled with it, at the time I was a mess and I couldn't blame Shawn for not wanting to get in there.

I also wanted to just have meaningless sex with random people. I had an image of myself I wanted to fulfil.

The tension was there between us, always present, even though we decided not to act upon it. We were always together, sticking with each other -- like family. What we feel and what we decide don't always go hand in hand.

I gave up on Shawn. I'm not the sort of girl who lingers. He was my best friend, I settled for that.

The night it happened I was studying in Shawn's room. A pipe had exploded in an apartment upstairs causing the wall in my bedroom to swell with water. It smelled like an obese construction worker's armpits in August and for a few weeks I was either sleeping in the living room or in Shawn's bed until the wall got fixed.

It was around midnight. I was sitting at his desk, sleepily reviewing some stuff for biochemistry when Shawn started talking in his sleep.

The words were too slurred, interrupted by the occasional groan, so at first I couldn't make out what he was saying. But he repeated it like a mantra, giving me time to understand. "It's under my skin. It's under my skin."

Then he started clawing at his arms and face with his fingers. "No. No. It's under my skin. It's under my skin."

I jumped from the desk and crawled into bed, grabbing his wrists before he could hurt himself. "Shawn? Baby, wake up, you're having a nightmare."

His head rolled on the pillow, I let go of his hands thinking he was waking up. But then he groaned loudly and his whole body began thrashing about as if he were having a seizure.

"Shawn!" I cried, alarmed. I tried to both hold him down and slap his face. "Shawn! Goddammit wake up!"

He sat up screaming. His eyes snapped open and his hands flew to his stomach, running them up to his chest. He looked down at himself, as if surprised to see his own body. When he looked back at me, he stared, as if he didn't recognise me and know where he was.

"Jesus, Shawn," I said, trying to sound angry but there was a little tremor in my voice. "You scared me."

"Fee?" he asked, confused. "It was under my skin and then it cut my stomach."

"You were having a nightmare," I said.

He released a huge sigh as tears suddenly appeared in his eyes. Bowing his head to hide that he was crying, he pinched the bridge of his nose.

I remember just staring at his shaking body, as I was quietly going through a 'what the hell?!' moment, and then I reached over and placed my palm on his cheek.

He grabbed my hand, turning his head slightly to kiss my fingers. His lips were warm and his tears wet my skin. He pressed my hand to his lips for a long time before letting go and looking up into my eyes.

What did he dream about? What was going on through his head? I wanted to ask him, but I was silenced by the desperately reckless look on his face.

I was on my knees, sitting on my heels in the middle of the bed. He rose to wrap his arms round my waist, bringing his head down to the side of my neck, his lips tracing soft kisses down to my collarbone.

"Shawn?"

He kissed my throat, sliding his hands up my shirt and under my bra. I let out a surprised gasp -- his always knew how to touch me, but I forgot how good it felt.

"Hey, Shawn --?" I tried, breathless.

He silenced me with his mouth on mine. His one hand leaving my breast so he could cup the back of my head, his fingers assaulting my hair.

Shawn always knew that touching my hair this way would turn me into a marshmallow of pleasure. But he didn't know -- and he doesn't know -- that only his touch up there sends me into a hot frenzy bordering on insanity.

For some time there was nothing but this. I don't care that I made it easy. As one of his hands continued to comb through my hair, his other went down, unbuttoning my jeans, so he could slide his fingers into my underwear.

The whole time, his lips wouldn't leave mine. He was too good at building up the fire inside me, he didn't forget anything about how to touch my body. But I broke the kiss. "What the hell, Shawn?"

"I want you, Fee," he whispered, he didn't sound like himself. "I want you so bad it's killing me."

He pulled me against him, and he wasn't kidding. I could feel how much he wanted me. And I felt stupid about how happy that made me. And I felt too turned on to care.

"Oh God," I said pushing up his shirt so I could touch his skin with my hands. He let me take it off him and then expertly unclasped my bra. In a moment I was topless, on my back, and he was over me, slowly pulling down my jeans as his blue eyes shamelessly checked out my naked body.

I stretched, arching my back, letting him look, letting him see everything.

Shawn's not the kind of guy who'd ravish me with compliments. But that night he looked at me sadly and said, "You're so beautiful, Fee."

It made my heart ache, I don't know why. It's funny to think that even pain could be precious. Our passion was oddly slow, as if he wanted to remember and record every single movement. But he held me tightly in his arms, almost to the point of hurting me and I knew that this wasn't going to happen again.

Later, when he thought I was asleep, I heard him whisper, "I love you, Fee."

I never told him that I heard.

The following morning we weren't lovers anymore. He wanted us to pretend it never happened, to go on like we were before. I don't know how I knew this, I just did. We didn't have that discussion. I took my stuff and slept at my mom's until my wall was fixed.

The discussion, or should I say 'fight', happened later -- much later. A whole year later.

And even that would never have happened if it wasn't for Delilah.