Fractured (BBW Erotic Romance) Read Online Free Page A

On what?”
    “ How personal you’re going
to get.”
    “ Well, I just wanted to know
why if you live in an apartment, why do you eat on campus. Can’t
cook huh?”
    “ I don’t like eating alone.
It doesn’t feel natural.”
    “ How so?”
    “ Having a meal is a communal
thing. If you’ve ever tried Ethiopian food, it’s meant to be a
gathering of loved ones. Not just let me stuff my mouth and leave
as fast as I can.”
    “ But you sit by
yourself.”
    “ Wrong. You joined me the
other day.” There was his electric smile again.
    “ Correction I didn’t join
you. I sat down for two minutes. Enjoying a meal with you was not
on my agenda. Last time I checked we didn’t split a
croissant.”
    “ Can I at least have my
headphones back?”
    “ When we complete the
project you can. It’s my insurance policy.”
    “ That’s three months from
now. I need my beats. It helps me slow things down and drown out
the unnecessary noise.”
    “ Walking around campus with
your face plastered in your phone and you seem
anti-social.”
    “ And you think that’s what I
do?”
    “ I have a hunch.”
    “ Well you’re right. Except
for the phone. I’m not much of a texter. But I always have music
playing. It helps me escape. That and boxing.”
    “ What do you mean by
escape?” I knew exactly what he meant. I needed to hear him explain
it. I needed to know someone other than myself wanted to escape
their reality; or in my case my past.
    He paused for a moment to gather his
thoughts.
    “ Have you ever felt like the
mistakes you’ve made are closing in on you? Like no matter how hard
you try to run away from them, they’ll clip you at the heels and
eat you alive the second you let up.” He cracked his knuckles. His
mouth became croaky; he sounded as if he had to force the words
out. “Everyday you run. Harder and faster than the day before. But
you’re scared shitless that one day, one day you’re gonna run out
of breath and get caught. All that running you did was for
nothing.” He paused again. He grabbed a pen and fiddled with it,
then looked up at the ceiling. “In the end you couldn’t outlast it.
You wake up with this fear that one day, whether it’s next month,
two years, five years from now that you’ll be too tired to
run.”
    I became numb. My mouth was dry. He described
my life over the last three years. I never could match my feelings
about the accident with the right words. And he did it so
eloquently. It was sobering. “We’re born runners. No matter the
pain. That burning taste you get in your mouth. You keep running.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t look back. In some way, throughout
all the night terrors, the anxiety pills, the fucking paranoia,
strangely enough, it makes me feel alive.”
    “ Like you’re discovering
yourself?”
    “ Exactly.”
    “ But the more you discover
yourself, you feel isolated. Like no one else can even attempt to
understand you.”
    His face looked withdrawn. I looked deeply in
his eyes. “ I understand you.” We were both leaning forward
on the table. Our eyes fixated on each others. He reached over the
table and gently touched the length of the scar on my cheek.
“That’s beautiful. How’d you get it? His hands were rough but his
touch was soothing. It was inquisitive; as if he was searching for
the truth in my soul.
    “ An accident from a few
years ago. Tribal scar.”
    “ It gives you
character.”
    “ I’ve got enough character,
therapy is what I need.”
    He burst out in to a fit of laughter. It
wasn’t meant to be a joke, but I started laughing too when I
thought about how silly it sounded.
    “ We didn’t get much work
done today.”
    “ Very little.”
     
    “ My aunt Alice was right. If
I keep it up, I might not make it to Thanksgiving.”
    “ She might be onto
something. We didn’t get anything done on our date
either.”
    “ That was a date?” I said
with an incredulous stare. My mouth fell open.
    “ Of course it was.