I didn’t really consider how vulnerable I was. Not until Ian told me how he stumbled on this site. How he found my real name, my workplace, my address in a matter of minutes.
Of course Ian isn’t your average reader. He’s an actual, factual former spy. Digging dirt is his specialty.
Mine is laying my heart bare.
That’s what I wanted to believe. For a long time.
It’s true. I’m good at sitting at my computer, spilling my thoughts, sweeping them into something beautiful.
I’m good at vulnerability. When I’m anonymous and in control.
When the incredibly handsome, impossibly wounded man I love is looking at me like I have his heart in my hands—
It’s a lot harder. Doing this with another human being. Learning to show him my scars. To trust he’ll accept them. To trust he won’t try to claim them. Or make them his.
To trust he’ll bare himself to me.
I still spin my thoughts into words. But, now, I do it with a pen and paper. In a place that really is mine and mine alone.
The rest—
I save most of them for him.
My raw honesty, my scars, my wounds, my bruises. I’ve shown him all I can. And he’s shown me his too.
It was slow at first. Painful.
His journal. All those pages of hurt, anger, self-destruction. A snapshot of a place and time. A place where his entire life exploded, rearranged, refused to come together.
He shared his past with me.
The journal at first. Then his words. The hurt in his eyes. The tension of his chest.
The softness that came after.
So many nights in his bed, his body curled around mine, his voice in my ears, his deepest thoughts filling the room.
And mornings, on the couch, my hands around a mug of chai, my eyes on the clean hardwood floor, my secrets filling the space.
We spent the entire summer tangled in each other.
Okay, it wasn’t exactly a festival of secrets. There were lots of secrets, sure. And lots of long walks, breakfasts, tea breaks, lunches at the park, afternoons reading together, dinners, evenings in his bed.
Or on the couch.
Against the kitchen counter.
In my bed.
In the back of a limo.
On his desk. In his office. The one at home.
The one at work.
Every surface in our hotel room in Hawaii. And a quiet beach where we absolutely, positively should have been caught.
The coat check at his favorite restaurant.
The balcony at my favorite rooftop bar…
An entire summer filled with every kind of intimacy that exists.
Matching tattoos. Like he teased.
An ornate key on my forearm.
A locked heart on his chest. Right below the Latin quote that defines him. Truth is my light.
That obsessive need for honesty.
Well, I hope he’s as ready as he thinks he is.
I keep burying the lead. It’s a bad habit, I know, but there’s so much I want to say. I can fill pages with my feelings about Ian.
His beautiful eyes, his charming smile, his sweet laugh.
And that low, deep groan—
He’s too sexy for words. Which is a real problem for me. Now that I’m turning him into words.
It’s not just that I can fill pages with my feelings about Ian. I am filling pages with my feelings for Ian.
It started as a project for my creative nonfiction class. (It’s supposed to be a senior class, but I begged the professor until she felt enough pity she let me in. Or maybe it was my amazing talent. Either way, I aced the class).
It was supposed to be a simple, one-semester project. A collection of entries. Memories to fill in the gaps.
Every detail—the ones I share and the ones I hold close.
The ones that are mine and the ones that are his.
I spent my Fall semester working on the project. Original Sin. Of course.
At Hunter. It has the second-best literature program in the city, despite what some snobbish sisters think. (We can’t all get into Columbia).
And it’s close. To our place in Brooklyn. To his penthouse in the Financial District.
Only, it’s not our place anymore. Addie rented out the spare room for a while. Then invited her girlfriend to move in with her.
This isn’t his place anymore.
In October, I moved in with Ian. I took his beautiful, clean, sparse apartment and made a mess of it. I made a home of it.
His sheets are still the perfect shade of white. His comforter is still a deep black.
But the rest—
It’s bursting with love, affection, tenderness. Framed posters of the films we’ve seen together, an extra bookshelf filled with first editions, all The Handmaid’s Tale paraphernalia in existence.
Little touches of color. Purple, pink, teal, turquoise.
Like my hair. It’s still blue-green. I can’t bring myself to change it. Not when I see the girl he fell in love with every time I look in the mirror.
(And, okay, yes, not when I see him fucking me senseless every time I look in the mirror).