Patch Up Read Online Free PDF

besides the hammering of my heart in my chest. I’m having difficulty breathing, and my forehead and neck are sweaty under my hair.
     
    “Can I say something before I go?” he asks me in a voice calmer than he must feel if I take into account his clenched fist and the shaking of his hand holding the mug of coffee. I just nod, not sure I’m able to mutter a word through the lump in my throat. “I’m not the enemy. I’m not the kind of guy who would try to hurt you more when I know you’re already hurting, but I’m someone willing to hear you and understand you. I want to be able to help.”
     
    “I don’t need any help,” I snap, finally able to leave this weird state of catatonic fear. I prefer to be angry. It’s far easier to deal with everything and to appear normal. “I don’t want to see you or talk to you again.”
     
    “You can act all you want around your parents, who want to believe that their daughter is happy, but I’m not a member of your family or even a friend that finds it easier to think that you’re happy. I’m someone who was crushed enough that his family wasn’t even sure if their son and brother would ever see his twenty-first birthday. I’m a guy that knows what it’s like to feel out of control from everything, from your moods to your own personality. I’m the guy who knows how you can hurt so much that your insides feel like they’re cut and bleeding. To suffer so much it’s like you’re dying, and yet you don’t want the pain to vanish because that’s the only thing, with fear, you can still sense.”
     
    It’s impossible to look away from his face. His dark eyes are lost in his own thoughts, his mouth is set in a straight line, and his frown accentuates the intensity in his face. It’s amazing to see someone able to let lose his emotions and to just open up to someone he barely knows. I can’t even do that with my parents who I care deeply for, so with someone I know pretty much nothing about, it’s just impossible. It doesn’t mean that I’m not moved by this tall and intimidating guy, and that I’m not crazy curious. Curiosity is new for me. These past months, and maybe years, I never once felt some tiny teeny bit of curiosity toward someone else. 
     
    “What happened to you?” I ask in a quiet voice, aware of the high-pitched voices of girls outside of my room and of the deep laughter of guys messing around in the room next door. 
     
    His attention snaps back to the present, to me. His gaze is not soft like usual, it’s not distant either, like he puts walls all around himself to protect him like I do. His eyes are almost angry, the kind of angry you feel toward the whole world, the kind that comes from desperation. My heart beats louder, my eyes tingle a little. I’m not indifferent.
     
    “It’s in the past. I just wanted to show you that I’m not just a nosy Psychology TA.”
     
    I shake my head and smile ruefully. “And you want me to confide in you when you dodge the first question I ask you?”
     
    A small smile tugs at his well-defined lips, but it doesn’t exactly reach his eyes. “I see your point, but I’m not here to talk about myself.”
     
    “I don’t want to talk about myself either.” I cross my arms over my chest, dead set on saying nothing. Somewhere, deep inside me, a part of me wants to just get everything out because it hurts to have all this bottled up. However, ignoring this is the only thing I’m sure will help me to always go forward and not just crumble to the ground with tears falling from my eyes without an end looming over. I can’t dwell on the past.
     
    “Then what if we become friends and see if one day you want to talk about the thing gnawing you from the inside?” he says, putting  his empty mug on Kate’s bedside table, his eyes barely leaving mine.
     
    “I’m not looking for a friend, Duke.” Saying his name aloud for the first time feels weird. It’s like one of my walls is already down,