Things are going well until it comes time to go to sleep. Fergus and I have spent the last few hours watching movies and chatting in between, keeping to lighter topics after our heavier conversation from earlier.
Fergus is already in his sleeping bag when I return from getting ready for bed. Despite wearing flannel pajamas that cover nearly every inch of me, I feel exposed as I flop down next to him and climb into my own sleeping bag. I swear I feel Fergus’s eyes on me, but every time I glance at him, his gaze is trained on the ceiling.
Fergus managed to make the enormous room feel cozy all night with our nest of blankets surrounded by lanterns. Now it suddenly feels cavernous. I snuggle into my sleeping bag and attempt to block out my surroundings, but doing so makes me hyper aware of the man lying a few feet away. I’ve never slept next to a man before…other than Wesley, who doesn’t count since I’ve known him my entire life and he’s like a brother to me. Lying next to Fergus in the darkened room with nothing but the faux moon and stars above and a few lanterns still glowing feels intimate somehow.
“I can practically hear your brain working, love.” Fergus’s low voice startles me. “Do you want to share any of your spinning thoughts?”
“Not particularly.”
He chuckles. “Didn’t think so.” A few beats pass and then he says, “You can, you know. I’m happy to listen. But if you simply want to lie there or go to sleep, that’s fine too.”
My heart is racing. I can feel it pulsing throughout my body, and it’s causing a whooshing sound in my ears. I take a few deep breaths and focus my attention on the starry sky above us. I had no intention of making more confessions tonight, but just like this setting feels intimate, it also feels safe. I know I can tell Fergus anything. “I was thinking of what we talked about earlier…about me being…inexperienced.”
Fergus makes a humming sound to let me know he’s listening.
“You already know most of the details about my teen years and how controlling my dad became after my mom died. When Dad pulled me out of school to homeschool me, my world became so small. Other than my dad and grandmother, the only people I saw were my friends and their families.”
“You must have felt so isolated,” Fergus says softly.
“I did. I hated it, but it was easier to go along with it than to fight my dad. Anyway, barely ever leaving the house left me with zero opportunity to date. When I finally went to college part-time, I felt like a fish out of water, and my whole world came down to managing my anxiety and passing my classes. I barely socialized with other students and didn’t make any new friends, let alone date. Then I started working from home, and well…”
Over the years, Dr. Woo has gently pointed out that she thinks I use working from home as a crutch. I can’t really argue with her. I love setting my own hours and being able to go at my own pace, but it keeps me secluded from the outside world, from harm and danger, heartache and uncertainty. All of those things are a natural part of life, but sometimes that traumatized teenager who still resides in me takes over and convinces me it’s safer and easier to live this way.
“So you’ve truly never dated?” Fergus asks, sounding tentative as if maybe he’s worried he’ll somehow offend me.
My body goes hot and prickly all over. I hate talking about this, even though I was the one who brought it up. But…if there’s a chance something romantic might happen between Fergus and me, I need to lay it all out for him.
“I was honestly never interested,” I tell him. “Even before I was homeschooled, I was never boy crazy like some of my friends were. I didn’t have crushes. I…I wondered if…” My cheeks feel like they’re on fire again. I can’t bring myself to look at Fergus, but from the corner of my eye, I can see he’s watching me. “I wondered if there was something wrong with me,” I blurt. “Something broken inside me. And then when Stella came out as bisexual and I started learning more terminology, I wondered if I was somewhere on the asexual spectrum, like maybe demisexual. I still don’t know, to be honest, but there was one guy…”
A beat of silence passes before Fergus says, “Oh?”
I peek in his direction to see him studying me intently. His expression smooths when our eyes meet.
“It was about five years ago,” I say, returning my gaze to the ceiling, wishing I could launch myself into the stars rather than talk about this. I know I could stop talking right now and Fergus wouldn’t question it, but it doesn’t help keeping it all bottled up inside. “When Stella got married, she asked Evie, Hollie, and me to be her bridesmaids. Her now-ex-husband had three groomsmen so the numbers would be even. One of them was really flirty with me, and I liked the attention. We hung out a lot leading up to the wedding, but it was usually in a group setting. He asked me out a few times, and I eventually said yes. I didn’t tell him much about my past, but I was honest with him about my anxiety, and he was really sweet and understanding…at first.”
I blow out a slow breath before continuing. “Long story short, his patience soon wore thin. I think intellectually he understood, but he’d never dealt with anyone with my level of anxiety before, and he thought I should just be able to do things or get over my fears. He also wanted more physical intimacy than I was comfortable with. He was cajoling at first, telling me to relax, take it easy, sex was no big deal, but after a while, it felt like he was mocking me. He asked me more than once how I could be nearly thirty and still be a virgin. I blocked his number and avoided him as much as possible after that, which wasn’t easy since we kept being thrown together for wedding stuff.”
Fergus makes a choked noise that almost sounds like a soft growl. “Would you think less of me if I said I’d like to resort to physical violence where this lad is concerned?”
I laugh weakly. His words cause some of the tightness in my muscles to relax. “The girls threatened the same thing when they found out. I didn’t tell them until after the wedding because I didn’t want to create a bunch of drama and ruin Stella’s big day.”
“Louisa.” Fergus sits up, shifting so he’s facing me. “You kept all that to yourself?”
I push myself into a seated position so he’s not looking down at me, although I have trouble meeting his eyes. “I felt like I had to at the time. Now I know I should have told them, but…” I give a helpless shrug. I finally meet Fergus’s eyes, not sure what to expect there. Judgment, maybe? Pity? His beautiful moss-colored eyes are full of sympathy and understanding, though. I have a sudden urge to crawl into his lap and ask him to hold me.
“Anyway, pair that experience with my previous disinterest in dating, and I decided it was better to just be on my own for a while. I didn’t think ‘a while’ would turn into another five years, but here we are.”
“Here we are,” Fergus echoes. “I’m sorry you went through that. All of it.”
“You don’t think I’m ridiculous?” The question is barely audible. I don’t even know where it came from; it just slipped out. If I’m not mistaken, Fergus looks affronted by the query. Without giving him a chance to respond, I forge on. “As a kid, I was always told I was too sensitive. I’d often hear things like ‘you feel too much’, ‘you have too many emotions’, ‘you’re too soft’. And then when my mom died…” My voice wavers, but I force back the tears that sting my eyes. “When my mom died, I felt everything. Sometimes I felt like I was going to be crushed under the weight of it.”
I meet Fergus’s eyes again and nearly do a double take when I see they’re swimming with unshed tears. My heart gives a painful squeeze and then begins racing once more. “Maybe we should talk about something else—”
He shakes his head, blinking hard. “No, no, I think it’s important to talk about this. For both of us. What you’re saying reminds me of myself, and I don’t want to turn things around and make it about me.”
“Tell me what you’re thinking. I want to know.”
Fergus sucks in a deep breath and blows it out slowly. “You know my dad left when I was young and my mum struggled with mental health issues for years before she died. Something in me changed after my dad left. Like you said, I often heard the refrain of ‘too soft, too sensitive’. I even heard a lot of ‘too nice’ as if that’s somehow a bad thing?” That baffled expression is back, and he shakes his head.
“I had to be the man of the house from age ten onward,” he continues. “I took care of my mum and the house when she was in her low periods, which became more frequent as the years passed. It was a struggle, but it made me a compassionate, patient person. Sure, sometimes feeling so much meant I suffered more than others, but I’d rather feel too much than nothing at all. I never wanted to end up like my dad, who could walk away from his family and never look back, you know?”
Words won’t come past the lump in my throat, so all I can do is nod.
Fergus shifts closer to me, taking one of my hands in both of his like he did earlier. He ducks his head so we’re eye to eye. I’ve never known anyone whose emotions are painted so plainly across their face for the world to see. I’ve always done my best to hide my feelings, but Fergus isn’t ashamed, and I love that about him.
“If you ask me, your softness is your superpower,” he says. “It makes you an incredible friend. It means you do things like volunteer at the animal shelter and smuggle cats into your flat so they won’t be lonely. You have a big, beautiful heart, Louisa, and that’s a good thing.”
As warmth spreads through my body, I think of what Fergus said about feeling everything being better than feeling nothing at all. I’ve gone through periods where I’ve felt completely numb, so I know he’s right, even when all those feelings have left a deep ache inside. With Fergus holding my hand and gazing into my eyes, I’m feeling everything now and that ache is a sweet one, one that fills me with sensations I’ve never experienced before.
“Thank you, Fergus,” I whisper. The words aren’t nearly enough, but he seems to understand.
“Are you ready to sleep now?” he asks.
I nod. At the same moment I notice how heavy my body feels from exhaustion, I also realize my heart is no longer pounding. We settle back into our sleeping bags, both of us automatically turning onto our sides so we’re facing each other.
“Thank you for arranging all these magical experiences for me, Fergus,” I say, my voice slow and sleepy.
He touches my face gently, and my eyes slip closed. “Go to sleep, love.”
Behind my closed eyes, I see a swirl of bright stars and Fergus’s moss-colored eyes. His hand remains warm on my cheek, and the word ‘love’ echoes in my mind as I fade into sleep.