“You know too much about me.”

His fingers paused against her shoulder.

They had been lying together for some time, the room quiet except for rain tapping softly against the windows. She was curled beside him beneath the sheets, his hand moving lazily over her skin.

He looked down at her.

“Is that a complaint?”

“I don’t know yet.”

His mouth curved.

“Let me know when you decide.”

She smiled despite herself.

Then she turned away from him.

Not because she was angry.

Some things were simply easier to say when she didn’t have to watch someone hear them.

His hand settled against her back.

He didn’t ask her to turn around.

“You know when I’m lying.”

“Not always.”

“Most of the time.”

“You’re not as mysterious as you think you are.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder.

“I am incredibly mysterious.”

“Of course.”

She could hear the smile in his voice.

She turned back toward the darkness.

His fingertips began moving slowly along her spine again.

“You know when I’m afraid.”

His hand slowed.

“You know when something hurts even when I say it doesn’t. You know when I need you to leave something alone.”

A pause.

“And when you shouldn’t.”

His voice was quieter now.

“Yes.”

She drew the sheet a little closer around herself.

It was strange how naked she suddenly felt.

More naked than she had been beneath his hands.

“You know which things I laugh about because admitting they hurt would make them real.”

“I know.”

“You know the stories I don’t tell people.”

“Yes.”

She swallowed.

“You know things I’ve never told anyone.”

His fingers reached the base of her neck.

He left his hand there.

Warm.

Still.

She stared into the darkness.

“You know exactly how to hurt me.”

His hand stopped.

For several seconds, neither of them spoke.

Then he answered.

“Yes.”

She turned toward him.

There was no smile now.

“How can you say that so easily?”

“Because pretending I don’t know wouldn’t make it less true.”

She watched him.

“You’ve trusted me with the places that hurt,” he said. “Of course I know where they are.”

Something tightened beneath her ribs.

“Doesn’t that scare you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

His thumb moved slowly against her shoulder.

“Because knowing where you’re fragile doesn’t make me want to press there.”

He held her gaze.

“It makes me careful.”

She looked away.

There were certain sentences that found their way beneath every defense before she had time to raise one.

That was one of them.

“Besides,” he said, “you know how to hurt me too.”

Her eyes returned to his.

“No, I don’t.”

“You do.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“I didn’t say you would.”

He let the distinction settle between them.

“I said you know how.”

She opened her mouth to argue.

Then stopped.

Because she did.

She knew when his silence meant peace and when it meant something was weighing on him.

She knew which jokes were only jokes and which ones were armor.

She knew the things he dismissed too quickly.

The disappointments he pretended hadn’t mattered.

The places where confidence became something more carefully constructed.

She knew what he protected.

She knew what he feared losing.

She knew where he was soft.

And suddenly, she understood.

They had been learning how to hurt each other all along.

Not intentionally.

That was simply what happened when two people stopped hiding.

Every confession revealed another tender place.

Every whispered truth exposed another seam.

Every I’ve never told anyone this placed something fragile into another person’s hands.

Intimacy had never been merely allowing someone access to your heart.

It was teaching them how it worked.

What made it race.

What quieted it.

What frightened it.

What had broken it before.

She had handed him every weapon he would ever need.

And somehow, in his hands, they had never become weapons.

They had become instructions.

Be gentle here.

Don’t disappear here.

This scar still aches.

This one only looks healed.

Hold this carefully.

She turned toward him completely.

His hand slipped from her shoulder to her waist.

“You trust me with all of that?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He considered her for a moment.

Then his fingers tightened slightly against her waist.

“Because you’ve had plenty of chances to hurt me.”

She waited.

“And you haven’t.”

There was something almost unbearably intimate about that.

Not a promise.

Evidence.

She moved closer.

His arm opened for her without being asked, and she settled against his chest.

For a while, she listened to his heartbeat.

Steady beneath her ear.

His hand traveled slowly along her back again.

She had once believed trust meant finding someone who could never hurt her.

Someone safe because they possessed no weapons.

She understood now how impossible that was.

Love itself created the weapons.

The closer someone came, the more they learned.

The more they learned, the more damage they could do.

Perhaps intimacy was not becoming invulnerable.

Perhaps it was allowing someone to know where you were most fragile and discovering that knowledge made their hands gentler.

She closed her eyes.

He knew where she was fragile.

She knew where he was too.

Neither of them was harmless.

That had never been the point.

Perhaps trust was knowing exactly what someone could do to you.

And sleeping beside them anyway.

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