There Will Be Blood (not mine)

16. The Weight of One Choice

JUSTIN POV

For the second time in who knows how many years, I had slept. It wasn't that light kind of sleep either. It was the full on, coma, almost death sleep that wouldn't wake anyone even if an earthquake was going on.

I opened my eyes and almost sat straight up in the strange bed until I felt a weight on my chest as it rose and fell. I looked down and saw a petite body on top of mine. I suddenly realized where I was and how I got there.

What the hell was I thinking?

The clock next to me was flashing eight and I cursed myself for staying here with Maddie. This was not a good idea. There were so many things that were going through my head but I didn't know how to sort through them.

As I looked at Maddie, I noticed that my arm was around her in a way that a normal boyfriend's would be. Is that what I was? It didn't feel right to me but as I said last night, Maddie was my joie de vivrie and I really did mean that. I believed it.

Yesterday, I sat on my couch, with no intention of visiting Maddie but what was I supposed to do when she was calling melike this? She was literally pulling me towards her and I couldn't stay away. I would never admit it to anyone but I was scared for probably the first time in my life.

I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

I was beyond lying to myself. Maddie was a person who I wanted on more than a sexual level. I liked being in her company and I enjoyed just listening to her. I wasn't staring at her chest the whole time she spoke even though I would have been happy to but something about me didn't think of her as a sex symbol.

That fucking scared me.

I didn't know how to do this. How was I supposed to treat a girl right? How was I supposed to be monogamous? Did Maddie expect me to change overnight? Was Maddie trying to turn me into something I'm not?

I had tested out my theory that I was a different person but I wasn't. To everyone else, I was still the same cold, distant, bastard that I had always been. The weird thing was that with Maddie, I could have been any normal guy. To her, I was warm, I was attentive, I was...caring. It almost made me sick but I couldn't help it. I knew my mother could tell the change in me but I hoped no one else could. I had a certain image to uphold and I couldn't afford to appear soft.

Maddie was making me think that I would actually make a good boyfriend.

As much as I hated that word, I couldn't deny that that's what I probably was. I felt possessive over Maddie, like a boyfriend would. I felt that I should treat her better than a slut, like a boyfriend would. I wanted to show her off and tell her things about my life, like a boyfriend would.

Could I really do this?

There wasn't any harm in trying, right? The only problem was that I didn't know how to be charming and continuously good, especially not for a girl like Maddie. I was a monster, I was a bad person for her to be around but I couldn't stay away from her. I just couldn't see her on the arm of another man because she deserved someone better than these fucking college kids. Was I any better than them? Hell yeah I was but there were still complications with this.

Like I said, I wanted to tell Maddie things and that was dangerous. In my line of work, outsiders couldn't be let in. I would need her to trust me fully and even though we barely knew each other, it felt like we had been together since childhood. I wanted her to know about me, I wanted to show her what my life was about. I hoped that would scare her away. She needed to leave on her own because I couldn't leave her.

I looked down again and saw the position I was in.

Maddie was sleeping with me, actually sleeping with me and we didn't have sex. That had never happened before. My arm was wrapped around her tiny body and I took a chance to run my hand against the skin of her arm that was uncovered by the shirtsleeve that went up as she slept.