“I do,” he stated darkly.
“No,” she said quickly, sitting up and resting a hand on his thigh. “I’m so sorry.”
“Please do not apologize to me,” he said, still looking a little stunned. “Jesus, Willow.”
Willow was at a loss for how to explain herself, but definitely felt she needed to. “That wasn’t—that wasn’t your fault.”
“No?” He raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “Must’ve been from one of the other men who raped you.”
Scowling, she folded her arms across her chest. “Not funny.”
“Not even a little bit.” He moved back to his side of the bed, but stayed closer to the foot, away from her.
“Please don’t hold what just happened against… me or you or us. I don’t know what the hell that was. That wasn’t even how…” She stopped, not wanting to refer to what had happened. There was no way of not calling it what it was, and she wasn’t about to use that word and Ethan in the same thought, let alone refer to it aloud.
“Yeah, I’m aware,” Ethan replied, his eyes widening very slightly.
“I’m honestly fine,” she told him, lightly reaching out and touching his shoulder.
“Seemed like it.”
Sighing heavily, Willow said, “Tell me what I can do to fix this.”
Ethan shook his head, looking down.
When he said nothing, Willow kept trying, even though she had no idea how to explain her reaction. “I’m not… I don’t even have a problem with that, honestly. You can pin my wrists, you can do literally whatever you want. If I didn’t like something, I would tell you.”
Ethan climbed out of the bed. “I thought we didn’t lie to each other.”
She frowned.
Glancing back knowingly, he said, “You didn’t tell me last time.”
“I… was working through it.”
“I don’t want sex to be something you have to work through, Willow! If you aren’t enjoying something, you need to say something or I won’t know. The last thing I want to do is ever hurt you again.”
Following him off the bed, she grabbed his hand. “You weren’t. Not this time, not last time. I’m not… I wasn’t hurt, Ethan. I can’t help it if certain things make my body react weird for a minute, I can’t help it if my mind rebels for a minute—it’s not my heart. I don’t mean it. I always want you, always. If that happens and my body or my mind needs a minute to catch up, just… I don’t know, give it to me. Don’t stop, don’t pull away, stay and wait it out.”
“Wait it out?” His eyes were practically bulging out of his head, for the first time in a long time, making her feel like he didn’t understand and they weren’t at all on the same page. “Willow, what happened before was traumatic for me, too.”
“I understand that,” she said, frowning slightly.
“Do you? You can’t expect me to see terror in your face and keep on going,” he said, gesturing in the air with his hand and turning away, dragging that hand through his hair.
Willow folded her arms across her chest, feeling vulnerable. “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I’m a little fucked up. I’m sorry that there’s… But it hasn’t really been that long, and I don’t think I’ve had enough experience since to… not react weirdly to certain things. But I don’t mean it. I don’t want you to stop. I’m not afraid of you, and if you kept going, you wouldn’t be hurting me. Even if… somehow I wasn’t able to fully snap out of it, I would never…” She shook her head, face warming, wishing she could pull literally any other word out of her head. “It isn’t possible for you to force me. Even if my body or my mind doesn’t want the act, it’s just a knee-jerk reaction. I still do, always.”
His back was still toward her, and she wanted to go to him for comfort, but wasn’t sure he would welcome her at the moment.
“I feel like shit, Willow.”
Sighing, she took a few tentative steps toward him and slowly wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her face against his back. “I feel awful for making you feel that way.”
“I don’t want you to feel awful. Your body has every right to reject me. I want you to know that and not feel like you have to do something that makes you feel bad in order to keep from making me feel bad. When you’re afraid to tell me to stop, it makes me feel like I’m always pressuring you.”
“I’m not afraid to tell you to stop.”
Sighing, he turned back to face her. He hesitated a moment before lightly resting his hands on her hips. “I hope this doesn’t happen again, but when and if it does, let’s tackle it together. Don’t take it on yourself and try to protect me.”