“No, it’s not.” She shakes her head. “So many people . . . I’m just so”—she exhales a shaky sob—“so tired. So many good people, trying to live good lives, and it’s so fucking easy for bad people to ruin all of it. I hate it. I hate it so much,” she growls, another sob wrenching out of her.
“Shhh.” I rock her in my arms, swaying her, knowing there’s nothing I can say, knowing she’s right—how irrevocably people’s carelessness and selfishness and hatred can destroy lives, the terroristic violence humans have normalized and accepted, how defeating it is, how hard it is to have anything hopeful to say.
“Katydid,” I whisper, my mouth against her temple as I comb her hair back from her tearstained cheeks. “Take a nice slow breath.”
“D-don’t tell me what to do,” she says unsteadily. But then she sucks in a slow, shaky breath.
“Good. Now another.”
She takes in another breath, this one a little slower, a little more even.
I hold Kate as she takes more breaths, as her head gets heavier on my chest, calm settling into her body.
It could be minutes or hours that we stand there. I have no concept of time. Frankly it doesn’t matter. What matters is this: holding her, comforting her, knowing, even in some small way, that being here, wrapping myself around her, helps.
“Thank you,” she whispers, her head still resting over my heart.
I nod, clenching my jaw tight so the truth won’t spill out: that I hate that she’s hurting, but I’m so glad she’s letting me comfort her; that I could hold her like this forever, wrap myself around her, shield her from everything that would hurt her, if she’d let me.
I don’t confess that. Not when I’ve spent so long battling those feelings that admitting them would be to surrender to them. Not when she’s upset like this, when such a proclamation would ring hollow coming from someone who’s spent so long trying to make her think I feel the very opposite of that.
Kate lets out a long, heavy sigh that tells me the tears are done for now, that she’s calmer.
I should leave now. I brought her phone, gave her comfort when she was upset. I should get the hell out of here before I lose the last grip on my dignity, before it’s impossible to hide what I’ve hidden for so long:
How much I want her.
How long I’ve wanted her.
How much I’ve hated that want, gnawing at me like a sickness.
It’s always been Kate. And in my fury that my feelings for her were entirely beyond my control, I’ve pushed her away and hurt her. In repressing my worry for her, my fierce desire for her, the only woman I want and the woman whose wild lifestyle puts my heart most at risk of losing a loved one again, my feelings have pressurized into a festering knot of misery.
I’m so tired of being miserable.
I’m so tired of resisting what I feel.
Which is why I should go. Because I’m about to not just give up the act but give in to it, and I’ve done more than enough to reveal myself today—when she touched me at the office, and I clung to her like a dog panting at the pleasure of being petted.
But God, I want her. I want her so deeply, so badly, it’s an ache in my marrow. I don’t know if I can fight that ache anymore when she’s here, in my arms, and finally, she wants to be.
My arms tight around her, I tell her quietly, carefully, “I can go, if you want to be alone.” She tenses in my arms, and I hold her close, praying she feels how badly I want to be here with her, how badly I hope she wants me here, too. “Or . . . I could stay for a while.”
It’s a lifetime in a moment as I wait for her answer.
Then her arms tighten around me, and she whispers, “Stay. Please.”
? TWENTY-ONE ?
Kate
My eyes scrunch shut as those words hang in the air. Stay. Please.
I feel so exposed. So scared. All day long, I’ve been warring with myself. My brain screams this is the man who’s made me miserable for so long, I can barely remember when he didn’t. My body firmly disagrees, each calm beat of my heart saying that what I’m seeing of Christopher isn’t a ruse but a revelation, that he’s always cared, always been safe, but for some bewildering reason, didn’t want me to see him that way.
Maybe it’s only been a few seconds since I asked, but it feels like it’s been hours, when Christopher dips his head, his cheek resting against my hair. Gently, his hand drifts up my back in slow, soothing strokes. “Of course I’ll stay.”