“Great, let’s take a walk,” he replies immediately, grabbing my uninjured hand and leading me outside.
Chapter 5
It’s balmy for December. The breeze makes the trees whisper, creating a soundtrack to go along with our footsteps as we both wordlessly walk onto the Battery. We’re shadowed by streetlamps as the waves crash against the seawall. The view of old houses is the same one people have seen for centuries. But despite a setting I could picture with my eyes closed, this moment somehow feels brand new. It’s easy being quiet with Cal.
Eventually, he stops walking and looks out at the water. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
I shake my head. “I’m not upset you didn’t tell me.” I put my uninjured hand on his chest. He’s warm and solid through his thin sweater. “I’m just so sorry you went through that.”
His hand covers mine; we both breathe there for a few moments. His sadness is palpable, and it makes every part of me ache, from my finger straight to my heart. All that wanting that’s been building up inside me is pushed out at the realization thathe’sbeen in pain. He’s brought nothing but joy to a week I’d assumed would be terrible, and the entire time I never saw underneath. And I know that’s what he’s used to—he’s used to blocking for someone else. But this isn’t a job and it’s not a silly agreement made on a plane anymore.He’s nudged me toward standing up for myself, and now suddenly that’s all I want to do for him.
But before I can think of what that means, he starts walking again. “I didn’t mean tonottell you,” he says. “Or I guess I did, but I didn’t think it would matter.” He runs his hand along the railing at the edge of the seawall. “I was having fun talking to you on the plane—for once I was just a man chatting with a woman, and you didn’t know anything about football, and you didn’t think of me as the guy whose wife died young and then blew out his knee. It was solight. And I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want thatversionof me to end. When you joked about being each other’s buffer, all I could think of was I wanted to keep that reality going.”
“I understand that,” I say with a nod. “I did too.”
He’s been looking straight ahead, but he tilts his gaze back to me for a moment. I’m still not used to how gracefully he moves, despite his size. He’s softer than anyone would imagine when they see him. But then again, maybe that’s just that version he is with me.
We turn off the Battery once it curves around, and we reach the edge of the park. “Do you want to tell me about her?” I ask.
“About what happened?”
“No.” I shake my head. “About her.”
He sighs, and it contains so much. Relief that that’s what I was asking. Longing for moments he can’t get back.
I wait, letting him take his time.
“I knew her my whole life,” he says finally, and I’m relieved to see a small smile inch across his face. “We went to preschool together and lived down the street from each other.”
“So she was my neighbor too?”
“She was,” he says, the side of his smile growing. “And even as a kid, she was simply fearless. Way more fearless than me. When she was seven, I watched her climb to the very top of a loquat tree. I thought it was the best thing I’d ever seen. But later, when we were teenagers, and she figured out how to jump out of the second-floor window of my house, I realized that kind of brazenness was just in her DNA. I was never like that—I was quieter, cautious. I don’t think I would’ve played football if she hadn’t been around to hype me up.”
“When did you start dating?”
“She kissed me when we were thirteen, and I didn’t ever let her go after that.” He exhales again, heavy once more. “Until she died four years ago.”
“So that’s why you stopped coming home for Christmas?”
“Well, one year I had a game, though I could’ve come the next day for a day. But it was an excuse to not have to deal with Christmas. She’s everywhere in my parents’ house, but it’s even more impossible around the holidays. Every ornament, every food, every tradition. For the last three Christmases, I just couldn’t face it. But this year ... with my knee and having to take some time away from work ... I’ve talked a lot out with my therapist, Nora, and she’s really helped me understand that I need to stop avoiding. It’s time to stop avoiding. I know I have to live.”
“You’re doing it,” I say, wanting to somehow convey how impressed I am with everything he’s doing. “You just did it on your own time—it’s okay to have your own cautious version of bravery.”
He turns and hugs me then. But it’s more than that. He envelops me. He’s holding on like someone who’s disappointed they have to eventually let go. I look up, and his eyes are already back on me. He’s watching me the way I always seem to find him—attentive, curious, caring.
He lets go enough to gently push my hair back behind my ear again, the feel of his finger somehow more intimate than our embrace. It’s the movement I’ve been reliving for a week, and now it’s happening again, but this time with my body pressed against his.
I can’t help but feel myself lift, my toes rising, every inch of me wanting.
I’d give anything right now to make him really believe he deserves to live again.
His hand wanders the curve of my jaw, and I stop breathing, my grip tightening on his shirt. He’s too tall, so he’s going to have to lean down to me, and there’s delicious tension in having no control. In having to wait. In him having todecidewhether he wants to kiss me.
I can feel him start to tilt toward me, slow and deliberate.
And then all that slowness becomes the halt of an instant stop. He takes a step back.
“I can’t,” he whispers.
