Please let it be enough.
I stand there with my forehead resting against the door. I hear him texting, the littletic-tic-tickeyboard sound, the sound of texts being sent and received, and then it goes quiet.
“I told them.” It sounds like he’s standing right there, on the other side of the door. I mean,rightthere.
“Don’t lean on the inside of the door,” I warn. “Don’t accidentally push it open.”
“I’m not.”
I lay my hand on the door and I instinctively know his hand isrightthere, opposite mine.
Blinking back tears, I try to focus. Ireallywant this to work. A relationship, I mean.
Well, and him hopefully not dying.
I don’t know how this is supposed to work, but it’s like he gets me. There’s no braggadocio, no bullshit posturing, no assholish arrogance on his part.
Iwantto hope things work out between us.
Except I learned a long time ago that I don’t get a happily ever after.
“Sleep well, love,” he says.
He called me love. “Yeah.” I sniffle. “You, too. Sorry it’s not better.”
“It’s better than dying. And it smells like you in here, too, so that’s a lovely benefit.”
Aww.“What do you want me to bring you to wear?”
“Whatever you select for me. Surprise me. My shower kit’s in the bathroom. My phone charger’s on the nightstand.”
I sit down, leaning against the door. I know he just did the same thing, except for not leaning.
Iknowit.
Our heads are separated by nothing but the wooden door. “Sounds like Robert was blessed to have you in his life.”
There’s a pause. “I was the blessed one. He brought sunlight into my life. He would stay in bed with me in the morning and hold me. Then he would arise later. He would tell me about his day, sometimes come back to bed and join me after he’d been outside, if he knew I was awake, so I could smell the heat on him. He knew how much I missed sunlight. He always tried to find little ways to bring joy and warmth into my life, any way that he could, to make up for that.”
Dammit, my heart’s breaking for him. “It sounds like he loved you very much.”
“I honestly never knew true, romantic love, until I met him. He fell in love with me honestly. I didn’t compel him when we first met—he was instantly attracted to me as a man, not because I made him feel it. I never had to compel him to do anything.Ever. Never wanted to, either. I only wish I could have saved him. I feel like I failed him.”
“Were you there when he died?”
“I held him in my arms the whole time. Even long after I knew turning him hadn’t worked and he wasn’t coming back to me. I couldn’t let him go. I laid there with him for three days, crying, begging him to return to me. I didn’t eat. I slept wrapped around him, in case he awakened. Until I was forced to accept the truth. Then, I dug his grave with my own hands and buried him. I almost sat there and greeted the sun, until I remembered that he wouldn’t have wanted me to do that.”
Even through the door, I hear his weighty sigh. “I take comfort knowing the last thing he heard was me telling him how much I loved him. And he told me how much he loved me. That if it didn’t work, he didn’t blame me. That he wanted me to go on and be happy.”
When my vision blurs, I realize I’m blinking back tears. “Did he suffer?”
“Not from what I did, no. His body was apparently too weak from the disease, or my blood wasn’t powerful enough at that time, or maybe both, for the virus to fully take hold and turn him. I held the disease at bay for years longer than he could have ever survived otherwise. We made love one last time, I fed him again…and then I did it. He simply slipped away. It didn’t hurt. I made it feel pleasurable. For him, anyway. It felt like my soul was ripped from my body.”
I wipe the tears from my cheeks. “Still say it doesn’t sound like you’re a sadist. He sounds like he was a very lucky guy.”
“Sadism and pleasure and pain and love are not mutually exclusive, sweetheart.”
I sniffle again. I feel his grief, just below the surface, still bubbling even this long since. “You’ve never loved anyone else?”
