He untangles his fingers from my hair and begins to smooth the mess he made.
“And if I can’t have that, then yes, I want you crazy and angry. I want you any which way I can get you.”
“Why?” That’s what I always wanted to know but was too scared to ask. I’m beautiful, but I know very well the effect wears off with familiarity, and men get off on treating a pretty woman as disposable as much as they love showing her off.
His face grows very serious while his hands seem to do their own thing—stroking up my spine and over my shoulders, grabbing my fingers, idly playing with each one like he’s assessing their structural integrity.
Finally, he says, “Because you’re mine. Not like a possession. Shit. I don’t really know how to say this.” He stops himself to blow out a breath. “It’s like whoever made me used half, and you got the other half. So we’re nothing alike,but we come from the same stuff. Like I got all the luck, and you got none. And you’ve got all the love in you, and I just don’t.”
He places my palms on his chest and covers them with his hands. “When you were happy—it was close enough, you know? Close enough tomebeing happy. And then I got in my head and broke it. Like a kid with a robin’s egg. What is that? The call of the void? I don’t know.”
His heart thumps against my palm. I’m untethered and floating in a new way. I’ve never talked to someone like this. It’s like hearing a confession, but I’m the victim, and he’s not quite sorry, not in the way a decent person would be.
He ducks his head, kisses my jaw, then settles back against the headboard, quiet for a moment. “When I was kidnapped, you know, when I was a kid?”
I nod. Of course, I know, even though he never talks about it, except to bring it up whenever I screw up security protocols so I’ll take my safety more seriously.
“There were three men. One was driving. Two grabbed me. The side door of their van had rolled shut after they jumped out. One of them had to let me go to open it back up, so for a little while, it was one-on-one.” He licks his lips, nervously. “The other guy, he wasn’t big at all. Scrawny. Smelled like cigarettes. He was already out of breath from chasing me down a few yards.” He strokes my arms like he’s reassuring me. “I could have taken him. Ishouldhave been able to take him, but I got in my head, and I fucked up. Until now, that’s the worst mistake I ever made.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
He shrugs. “I’m not saying it was. I’m saying I had a shot, and I failed, and that’s been eating at me for over twenty years, and it’s nothing,nothing, to how I feel about what I did. I know it won’t make you happy, but I want you to know that I’m fucking miserable every minute of every day now,and that I’d rather relive that basement on repeat than wake up every morning feeling the way I do now.”
He stares sightlessly across the room at the television. I peek at him from the corner of my eye. His face is as hard as stone, his eyes blank, all his muscles tensed.
Suddenly, I feel too naked. I lean forward so my breasts are pressed to his chest. He exhales long and slow like he was holding his breath and wraps his arms around me.
There’s an ache inside me. Or maybe a longing.
What am I supposed to do? I could say nothing, let this strange moment die, and go on being sad because I’m accustomed to it.
I have no reason to trust him and every reason to never let him in again.
But still—
But maybe—
“I had it really good once,” I say, resting my chin on his shoulder, my mouth by his ear. “Big house in the suburbs. A mom, dad, two little sisters, and a dog. A golden retriever named Ellis. They were so nice. Ellis was the best. He followed me everywhere, and wherever I sat, he’d eventually go fetch his toys and make me a pile. He didn’t do that for anyone else. Just for me.”
Adrian’s arms tighten like he knows the story doesn’t end well.
“If I hadn’t done what I did—don’t ask me about it, because I’m not going there—but I could’ve had a real home. But I did what I did, and I never saw any of them ever again.”
“Whatever it was, you didn’t deserve to lose your home,” he says with utter conviction.
“No, it had to happen.” I shrug. “In the end, I regretted what I’d done—believe me, I was sorry as hell—but I couldn’t undo it.”
He’s silent for a long time. I meant to let him know that I understood what he was saying, at least a little, but maybe I ended up telling him that it’s hopeless, and I’ll never forgive him. Yesterday, that would’ve been nothing but the truth. Now—I don’t know.
This Adrian is not the man I fell in love with, but he’s not quite the man who destroyed my life, either. He’s gentler. Sadder. I like him better.
Finally, after a long pause, he ventures, “We could get a dog. I wanted to wait until the girls were old enough that we could get a good guard dog, like a German Shepard, but if you wanted, we could get a retriever now.” He thinks for another second. “Or a beagle.”
“A beagle?”
“They’re smaller. Less likely to knock the girls over.”
This conversation is ridiculous. I’m naked except for these passive-aggressive—or maybe aggressive-aggressive—high heels, and I just told him about theotherworst thing that ever happened to me, andhejust toldmeabout the most horrible day of his life, and now we’re talking dogs.
