But if we were going to have a life together, that had to change.
I couldn’t love half a man.
I needed all of him.
His secrets.
His truths.
Everything.
Yoss came back to the bed and sat down. “Sometimes I come here,” he admitted.
Iknew.
His eyes met mine. Shame. So much of it. It coated him in grime and bled from his mouth with words I wished I didn’t have to hear.
“With my…with the men…” He stumbled and fell over honesty.
“Oh,” I said quietly, sickened at the thought of sleeping in a bed that he had already lain in.
Touching someone else the way he had touched me.
How would I ever reconcile myself with the things he had done? Would it always be in the back of my mind? Taunting me? Laughing at my foolishness?
“Manny keeps a few rooms available. He pays Mae to have them ready.” Yoss was pale and he swallowed thickly. “I’ve never stayed here though. Not in this room,” he hastily added.
As if that were a consolation.
“It doesn’t matter though. We’re leaving today. We won’t ever see Manny again,” I said a little desperately with a bravado I wasn’t sure I actually possessed.
“Right,” Yoss agreed, rising to his feet. “Do you want the shower first?”
I shook my head. I felt disquieted. Uneasy. Yoss wouldn’t quite look at me. I was scared to really look at him.
After everything we had shared the night before I should have been jubilant. Excited. But Yoss’s demeanor was off. Guilty maybe.
Don’t be ridiculous!I chided myself.He’s still grieving! We both are! Give him a break! Stop looking for problems. We’re leaving today. Focus on that!
I heard the water turn on in the bathroom and got out of bed.
I stood in the middle of the motel room, wishing I wasn’t imagining Yoss here. With faceless other people.
It made me feel dirty.
It made me want to scream.
Instead I cried.
I had to learn to let this go. But could I?
And why didn’t I trust Yoss to do the same?
Not able to shake the sense of unease, I went into the bathroom and pulled back the shower curtain, stepping into the hot water behind Yoss.
His head was bowed, the water streaming over his slumped shoulders.
He was folding in on himself. Crumbling under the weight of things he wouldn’t share.
