“Remembering that,” she whispers, voice ragged, but her face still gentle, “never gets easier. It never has. But being here with you and not having to go back there alone, even in my head, it’s- it’s somehow better. Being with you makes most things feel different. I’m not afraid to go back through the memories. I’mafraid to confront it, but I’m going to do it anyway. You have this magical touch that turns even the blackest moments into something that shimmers bright and gold.”
“I- I’m not magic, Loreena. I’m a mess. I get confused and sad and fuck up too.”
She finds my hand and clutches it tightly. “Yes. And that’s exactly why your magic is so good. It’s because it’s imperfect, but that’s what makes it beautiful. So just… thank you. Thank you for your letters over the years, for your faith in me, and for being here right now, listening to me and believing in me so that I don’t have to do it alone. Thank you for seeing the woman I could be and want to be and helping me get there.”
I could thank her for all of those things as well, and a thousand things more, but as usual, I know I’m not going to have the words. Not unless I sit down and spend weeks writing them out, and maybe not even then.
I don’t need words to wrap my arms around Loreena, to draw her in and hold her so tight that she’s like an extension of my body, my heart, my ribs, my skin, my bones, my breath. We paid for an hour in here and I know we haven’t nearly used up that time. We haven’t broken anything either, but maybe it’s enough.
Maybe now we can start rebuilding.
Chapter 18
Loreena
Maverick didn’t remove the blindfold until we were well inside the building. From underneath, I could see the big clubhouse with the fenced off compound on the side. The chain link rose far up into the air. Maverick tried to describe it to me, not knowing I could see the rows of bikes, vehicles, and the younger man pacing around inside, probably on watch. Maverick said that most of the guys enter into the club that way, but he called Scythe when we pulled up in the asphalt parking lot on the other side of the building.
Maverick swept me up into his arms and carried me the same way that he did earlier. We were let in through a metal door that banged shut heavily behind us. I had my head tilted into his chest, trying to force oxygen in and not turn into a thrashing, panicked mess. I just kept picturing his body towering over me, blocking everything else out, protecting me, keeping me safe. I focused on his heartbeat and tried to time my breaths to it while Scythe gave Maverick instructions.
He removed the blindfold as we entered a kitchen. Everything was blurry, but it focused quick enough. I noticed right away that the whole place smelled like chocolate chip cookies.
There are chairs around a big table in here, but Maverick took me straight to the bank of cabinets and set me down right on the countertop.
Warm air trickles in from above and when I tilt my face up, I see the heat vent in the open ceiling, ductwork and beams spanning the building’s length.
“What did this place used to be, do you know?” I couldn’t get words out for a good while after the first ride this morning. All those words stringing together and coming out coherently is basically a miracle.
“I think Scythe said it was an old flour factory. I should have been paying more attention. I was surly when he was talking about it, thinking how little I wanted to sit and do accounting.” Maverick is standing between my spread legs.
It was clearly just functional, for when he set me down, but now that my body has calmed enough tonoticehim there, a burst of heat flames inside of me, warming me faster than the heat vent above.
I felt a little bit embarrassed after my confession in the rage room. That’s not what Maverick took me there for. He didn’t expect that I’d just tell him everything. I didn’t either. I don’t know why it all came out like it did. I was the one a little bit mortified, but Maverick was as steadfast as ever. He held me. He literally bled with me.
It just about stopped my heart when I turned and saw that red line and trickle of blood on his face. I’ve never felt so bad about anything before, as I did that he’d been hurt by my own reckless rage. He made it clear that he wasn’t worried about the cut. He didn’t shy away from my ghosts, my monsters, and the ugliness of my past. He made it possible for me to stand firm, to say the words, to face them, not cower away and go back into hiding. I’ve never felt so warm in the moment when my heartalso wept. Now that I’ve purged that sickness out, it doesn’t feel like we’re tainted by my speaking the words.
He’s my beacon in the dark and I wanted to cling to him.
I want to hold him now, even though we’re in the kitchen of a biker clubhouse and I can hear people in the distant background. Not close, but enough noise to remind us that we’re not alone.
He’s said nothing yet, but his hands hover around my face, getting ready to draw me into him if I need a moment. His massive body blocks the view of everything except the big stainless fridge off to the right and a bank of cabinets to my left. The rest is allhim.
I suck in a breath that finally doesn’t shake, but I still bring my hands to his shoulders. I trace his jacket before I find his soft hair and tangle my fingers by the nape of his neck.
“When I first got locked away, I didn’t allow anyone on my visitation list.” His voice is hoarse.
I’m already sitting still, but everything in mestops. I didn’t expect that he’d meet my words with some of his own.
“I had a few friends at the time, not many, but I did have Scythe. He was devastated. He wrote me letters every week, but then they dwindled to once a month when I didn’t respond. He said he didn’t want to bother me. He wanted to give me time to change my mind. I never did. I kept my head down in there. I thought it was a good strategy, but really, I was just so fucking angry. I was angry at everything and everyone. I didn’t even believe in a higher power, but I was pissed at god or whatever should have been out there, too. I’d spent most of the year since my mom died, pretending that I knew something. Going to jailreminded me that I knewnothing. It took whatever slim amount of control I had over my life.”
I dig my fingers into the back of his neck, not to hurt him, but so that he can feel the pressure of my touch and be grounded by it. He’s protected me so fiercely and unwaveringly. He doesn’t give a shit that a blindfold is ridiculous or that he has to pick me up. He’s just accepted it and done it. I want tohearhim, as he’s heard me in every way, without the need for any words.
“Neither of us will ever be the same as thebefore,” I whisper. That’s my way of telling him how sorry I am for all his lost years. He doesn’t want to hear that word. Sorry. I’m not as averse to it, unless he’d be the one saying it. What happened to me wasn’t his fault and the last thing I want is pity. I understand why he’d hate to see that on my face too. “We’re both going to be changed for the rest of our lives.”
Ever since that night, the memories have come, and come, and come. I can’t pick how or when. There’s no fleeing from them. I could still feel it. The pain of my broken body. The panic of a broken mind. The sick ache of a broken heart. I wanted it to stop, and then I just got good at pushing it away, but it never left. I was waiting for my life to go back to the way it was, to find that semblance of normal and the person I used to be, even though it’s impossible. I realize that was all wrong, but I had no idea until right this moment just how badly I was waiting for the light.
“If our stories play out in the dark,” I say, looking up into Maverick’s anguished face to speak my thoughts, “then so be it. We can still be powerful in the shadows. We can still… want in the dark, trust in the dark, come together and find beauty.”
“Beauty,” he muses, testing the word on his tongue, his face anguished. “Here I was trying to make myself invisible for so long.”
