“That’s not what love means,” Rose insisted. “If you were in love with me, you would have tried to fix thingsthen, not now.”
Tom adjusted his hands on her skin, checking that he wasn’t putting more pressure than necessary to keep her from getting away. Apparently satisfied, he leaned in. Rose tilted her chin away under the impression he was trying to kiss her, but he wasn’t.
“I should’ve,” he admitted from only a couple of inchesaway. “And I didn’t. I’ve got a dozen explanations and excuses—I was angry, I was embarrassed, and you’d always made all the decisions, so I thought you’d just call and tell me when I could come home—but I don’t think thewhyof it really matters at this point.” He pressed his forehead hard against hers and smooshed the tips of their noses together, ignoring Rose’s pained grimace.
“We were only twenty-two. We were young and stupid, and we didn’t know what we were doing.” He held her gaze from so close that she couldn’t even focus.
“We are just going to have to forgive each other,” he said directly into her face.
After that announcement, Tom released her and sat all the way back on his heels, relaxing his shoulders and nodding as though he’d delivered a great and important truth. That was it?
Rose sputtered. “What?”
“Yep,” he said, brushing his tangled hair back out of his face. “You’re just going to have to forgive me. And yourself too, Rosie. For everything you said. You told me you hated me! I never really thought you meant it, but I did wonder for a decade if I had ruined your life. You can’t feel good about having said that, so you’re going to have to forgive yourself while you’re forgiving me too.”
She had to blink hard as she worked through that, not sure if she needed to be outraged.
“Why do Ihaveto?” she said as her first response, instinctively objecting to any commands.
“Well, most urgently because, Jesus, look at us. We are so hot. We could be fucking right now,” Tom said, forcing a smileto his mouth, even though it didn’t reach his eyes. “But more importantly, because I think you want to.”
He held the position, let her look at him. There was space for her to respond if she wanted to, but she could tell he didn’t expect an immediate answer. She licked her lips, unsure whether she ought to test his commitment to either proposition.
She must have waited too long to speak, because Tom wrinkled his nose as he slid his legs off the bed. “Be right back.”
“Wait, where are you going?” Rose demanded. Running away in the middle of the conversation was hardly persuasive if he wanted her to think he’d meant what he said.
“I’m going to take a cold shower,” he said. He gestured at his lap, and when Rose did the math on how long he’d been hard, she did actually feel bad for him.
Tom ruined it when he put his feet on the ladder and dramatically frowned to himself. “Actually, you know what? I didn’t do anything wrong tonight. I’m going to take a hot shower. I’m going to jerk off.”
Rose’s shocked intake of breath turned into an involuntary snort, making Tom laugh at her. She looked for something to toss at him, but he ducked out of view.
“I’m going to imagine we’re doing itrespectfully,” he taunted her.“Emotionally.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Rose moaned, grabbing a pillow too late to catch him before he made it to the floor. She threw it after him anyway.
“That’s the idea,” he agreed. “Baby, you are going to be so sweet to me in my head. See you in a few.”
I hate you.She opened her mouth to say it, but he wasright: she’d never meant it, she wished she’d never said it, and she couldn’t say it now. So she didn’t say anything. Instead, she grabbed another pillow and pulled it over her own head. She yelled into it, which did make her feel a little better, but not as much as the exotic, cathartic sex she’d spent all day thinking about would have.
After a minute, she heard the shower turn on, then the rattle of the glass stall door closing. No singing this time, even though she leaned out of bed to listen for it. Knowing Tom, at least half of what he’d said was bluster, and he had the shakes now.
And look, so did she. Her hands were trembling. It was that fight-or-flight system, she guessed. Telling her to dosomethingwhen she was still just curled up naked in bed. Run away. Go down and yell at Tom for leaving her in a lurch. Go down and get in the shower with him.
Most of her clothes were on the living room floor, but her underwear was up here at least. Putting it back on didn’t feel like she was making a choice, not the way going downstairs would be.
After this long, she ought to know what the right choice was. She wasn’t twenty-two anymore. She ought to be able to decide what she wanted. But she remembered being twenty-two so clearly: miserable and alone in their bed, wishing Tom would come home—just not enough to call him and ask. It was ridiculous, she thought from the benefit of distance, how the thing she’d wanted most in the world was for Tom to come home without having to ask him. That wasn’t the right thing to wantmost.
She wanted to forgive herself the way people forgave children: because they didn’t know any better. She wanted to be sure that she did know better now, but shewasn’tsure. So she just curled up again, stuck in the quicksand of her emotions, waiting for Tom.
Possibly he’d get out of the shower and sit down to watch some TV, she thought with dread. Then she’d have to either lurk alone in the loft like Mr. Rochester’s attic wife or climb down the ladder in her underwear. She felt nearly nauseous at the thought of doing either. What if he just went to sleep afterward? What would she do then?
This time, though, Tom did come back. After his standard half-hour shower, he got out, toweled off in an unhurried way, and found a clean pair of boxers in his duffel bag. He checked the locks and turned off the bathroom light. Then he climbed back up the ladder as though he’d faced no similar crisis of decision.
“Oh, Rosie,” he said when he spotted her in her defensive ball, attitude deflating. She put her pillow over her head and turned her back to him, defiant. “C’mere,” he coaxed her.
He crawled across the bed to her and wormed his body under the covers, still damp from the shower. He kissed her shoulder again, then her jaw, just under her ear. She clenched into a tighter ball in response.
