Fresh tears leak from my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to fuck you like this when I’m angry.”
“I’msorry.”
“I love you, Elias.”
I start sobbing as I cling to him. “I love you too.”
I stop trying to justify myself. He stops trying to punish me. He just lets it go, and so do I. We stay like that for a long, long time. Until everything settles. Until we both feel safe.
Andre lifts his head. He starts petting my hair. He reaches over to the nightstand and turns on a low nightlight, just enough to soften the darkness. His beautiful face emerges from the shadows.
Propping himself up on one elbow, he says, “I know why you did it.”
My throat tightens. “I was afraid you’d do something and get hurt. Or killed.”
“Then you know how I felt when I woke up.”
I swallow hard, feeling guilty. “I …”
“Elias, let me be clear with you.” He lays a hand heavily on my chest. “If something had happened to you, I would be dead right now, one way or another. You were not protecting me because youcan’t. It’s not possible. You cannot take that role from me.”
“But—”
“And I feel like you did this because I let you see, for a second, that—” Andre cuts himself off, struggling, but I don’t interrupt. I don’t rush him. I just wait. He says, “I let you see that something … hurt me. And that makes me feel like I can’t ever let you see anything like that again. And maybe that should be fine. Maybe that’s better, but … it doesn’t feel better.”
Tears spill from my eyes, and I find that I can’t respond. He’s right. That is what happened. I hated seeing him suffering. I still hate it. I hate what happened to him.
But instead of holding a safe space for him, I stepped away. That my intention was to help doesn’t change that fact. I understand what he’s saying. I understand the trust that I broke.
“I want to see you, all of you,” I tell him when I can speak. “Iwantyou to tell me things. Please—pleasegive me another chance.Please, Andre. Forgive me.”
I see how his eyes soften, how he comes back to me, all the way back. I see him forgive me even before he says, “I do.”
I swallow around a lump in my throat. “Thank you for coming to get me.”
“I willalwayscome get you. I will always protect you, even from myself.”
“I don’t want to be protected from you. I don’t want you to hold back from me.”
“I need you to let me, when I need to.”
A worry niggles inside me. “But I still want …” My fingers go to my bare throat.
“To play?”
“I don’t know why. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Elias. You’re just more honest than most people, and you’ve made me honest too. About what I want. And … need. And Iwillstill play with you, because that’s always going to be a part of me. But …”
“What?” I prompt when he seems stuck.
“But I wonder if we could do other things too.”
“Like what?”
“I want … to make love to you.” He looks more vulnerable than I’ve ever seen him as he adds, “But I don’t know how.”
