“I didn’t say that.”
“Easy. Or lazy or—”
She stiffens. “That’s not what I mean. You work hard and you’re talented and—”
I’m so full of gratitude for this woman who’s literally defending me from myself that I tighten my hold and close my eyes and smile against her skin and try again. “What I mean is, say I’m one thing, like warm sunshine and quick smiles. Well, you’re the opposite. You’re those still waters that run deep.”
“Okay.” She sounds skeptical. “Go on.”
“I wanted that. The depth. The stillness. Even if it was only for…pretend.”
“Fine, but couldn’t you have, I don’t know, asked me out on an actual date instead of setting up a PR stunt through your manager?”
“That whole life’s a PR stunt, Twyla. That version of me. It’s not real. It’s a role.”
Through the next few seconds of silence, I’ve got no idea what she’s thinking and then she says, “So, we started playing house and then…” She sucks in a deep breath, like she’s getting ready to do something hard. “What you said? Outside the hangar? About our not-quite-make out session?”
“Yeah?”
“So, you like me.”
The snuffling sound that escapes me is not a laugh or a groan, but a weird combination of the two. “God, baby, I like you. So much. And I hate what I did to you. If I could—”
“I know.”
“I’d tear a limb off.”
“Please don’t.” After a second. “You called her a painkiller. That’s kind of awful.”
“I know. I’m sorry for her, too. I regret every second of it.”
“You hurt me, Zion.”
“I’d rather die than do it again, Twyla. I don’t know how to show you that.”
“I don’t…I don’t know either.”
It hurts that she says this, and I let it.
I shut my eyes and tighten my arms, understanding for the first time what a precious thing it is to hold another person like this. “My therapist calls it compartmentalizing. The way I live my life. She says it’s a response to childhood trauma. She calls them my walls. Says I should take them down.” I smile. “Like Berlin.” I chuckle low and push straight on, needing to scrub myself clean, to start over, to give her this new, half-born version of me, no matter how stunted it is. “My mom died when I was five and…Fuck, the kissing thing is linked to that. I get that now. Edna—my therapist—told me it’s obvious, but… Mama was…I don’t remember much, but she was so warm and affectionate, and she loved meso much.” The last two words come out high and tight and weird, all balled up with the pain of telling it. I forge on or it’ll never come out. “When she was gone, my dad became a ghost and I turned…hard.”
Her tragic littleZion, floats into the air above us.
“It’s okay. I’m okay.” I force myself to go on. “You’re the first person who’s ever crossed those walls, I guess, and… Shit, this is hard to say.”
She sniffs. “You don’t have to.”
“No, I… You’ve broken through. Maybe even before, I think? Over the last few weeks, you didn’t bust through them, you sort of nudged the bricks aside and made a little hole or something.” Shit, don’t let me cry. I don’t want to, but the prickle’s turning to a burn in my sinuses. “I thought it would hurt if the walls came down, but it doesn’t? It’s like…” A tear escapes and I drop my head and press my mouth to her hair and just breathe her in. “Scary as shit, but also freeing.”
She nods and tries to move, but I hold her still, keeping her close so I don’t have to see her face and acknowledge what a clusterfuck my life’s been. I don’t want to see tragedy there. Or pity or any of it. “I was wrong to pretend we didn’t have something. I was wrong to betray you. I’ll never do it again, Twyla. I promise. On my life.” And then, because I’m being this honest, I might as well go for the gold, I tell her, “I just didn’t think you’d want this version of me.”
“And now?” Is that hope in her voice? “What do you think?”
The silence is suddenly so thick around us, it’s like a third presence in the room. Solid, waiting.
“You’re mine,” I grate out, though it goes against every self-protective instinct I’ve got. It’s a leap and it’s scary as hell, but I’ll take it. For Twyla, I’ll be this naked, skinless, and flayed wide-open. “I want this. I want you. I want what we’re doing to be real.”
“I want that, too, Zion. I want that, too.”
