Since I’d gone to see Dad, all the happiness I’d been reaching for seemed to have drained through my fingers like water. I was back to not eating, losing all the weight I’d managed to put on. And really, it was worse in a way. There was a sense of hopelessness now that hadn’t been there before, like I was in a deep, dark hole with no way out.
Months ago, when I’d taken the risk and done the Big Terrible Thing, I’d believed that eventually I’d be free of my family. But as time went on, my faith in that gradually eroded. Until I moved in here with Rafe, and then I thought that maybe my luck was changing. I should have known it was too good to be true.
So I’d decided to take one last moment of happiness before everything went black. I tore at his clothes, desperate to feel his skin on mine, but my hands were clumsy and shaking as I tried to unbutton his shirt.
“Hey,” he said in a hoarse voice, catching my hand in his at his shirt front. “It’s okay, baby. We’ve got time. Deep breaths, Clara.”
I wanted to scream at him that,no, we did not have any bloody time. That I needed himnow. I needed him to shut out all the noise for me. I closed my eyes to try and get myself under some sort of control.
“I just need you,” I said in a shaky whisper.
“I’ve got you, baby,” he said in that soft but firm voice. “I’m right here with you.”
I nodded, and he put his hand behind his back to pull his shirt off in one smooth motion, revealing his muscular torso. I made a low sound in the back of my throat as I traced his chest down to the ridges of his abdomen lightlywith my fingers. His pupils were huge when I looked back up at his eyes.
“I missed you so much,” he growled, covering me again with his weight as he pulled off my shirt and then my bra. When we were finally skin on skin, I let out a sharp breath. Cocooned under his large, warm body, feeling him surround me completely, I felt an arrow of need pierce through me, but also some sort of acute relief, as if holding back from him physically had been inflicting a kind of unacknowledged pain on my body which was only now finding its resolution. I could feel him hard against me now, and I knew I needed to be connected with him.
“Please, Rafe,” I said, my voice choked as I pushed down his trousers. “I need you now. I can’t wait.”
And then we were both naked and finally, finally he was pushing inside, stretching me and filling me as I cried out and clenched around him. The sheer rightness of it, of having him moving with me, taking the emptiness away was so beautiful I felt my eyes start to sting.
“Baby,” he murmured, slowing to kiss one of the tears at my temple away. “Clara, are you okay?”
“Yes, yes,” I said in a half-sob, “please, Rafe. It’s just that I need you so much.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, a flash of concern crossing his features at the desperation in my tone. “I told you; I’ve got you.”
My arms came up around him to hold him to me, my hands feeling the muscles moving under his skin as he thrust inside. I wrapped my legs around his back, more tears falling and my cries intensifying as I fell over the edge. Rafe’s movements became uncontrolled as I contracted around him, and then he followed me there with a hoarse cry. He let me take his weight for a moment with me stillwrapped around him, not wanting to let him go, and then he leaned up on his elbows to search my expression. His hands came up to swipe at the tears that continued to fall.
He kissed me lightly before he pulled away to lie back on the bed, gathering me into his arms so that I was tucked into his side as he stroked my hair and pulled the duvet over us. More tears fell onto his chest where my head was resting and his arms gave me a squeeze.
“Darling, why are you crying?” he asked softly. “I didn’t do anything to hurt you, did I? I don’t?—”
“No, of course not,” I said. How could he think that he’d hurt me? I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry I’m crying. I just feel a bit… overwhelmed.”
“You don’t have to apologise for crying, Clara,” he said softly. “I just want to understand why. Something’s wrong. You’ve avoided me all week, and believe me, I’m beyond happy that you’re back, but this feels like it’s edged with some sort of… grief? I still feel like you’re slipping through my fingers. I’m getting a horrible sense that in some way you’re saying goodbye, or that you’re gone even though you’re right here in my arms. Like I said before, you’re scaring me. Just tell me what’s going on. There’s nothing I can’t fix.”
I almost smiled. Wasn’t that just like Rafe? Nothing he can’t fix.
I imagined that in most other areas this was true. God knows he kept his free-wheeling, crazy sister out of harm’s way. He was wired to protect, to be relied upon, to provide safety. But nobody could keep me safe now, not even Rafe.
For one mad moment, I considered telling him everything. Confessing all my lies about my background so that he could fix all my problems. But once he knew the truth, would I still be held in his arms like this? Would he still lookat me the same way? How would he feel when he realised that there was no simple solution to my family? That they would always taint everything about my life with the black horror of their reality?
Even pulling the trigger on the Big Terrible Thing hadn’t sorted them out. All it had done was gradually make me more and more anxious, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“I’m with you now,” I told him, not willing to spout any more lies. “I’m with you tonight.”
He sighed, holding me even closer against him as if the tighter he held on, the less likely I was to slip away.
We woke up in each other’s arms in the middle of the night and made love again, slower this time, after exploring each other for what felt like hours. He made me come with his fingers and his mouth before finally slamming back into me, not letting up until I came a third time.
“You’re perfect,” he’d said over and over again, then, “I love you. Stay with me.”
It was as if he was edging into desperation now too. As if he could sense he was losing me and trying to use our physical connection to keep us together.
I wanted to tell him again I loved him too. Holding the words back was causing actual pain to build in my chest. But the pain of what I had to do would be more acute somehow if I kept acknowledging out loud how far I’d fallen. If I said out loud how much I needed this man. How much I loved him.
That morning, he hugged me before he left for work, and I held on, burrowing inside his overcoat, feeling small and safe and protected. Revelling in that feeling whilst knowing that it might be the last time I ever had it.
