The most unnerving part of it all is being attached to the one man I thought I’d never be close to again.
He feels completely different, but having my arms around him still feels like home. The depth of my grief has been buried so long that it feels like a cork has popped, and ribbons of emotional turmoil are bursting out of me.
It’s impossible to stomp those feelings back down when he’s right in front of me and refuses to go away.
It isn’t fair.
I have a life. I was doing everything right. I got the degree, the career, and a fiancé.
But it isn’t enough. Not when the one person whom I would have chosen over all of it stumbles back into my life and refuses to leave.
He shows up, and this sick part of my brain can’t leave him alone. The compass over my broken soul always points tohim.
His hand covers where mine overlap over his stomach, holding me steady as he pulls over the curb into my driveway and up to my little yellow cottage. Before he lets go, he squeezes, and that small gesture twists my already mangled mind.
Why is he doing this to me?
I stand up, struggling to get off the back of the bike before he tells me it’s safe to, desperate to escape the situation I’ve put myself in.
I’m unbuckling my helmet at my front door by the time he turns his bike off and catches up to me. “I forgot my keys,” I utter towards the door instead of facing him. The alcohol is making my head spin.
“Do you keep a spare?”
I shake my head, letting it thud against the wood.
“Alright, just give me a second.” He disappears off my porch, and I don’t bother checking to see what he’s doing. I’d rather drown in self-pity.
The door whooshes open after a minute or two, and my head drops before I catch it and look up into his grinning face. “Madam,” he gestures sarcastically. “The lock for your kitchen window probably should have been replaced a decade ago.”
I hardly hear him, though, because my eyes zero in on the tattoo under the collar of his shirt. One of the tattoos that I’ve never been able to see very clearly, but tonight his t-shirt is looser, and the collar doesn’t fit snugly at the base of his neck.
“Are those… Olive branches?”
He glances down at his ink as if he doesn’t know it’s there, or is considering whether he can get away with lying. But Ican see it clearly enough, and my question was rhetorical.
Along each collar bone is an olive branch, curved slightly to follow the path of his clavicle. He doesn’t insult me by trying to dismiss it, but he also doesn’t respond at all.
“Did you get those because of me?”
“Liv…” He starts, but I cut him off.
“Yes, or no.”
“Yes.”
I shove past him into the living room, raking my hands through my windblown and tangled hair.
“What do you want from me, Hayes?”
“I told you I’m here to keep you safe.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean?”
“After all this time, after all we went through, what do you want from me?”
“I don’t want anything from you. I just want to be part of your life.”
