I'm right here.
Chapter 31: Stormy
I hear footsteps in the kitchen. Moving fast.
My body locks. Every muscle goes rigid. The rocking stops. I stop breathing. I become the thing I learned to become fifteen years ago.Nothing. A piece of the wall, a held breath in a dark space waiting for the footsteps to pass.
They don't pass. They stop.
"Stormy."
The voice comes from outside the gap. Low and soft and careful. I know this voice. I know it from a truck during a hurricane and a shoulder I slept on. But my body doesn't trust it right now because my body doesn't trust anything. My body is ten years old and the footsteps are in the hallway.
"Stormy, it's me. It's Tex."
The words reach me but they don't land. They bounce off the shell my body has built around me.
Words can't reach me anymore.
It's too late.
I hear him sit down. The sound of his weight settling on the kitchen floor, his back against the wall across from me. He doesn't reach into the gap. He doesn't try to pull me out. He doesn't block the opening. He sits down and he gives me room.
I hear his breathing. Mine. The freezer humming.
"He's gone, Stormy. He got in his truck and drove away. Mickey's here, right outside. Sheila's here. And there's about sixty bikers in that parking lot who would gladly kick that man's ass all the way back to Alabama if he even breathes wrong in this zip code."
Something flickers. My heart hears him. Not the ten-year-old. The twenty-five-year-old. The one who slept on this man's chest and gave him a letter and said I love you.
"That man doesn't get to have you," Tex says. His voice is steady but there's a tremor, controlled, held in check. "You hear me? He does not get to have you. Not ever again. He's a man in a blue shirt who ate some brisket and told some lies and got in his truck and left. That's all he is. He's a weak man. And he is smaller than what we have."
The rocking starts again. Slower this time. Less desperate now. The rhythm is changing. I'm coming back. Slowly, barely, but I'm coming back to the sound of his voice.
"I know you're scared," he says. "I know your body is doing what it learned to do and you can't stop it and that's okay. You don't have to stop it. You don't have to be brave right now. You can sit in that gap for as long as you need. I'll sit right here on this floor for as long as it takes. I've got nowhere else to be, Stormy. Nowhere in this world I'd rather be than right here on this floor with you. Everything else can wait."
A sound comes out of me. Small. Broken. The first sound I've made since the plate hit the tile.
"There you are, darling," he says. "You're here with me now. There's my Stormy. You're coming back to me. Take your time. It's okay."
My arms loosen. My hands release my own arms. The fingernail marks sting. I lower my arms from my head and I look through the gap. I can see him. Sitting on the kitchen floor with his back against the wall, legs stretched out, still in his barbecue-stained apron, his face turned toward me. His eyes are red. And on his face is the look I've seen a hundred times. Patient. Steady. Love.
He holds out his hand. Palm up, fingers open. How he's always offered me everything.
Here you go. This is yours, if you want it. Just take my hand.
I reach over and take his hand.
He doesn't pull. He holds. He wraps his fingers around mine and holds on carefully. The warmth of his hand reaches through the cold of the fear and finds me.
I slowly squeeze out of the gap. My body is stiff and my legs are numb. I move like an old man, cramped and shaking. He's still right there. Sitting on the floor with his arms open. I crawl into his lap, bury my face in his neck and I hold on.
His arms close around me. Tight. The way I told him to hold me. Not careful, not hovering. Strong. He pulls me against his chest and his hand cups the back of my head. I'm wrapped in him, surrounded by him, the smell of smoke and sweat and spilled beer filling my lungs and his heartbeat under my ear fast and alive.
"I didn't run," I whisper into his neck. "I didn't leave you. I'm still here."
His breath catches and his mouth presses against the top of my head.
"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, you are, Stormy. You're right here and that's so good, baby. So good that you're here. I'm so proud of you for not running."
