IWASN’T SURE how long we lay there in the silent aftermath, tangled together beneath the sheets, the passionate onslaught abating as the night surrounded us and cocooned us in darkness.
Tonight had been perfect, from the moment Rafael came to me through the tunnels, to the moment we came together, fused as one. But as I lay there looking at the ceiling, reality crashed back in, invading our space. No matter how good it felt, how right, the fear crept into the back of my mind.
How long did we have? Would this be the last time I had him this way? When would he tell me this was enough, that he’d gotten caught up in the moment and it was a mistake?
When would God take him away again?
I tried to turn off all the outside noise, to focus on our breaths slowing and syncing. The rise and fall of his chest beneath my palm. The warm scent of him I wanted to bathe myself in.
His fingers were in my hair as I traced idle patterns over his skin. How many years had I waited to have him like this again, knowing it might never happen and resigning myself to that fact?Being bitter and angry every time one of my brothers was able to love so freely and then feeling guilty about their happiness?
“I’m not letting you go,” I said, voicing it out loud even though I was terrified I might have to.
Rafael’s fingers stilled in my hair.
A long silence followed, my heartbeat ticking away the seconds before he spoke again.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted.
“You know what you feel.”
“Yes.”
I lifted my head from his shoulder and propped myself on my elbow so I could look at him. His brow was creased, but there wasn’t the usual conflict in his eyes, and something about that eased the tightness in my chest a bit.
“I can’t be near you without wanting you.” He gently brushed his knuckles along my jaw. “And I don’t know how to reconcile that with everything else I’ve built.”
I turned my head, pressing a kiss to his hand. “You don’t have to figure it out tonight.”
“But I will. I have to.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, how I could help him and make it easier, what solution I could find. I was a fixer—that was what I did. Find the problem, make it go away.
But here I was powerless, and that was what scared me more than anything.
Rafael’s gaze shifted, drifting past me like he was lost in thought. “When my parents died…everything collapsed. All of a sudden, I had no family. The house was empty. When I wasn’t with you, the silence was unbearable. I clung to my faith. It felt like the only stable force in my life, the only thing that didn’t shift beneath me.”
I opened my mouth to refute that, becauseIhad been there, but he wasn’t finished, so I snapped it shut and listened, needing to finally understand why he’d felt like he had to run away.
“The pain was too much.” He closed his eyes like he could shield himself from reliving his nightmare again. “I threw myself into the church because it gave me something to hold on to. It gave me structure, rules, a purpose for my life—something bigger than all the grief I carried. It gave me peace, or as close to it as I could get.”
“And I couldn’t do that for you?”
Rafael’s eyes opened, haunted and laced with regret. “You made everything so much bigger. The grief. The doubt. The joy—which felt wrong to even have, considering. My life suddenly tipped out of control.”
“You don’t like not being in control,” I teased softly, and he almost smiled.
“It scared me. Because loving you felt…overwhelming. And I thought if I chose you, I would lose the only thing that was holding me together. And then what if I lost you too?”
“So you chose the thing that didn’t move.”ThatI understood. God was steadfast, would never leave you or forsake you—that was what we’d been taught our whole lives, and Rafael leaning on that promise wasn’t something I could fault him for. I wasn’t the one who’d lost my entire family.
But I wouldn’t have left him either.
“Yes,” he said. “I did.”
“And now?”
“Now I realize you never left me either. Even when I told you to go.”
