I blush at the idea of Patrick telling me these things.
“He’d do anything for you.”
“And you?”
“And me, what?”
“You’re not mad at him?”
I look at him with my heart in my throat.
“Are you being serious?” He smiles at me. “He’s down there going crazy thinking that he’s lost you.”
I bite my lip in agitation.
“I’m afraid… Afraid that I’m not really what he wants and that I may not be able to be myself again.”
“Because of what happened?”
I nod.
“Feel like talking about it?”
I tell Patrick all of the details of the night before, about how Mark came through the garage door and found me, how he touched me and how he spoke to me. About how I’ve accidentally let him get close to me in these months, and about how he followed me that night a few weeks ago when Aaron saved me—Mark attacked me from behind then, hiding his face, I had no idea it was him at the time. How Aaron had defended me last night, fighting Mark off as if his life depended on it. About how he held me to him after he feared the worst. About what I read in his eyes, his face and words and in all of himself.
And as I tell him, as I tell my brother everything that was in my mind, I suddenly feel lighter and less confused. The words flow without pause and are accompanied by a few stray tears, but I’m able to clear my mind and to regain, slowly, control over myself and my feelings.
And they make me understand that I can’t lose him.
Not now.
And he absolutely can’t lose me.
—
AARON
Ciara ran away.
From me.
She’s afraid of me.
Patrick follows her into the bedroom, telling me it’ll be fine, but I’m not so sure.
I go to my room asking to be left alone, I go to the window and look at the roof, the place I first allowed her to get close to me. I rest my forehead on the wet window and give in to my discomfort and desperation.
I just found her and I’ve already lost her.
This is my fault. If I had allowed myself a bit of love right away, if I had permitted this feeling to shake me up the first time I felt it, none of this would be happening.
I slide to me knees and fall to the floor. The pain I feel in my chest is too much, it’s unbearable, it takes everything with it, every heartbeat, every caress, every phrase whispered from her lips. Every look and every emotion.
Ciara will forget, lost and alone in the confusion of contrasting emotions, what she’s going through now and there’s nothing I can do to avoid that fact.
Jay interrupts my thought flow, calling from behind closed doors that the lawyer has arrived.
I dry my eyes with my T-shirt and get up, ready to face the music. But one thing I’ll never be ready for is losing her.
