But I don’t let him go. I wantallof him.
He gasps, fingers flexing around my head until he spills everything. And I don’t stop until he’s spent. Until he’s completely still.
We’re both breathless, dazed gazes locked on each other, lost for words.
Adam recovers first, reaching for my hands, and silently pulls me to him.
The buzz coming from my phone violently lands me back in reality.
“I should get that.” My voice comes out raw.
He only nods, straightens, and tucks himself away, before pulling my skirt down without a word. He tucks my hair behind my ear, retrieves my phone vibrating on the chair, and silently holds it out to me.
I try to clear my throat while straightening my clothes. “Yes.”
Michelle starts her rapid-fire update on a new client, but I can’t think straight.
“Tell me more when I get to the office.”
Adam is sitting at his desk, like he’s ready to end a meeting. It’s sharp, like a rejection.
He doesn’t yell. Doesn’t soften either, just buttons up his shirt, and somehow it pours gasoline on my anxiety.
All of a sudden, I’m self-conscious; my voice comes out thin, brittle. “I have to go.”
“Sure,” he says. “We should talk.” He rolls a pen between his fingers, looking at me with an unreadable expression. “When you have the time.”
Is he punishing me or protecting himself?
I can’t read him, but something in his demeanor makes me want to bolt. To deal with a real conversation and the consequences of what I confessed, after he’s had me on my knees, feels overwhelming.
There’s nothing else to say, and I’m about to cross the threshold when I glance back.
I wish I hadn’t.
Because Adam is slumped in his chair, hand over his mouth, a deep crease between his brows.
Have I managed to ruin everything for good this time? I tried my best. To change, to let him in. To stop being paranoid.
But maybe it’s not enough to undo the hurt I caused him. That I keep causing him.
I took a risk and laid my cards on the table. Now it’s the part where he finally gets to decide what comes next.
Three days and a full-scale security operation later, my new home is practically airtight. I’m in my sparsely furnished living room, watching Patrick scroll through pictures of his daughter moving into her college dorm.
“We met her roommate,” he says, swiping through his phone to show me her campus. “Sweet girl from Montana. They were already giggling when we left.”
Pride radiates from him. It’s written all over his face, proof that every sacrifice was worth it. The kind of pride I never saw in my own father’s eyes.
Most of my things are still in boxes, hidden in the new drawing room. The new kitchen still feels temporary. Bare counter-tops, only the essentials unpacked.
Except for the incomplete crystal rainbow.
Each piece is lined up along the breakfast nook, exactly where the morning sun spills in.
I can’t put my finger exactly on the moment I decided Ihadto bring the incomplete set with me and display it. If I were superstitious, I might say I hoped they’d work as a good luck charm. Maybe channel a little magic through the light and fix the wreckage I’ve made of things.
But the truth is, they remind me of him. Plain and simple.
