And when a stuttered breath falls from my lips, this sorrow spills from me in violent streams. It pours onto the floor and surrounds our feet—Benjamin and me.
He’s standing here on my porch, looking at me as if he’s just as shocked as I am that he’s here. And the longer I look, the more these nerve endings light up, almost to the point of pain.
I feel as if I have lost something dear to me, lying my eyes upon him has stolen it away. As if now that I’ve seen him here, I will no longer be able to hold him hostage in my mind.
Suddenly, this sorrow scoots over; it makes room for an insatiable lust that has me panting lightly as I stare into his big, hazel eyes. His narrow waist is tucked so neatly into his dress pants, and the way he’s staring up at me shouldn’t be legal in any of the fifty states.
“Elijah,” he rushes out, a soft pink covering his cheeks and spreading down his neck and into the collar of his sweater.
His voice. Oh, god, his voice. So sweet and breathy. It’s as if it’s reached something deep inside of me and tamed it—something I didn’t even know was there. He sounds exactly as he did in my dreams. In my fantasies.
This misery, as if I am witnessing a car crash right here, right in my own front yard. This desire—as if I am a starving man and he is a decadent dessert made just for me. I have not a single clue where to place these emotions anymore, this sudden onslaught of heightened need and pain.
Every unexplainably miserable moment of my life suddenly makes sense and is impossible to understand all at once. How is he here? Is it really him? Surely not—I made him up.Did I?God, he’s so fucking beautiful andalive.
And all at once, the life I had built—the one that made perfect sense to me, that suited me so well—has become something I do not recognize. Something I do not know.
But I do know that at the same time that I want to slam this door in his face, I want to pull him inside, strip him down, and touch him.
I want to run so badly; I want to pretend I never saw this man. I want to hide from this pulsing ache in my chest and this shift in my reality. But I also want to put my tongue on his skin and see if he tastes how I imagine he would, to see if his laugh still sounds as rich as his voice does.
I bet his smile is so fucking bright it blinds you. I just know it. With everything in me, I fucking know this. I saw it—so many times in my dreams did I see it.
And as he watches me, batting those thick lashes and panting from his parted, pillowy lips, I make a split-second decision. I slam the door in his face.
I am suddenly so empty, so fucking empty. But I have no way of reasoning with these insane emotions, and there is no Elijah here. He must have the wrong house.
The urge to open the door and see if he’s still here is incredibly strong, and I find myself tucking my hands into my pockets to keep myself from doing just that. I’m afraid that if I open my mouth, I’ll call his name—I’ll try to soothe this longing in my chest with the press of my palm over his.
Even in the flesh, he is the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. My desire to touch every inch of him has not shrunk now that I’ve been faced with the real thing. If anything, I only want him that much more.
Holy shit. In the flesh. Did that just happen? How did this happen?
But what startles me more than the insanity of seeing him here, of seeing him alive, is this swell of emotion inside of me. These feelings of sorrow are not new to me—I live in a constantstate of upset. As if something important has been stolen from me. As if I have lost a vital piece of myself.
Only, just now—when faced with Benjamin in the flesh—it’s as if someone has laid a warm blanket over the pain. A comfort that is swaddling me and giving this pain meaning, though heightening it in the process.
And there was something else magnified, something else that is pulsing in the back of my mind even still, even as I’m no longer looking at him.
The longing—I feel it so deeply, so assuredly that if I could just figure out how to breathe around it, maybe I could sort out why just seeing this man’s face is making me want to sob like a child.
Then again, just thinking about seeing his face again is stressing me out. I don’t know if my heart can take it, the sudden palpitations. I might have a fucking heart attack.
What if, when I see him again, he looks different? Or he is cruel to me? And he was looking for someone else anyway.
How is that? How is it that I am to dream of him for twenty-six years, only for him to be searching for someone else?
I lean against the wood of the door, taking deep breaths. In and out. This is fine. All is well. I can have him in my dreams; I can have him in my fantasies. That is enough—it has always been enough.
This ache in my chest is an entirely other matter.
If I say it again, will I believe it?
Chapter Four
Elijah
Istare at the large wooden door. I can feel my heartbeat. I can feel it in my fingertips, in my throat, my chest, and even in my toes. Forcing myself to breathe, I remind myself:inthrough the nose,outthrough the mouth. Slow and steady.
