“Then you can just imagine I’m holding you in my arms. Imagine it really hard, okay? Oh and I’m also stroking the hair away from your face, over and over until your eyes start to get a little heavy—you know the way they do?”
“I know it. I know what you mean,” she said, though it wasn’t what she really wanted to say. She wanted to tell him that more than anything, more than anything in the world she wished she could go to him. She even took a few steps forward until she was mere inches from the threshold. If he was looking in her direction he might be able to see the hem of her nightgown as the wind lifted it.
It was probably why he said, “And then one day if you want to...”
“If I wanted to...”
“If you feel like you can...”
“Yes. Yes, if I can.”
“We could sit out here together.”
“That sounds nice,” she said, but only because she couldn’t manage any more without her voice breaking. As it was the words came out so full of longing they didn’t seem like themselves at all. That one littleniceturned into her standing on the top of a hill calling for Heathcliff. Her whole heart went with it, and he knew, he knew.
“Are you sure? It sort of seems like you’re crying.”
“I am, but I don’t think they’re unhappy tears.”
That much was true, at least. They weren’t unhappy.
Unhappiness was having nothing, and thinking that was okay.
This was more like having everything suddenly, and not knowing what to with it.
I’m not used to it, she thought.
And that feeling doubled when he stood and came to the door. The sun had risen behind him and the light formed an outline so glorious and golden she could hardly look at it. There was something too unearthly about the whole thing, something that seemed so unreal...until she took the hand he’d reached out to her.
She couldn’t pretend this was a dream, then. His skin was too warm, his flesh too solid. His fingers closed around hers as tight and secure as a safety belt, holding someone in place.Holding me in place.And after that it was much easier to take a step forward. He didn’t pull or persuade. He just let her hold on as she walked out onto her porch for the first time in who knew how long.
It had felt like a gradual process when it had started happening—first she’d stopped going to the store, then to her favorite takeout place, then to the ocean, then to her own front porch. Each one drawing her world tighter until finally she only saw the walls of her home. But now that she was thinking about it—really thinking about it—she knew it hadn’t been so gradual at all.
She’d only lived here for two years, yet the wooden boards felt like the surface of an alien planet. The smell of the ocean was overwhelming, impossible—she couldn’t believe the difference that being an inch outside her door made. By the time he’d led her to the railing around the porch she was practically hyperventilating, but only because she wanted to get more of it into her lungs.
What if tomorrow she couldn’t do this?
She had to store it up for later reference, even if it seemed to freak him out a little.
“Okay, do you need to go back inside? You’re breathing scarily hard. And I mean, I’ll catch you if you pass out but...I’dreallyrather that didn’t happen.”
It was such a pleasure to tell him it wasn’t going to.
“No, no I’m fine. I’m just...excited I guess.”
“You sure? I don’t want to force you any further than you want to go.”
“You never force me further than I want to go, Bernie. I’m more afraid that I did that to you last night, even though that seems kind of weird and backward.”
“I promise, you took me to the exact place I wanted to be.”
“Is that place a sex place? A really dirty sex place?”
“Yeah, it’s definitely that. But it’s something else too.”
“And what’s the something else?”
“It’s feeling safe to be myself. To be the kind of man I want to be, and not the one expected of me. I could never have done what we did last night with any of the girls I’ve dated before—you get that, right?”
