“Can I ask you a question?” I said, breaking the silence. There was something I’d been wondering about for a long time, and perhaps, finally, this was the moment to ask.
“Ask it,” he said seriously. He rounded the kitchen island to get closer. My heart began to beat wildly against my chest; his sensuality beguiledme, and my knees went weak. He stopped right in front of me, waiting for my response.
“With me…” I cleared my throat, trying to banish my embarrassment. “Did you ever think about Kim…when we were…” I trailed off; it was obvious what I was talking about.
He furrowed his brow, and I hoped I hadn’t been too invasive or indelicate. With Neil, I never knew when I might be hitting a sore spot or how to address it with him. His mood shifted so easily and shut down our conversations.
He watched me attentively in that moment. I should have been ashamed of myself for how weak he made me with just a look, but I couldn’t resist him. Just like I couldn’t truly get angry at him, hate him, or try to hurt him.
He was becoming everything to me.
“No. Not with you,” he answered, after a few moments of reflection. “That never happened.”
I heaved a sigh of relief and looked down, flushing. He could have told me something else, if only to hurt me, but he’d given me the truth. I knew in my heart he wasn’t lying to me.
“This is going to sound nuts, but…” he went on, rubbing the slightly scruffy jaw that made him look so savagely appealing. “My brain is very complicated, especially after everything that happened to me. To understand what I mean, picture a line going up and down…” He raised a hand, tracing an imaginary line in the air in front of me. “On this line is making out, sex, carnal contact of any kind, pleasurable things, obscene things, everything that was done to me and what I like to do…” he told me coolly, staring intently at me to make sure I was following what he was saying.
“And, for me, that is normalcy,” he told me nonchalantly. “Then there’s this straight line.” He drew another imaginary line through the air. “On this one, we have sweet kisses, gentle touches, compliments, attention, relationships, and love. All the regular stuff. The actually normal stuff. The stuff that, for me, doesn’t exist,” he explained, lowering his arm. My eyes stayed fixed on the empty space where he had sketched those two lines.
I furrowed my brow. “I don’t understand, Neil. What is my role in all of this?” I asked softly as he looked at me, his eyes hooded in a pensive expression.
“You make my waving line less miserable.” He drew closer to me, and I held my breath as he caressed my cheek. His touch was gentle, completely unlike the passionate, hard-driving touches he usually gave me. “When I’m with you, for a little while at least, Kim isn’t in my head. You’re a pleasurable distraction, Babygirl, like a pill that dulls the pain for a little while. But she’s still there; she lives inside me. I can’t pretend that I’ve gotten over what she did to me. I’m still just a pile of broken shards…” He smiled so sadly, and I wanted to cry. “My line is going to stay wavy; it’s never going to straighten out…you understand that, right? I might have the…wrong perspective on life, but I’ve had it since I was little. It’s a part of me now…” His eyes bored into mine, waiting for me to say something—anything.
“So being with me is a need you have? I’m sorry. I’m not trying to insult you. I just want to understand…” I was being cautious, lest our conversation turn into an argument. Neil continued to stroke my cheek, his knuckles moving delicately over my skin, and I wanted to feel his warm touch on me forever.
“Yes. It’s a distraction, a way to block out the memories and stifle the pain. You allow me to have a moment of relief; you let me soar to your Neverland, but that’s not enough to cure me. The reality is something else, and we can’t do anything to change it,” he concluded, breaking off contact with me. “That’s why I can’t give you a relationship. I know I’ve got too many problems in here…” he tapped his index finger against his temple. “How can I care for someone else when I can’t even take care of myself?” He turned away from me, shaking his head.
I was overwhelmed by emotion. Speechless, perhaps because there was nothing to say in the wake of a powerful confession like that. Neil pulled his pack of Winstons out of his discarded jacket and grabbed a cigarette. I just kept staring at him as he stood there by the coffee table, watching as he tried to control the tremor in his right hand that was keeping him from holding the lighter steadily against the end of the cigarette.
I’d noticed his hand shaking before, but I’d never dared to ask him about it.
I knew, deep down, that I was seeing the worst of him.
The disappointed part.
The worn-down part.
The part that everyone avoided.
The part that everyone feared.
The worst of him.
I was learning to love the worst of him.
Just like I would love the best of him.
I could wait for his sweetness.
I could wait for his sadness to fade.
I could wait for the sun to rise inside of him.
Everyone would see his worth, and I’d be right there beside him.
And maybe…one day…he might fall in love with me.
But, until then, I would fight. For me and for him.
