“Stop shivering,” he said again. “Everything’s okay. We’re getting out of here,” he continued, tilting my chin up with two fingers. I blinked confusedly, saying nothing. I didn’t have the wherewithal to speak, nor to look around at anything other than his golden eyes, warm and all-encompassing. All I did was nod.
He grabbed my hand and pulled me along with him. Drew was panting while Dr. Lively and John tried to get through to him. His dark eyes tracked our movements all the way across the room, but Neil didn’t hesitate for a second. He wasn’t running away from the other man, though—he was trying to shield me from the truth I had just discovered. Neil probably hadn’t expected it to turn out that way; he surely never thought I was going to find out to what, precisely, those headlines alluded.
Now I had one more piece of the puzzle.
“You need to go back home,” he ordered as we hustled out of the clinic and toward his car. Neil grasped my hand with no intention of letting go while I tried to keep up with him, frequently stumbling and trying not to fall.
“Did she do that you too? Did she—” I was about to say “film you,” but he stopped abruptly and whirled around to face me. I flinched. I didn’t want to be too pushy or invade his privacy, but I did want him to open up to me, to stop hiding his past.
Why couldn’t we just communicate? Why couldn’t he trust me?
“It’s none of your business,” he said in a growl of rage. His eyes looked even brighter out in the natural light. I hesitated, staring into them, and I could see that he didn’t want me to push his boundaries, to demand too much, but…
“I need to know, Neil. I need to know the whole truth. I would never judge you. I haven’t ever judged you,” I said, my voice getting louder in exasperation as I tried to pull free from his grasp. I fortified myself with all my patience and calm, trying to soothe him. From the sudden spark of terror I could see in his eyes, I knew that he was genuinely afraid to tell me about himself and about what that monster had done to him. “I won’t judge you,” I said again, trying to stroke his face, but he jerked away from me with an indignant look on his face.
“Don’t touch me.” He spun around, cold as ever, and continued walking away from me, but I wasn’t about to give up. I ran after him, determined not to go back to Detroit without getting some answers out of him. Enough was enough. I needed to break down that psychological wall he kept putting up to keep me from ever getting a real look at his soul. “I’ll drive you to the airport. You need to leave,” he continued stormily, passing a hand through his messy hair. All I could see were his broad shoulders and twitching back muscles, but that was more than enough to see how anxious and tense he’d become. He was pulling back emotionally from me, tucking himself up in his protective shell.
“No. I’m not leaving this city until I know what the hell actually happened!” I reached out and snatched his forearm, forcing him to turn around. We were almost at the car; if Neil had gotten away from me, I wouldn’t have been able to stop him from leaving entirely. I struggled to catch my breath as I thought about everything we’d face together, and I knew that I was more deserving of his trust than anyone else. “I have faced down all these obstacles for you. Your women, the Krew, Player…” I pled softly. “Don’t you see that?” I gestured to the scar on my forehead, and he trembled.
“Every morning, I wake up remembering what happened that day when I left New York. But if I could go back in time, I’d do it all over again, Neil. All of it. Because it was my choice. It was what I wanted, right from the start. If I’d never met you, I never would have felt so alive,” I confessed, watching as his full lips fell slightly open in surprise. I wasn’t going to make the mistake of telling him I loved him. I still didn’t fully understand why he hated to hear “I love you” so much, but I respected his wishes nonetheless.
I would stick with him in the darkness.
I would love him in silence.
I would go along with him and his madness.
Because he had saved me.
He had saved me from monotony.
From the “everything” I had that was actually nothing.
From what I thought life was.
Because, for me, my real life began with our first shared look.
“How?” Neil shook his head, stubborn and immovable, and I took a step back. “How in the fuck are you failing to see how wrong I am for you?”he said in a burst of rage. “I brought you here so you could see that I had mental problems, and I still do,” he admitted. “Why aren’t you running? Why can’t you see me for what I really am?” he demanded. I shivered, and I didn’t know if it was from the biting winter air or the callous way he was talking about himself.
“Because, for me, you and your damage are the fairy tale.” I shrugged and gave him a sad smile as he stared at me in total confusion.
“When I was eleven, I was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder. I wash myself constantly because I am always trying to wash away the feeling of Kim’s hands and tongue on me,” he burst out furiously. “When I was fourteen, I was diagnosed with intermittent explosive disorder, which causes me to have uncontrollable outbursts of anger. The tremor in my hand is one of the first signs an episode is coming on.” He showed me his shaking hand. I had taken note of it before, particularly when he was keyed up or nervous. I held still and just stared into his face, shaken but not deterred. I was not afraid of him. Neil just narrowed his eyes and went on, determined to break me.
“When I was sixteen, I was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. Two souls exist within me at the same time. One is an adult, the other childlike. The latter forces me to relive my trauma by fucking women who remind me of the babysitter.” He moved closer, each step more uncontrolled. I sucked in a breath, never moving my eyes away from his, though he was blind with rage. Neil grabbed my chin and forced me to hold still. “And now you, the innocent that you are… You need to go away, find a normal man, and get it through your head that my life is no place for you. For me, there are only two ways of being: one good and one bad, and the two of us are divided by the boundary between them.Youare the boundary…and I… I can’t get to you…” All at once, he began to struggle for breath and went white. He let me go like I’d scalded him and staggered back away from me.
Neil lived in his own world, a chaotic, fascinating place, and I had immediately needed to become part of it.
I approached him, slowly closing the distance between us while he stood there motionless, assessing me. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to toss words out the window and ease that grave frown from his face with a gesture oflove. I thought him even more fragile as he stood there with that guarded, powerful stance, the facade he showed the world to protect himself.
“I’m not giving up on you, Neil Miller,” I declared, still moving toward him. “If anything, knowing more about your past has made me less afraid.” I didn’t know if I was trying to lull him or lure him. He cocked his head to one side and looked at me in shock. He probably thought that I’d lost my mind, and maybe I had. He parted his lips slightly as though to respond but shut them again, apparently preferring to remain indecipherably silent.
Abruptly, I wrapped my arms around his waist. I held him close to me, resting my head against his chest and breathing in the good smell of him. He was stiff, like a sheet of ice against me. He seemed confused by my approach—he marveled at it while also appearing afraid.
“Whatever it is that I feel for you, it makes it impossible not to accept you,” I confessed, raising my head to look into his eyes, which, as usual, were magnetic and filled with a world that defied all logic. I wanted to show him that I wasn’t lying, and I was positive that he could read the truth in my eyes. “I would never ask you to change. Nor would I try to make you love me.” I gave him a smile filled with love. But Neil had turned gloomy again at my words. Maybe he thought he was protecting himself, retreating into his internal chaos so he didn’t have to admit to himself that he’d failed to frighten me off.
The clinic? It had upset me, sure.
The stories of those people? They were disturbing, as was his confession that he was still struggling with serious mental health issues. I had no idea how to approach that kind of situation; it was far beyond me. However, there was one thing I was certain about: I wasn’t afraid of it or of him.
