Chapter thirty-eight:
It’s a crazy thing, love.
It can be rewarding and it can be smothering. You get to choose which you want it to be. My love for Carrie is blistering. It scorches every ounce of me. It carries me away on a cloud of euphoria. It makes everything worthwhile.
I can’t deny that I wasn’t worried for a while.
I can’t deny that I didn’t think we would get to this point.
That our love wouldn’t come through in the end.
I believed, rightly or wrongly, several times, that she was a fake, a phony, a fraud.
But I understand now why she’s acted like she has. She’s built a life for herself, a way to survive. It’s just like I thought when I first saw her with Adam—she doesn’t want any of this. She’s using it to camouflage herself. To hide from what she was. To escape from her past. From everything and everyone. Even me.
But not anymore.
My arms tighten around her. She sleeps soundly, peacefully. I did that.
I took her nightmares away, like I always used to.
I helped erase the pain. Like I always used to.
Something has changed, something significant. Not only have we both grown older, and wiser(yes, I’m wiser than I was, but not as wise as you, Dad),but we’ve both adapted to our pain, and our pasts. We’ve each learned our coping mechanisms. They help us to survive.
Because I get it now, I see! She had to do what she did to survive. Because above everything, even love, is our will…no, our drive to survive. And hers was strong, no matter what life threw at her. She wanted to survive, at any cost. And who am I to say that what she did was wrong?
Who. The. Fuck. Am. I?
I’m almost angry with myself for being so judgmental of her. I stare up at the stained ceiling, the light slowly filtering out of the room as night falls. I don’t know who I am anymore. I honestly don’t.
I used to be Ethan Cowells. I was a good boy. I was a student. A son. A friend to a damaged but beautiful girl named Carrie. I was her confidant. Her lover. Her secret-keeper. Her friend. I was her slave. I was her chef. I was her world. I was her victim.
But I didn’t mind. I accepted those titles without prejudice. I still do.
I kiss the top of her head, and know that it doesn’t matter who I am; it’s only who she wants me to be that matters. I’ll be whatever she needs me to be. As long as she loves me. As long as she allows me to be a part of her world again.
I can’t lose her this time,I think as the thought comes unbidden into my mind. The image of her turning her back on me again. Of never seeing her beautiful smile. Or her eyes that spark with fire when she’s angry. Or her lips that tremble when they say my name. Or her body that tightens around me as I make love to her.
I can’t live without her. Not again. Not ever again.
Love is everything. It’s our everything.
I might not know who I am anymore. She may not be certain who she needs me to be this time around, but the one thing that is cemented in my mind, the thing that I know to be true and real and never-ending, is my love for her.
“Ethan?” She whispers my name so quietly that I’m not sure if I imagined it or not.
I don’t answer right away. I’m still in a daze over the day’s events. I’m still lost within her body. Every contour, every inch of pale skin.
She moves, and I squeeze her. She freezes and I kiss the top of her head again.
“You’re awake,” I say.
“Yes,” she replies. Still quiet. Like a sleeping lamb.
I stroke her hair and I kiss her head and I hold her close. I can never be too close to her. If I could live inside her, I would. If I could go about my days with her lithe body wrapped around mine, I would. I never want us to be apart.
I hear her swallow.
