“Well, what do you want from me, Kira? I apologized. I came running to you when you needed me. I was here for you all day, and I’ll be here for you tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.”
“Until you find out something about me you don’t like. Or life throws a curveball you weren’t expecting, and you walk out on me again.”
“I’m not going to do that,” I argue, but even I hear the lie in my own response. I don’t like surprises. I never have. And I don’t respond well to ones that alter my life.
“What Hawk dumped in your lap was my most painful secret. It was my story to tell. And I was going to tell you. Iwantedto tell you everything. But I had to do it in my own time. WhenIwas ready.”
“Kira, I get that, I do. I was just put on the spot and didn’t react very well.” I follow her into my living room where she’s pacing.
“What concerns me is that I’m seeing a pattern.”
“Pattern? You’re a fucking shrink now?” I’m exasperated. Kira stops dead in her tracks. “This is exactly what I’m talking about, Ky. You’re so defensive. You think everyone is attacking you. I’m just trying to explain to you why I’m upset.”
“I get why you’re upset. I’m an asshole.” I spell it out, point blank.
“I think you’re just lost.” She veers off in a different direction.
“Not when I’m with you. When I’m with you, I know exactly where I am. I know exactly who I am.”
“Then how was it so easy for you to just walk out on me? I can’t be scared of the person I’m with.”
“Kira, I would never hurt you.” I take a stern step forward.
“Maybe not physically. But emotionally? You’re more than capable of that.” I don’t know what it is, but something in her tone is so alarming. So resolute, it actually scares me.
“I will never hurt you,” I assert.
“You already have. You asked me to trust you, and I did. I handed you my heart, as fragile as it was, and all you did with it was smash it to pieces. You accused me of horrible things, when all I was guilty of was caring about you. I’m not perfect—”
“Neither am I,” I interject.
“There’s just this huge pit of doubt inside me I can’t ignore.”
“So, what the fuck are you saying?” My frustration returns with a vengeance.
Kira shakes her head unsure. “If I can’t trust you, and you can’t trust me, it’s over before it even began.”
“Kira, no.” I don’t accept that. The thought of it being over is unbearable. It rattles me so hard it feels as if all the inanimate objects around me are exploding. Everything in my condo just spontaneously combusting, creating mass chaos.
“Life is full of surprises, Ky. And hard decisions and obstacles. I need to know the man I’m with will stand by me through those things, not fight against me. Not abandon me or isolate me. I refuse to go through what my mother went through. I refuse to be unhappy. I lived that way for too long.” Her big brown eyes begin to water, and I begin to realize just how scarred my Snow really is. There are so many invisible slashes, it may take me years to discover them all.
“I can be that man,” I promise.
“You weren’t yesterday.”
“Christ almighty, Kira.” I snatch her hand and yank her across the room. I take a seat on the couch right in front of her and grab hold of her hips. “I can be everything you need me to be. I made a fucking mistake. I hurt you. I know it. I own it. I don’t know how many times I need to apologize until you believe me, but I will keep saying I’m sorry until I lose my voice and your ears bleed.” I take a deep breath, putting it all out there. Everything. Every part of myself. The broken pieces, the defective parts, my crushed constitution. “I know there are a million reasons for you to go, but all you need is one to stay.”
“And what would reason would that be?”
“You need me.”
“What—?”
“And I need you,” I continue before Kira has a chance to object. “I need you, Kira. I need to be the man I am when I’m with you. Leaving you yesterday made me realize that. It made it soul-crushingly clear. I have lived in a prison of sadness for years, and you freed me from that.” I squeeze her hips, silently pleading for her to hear me. To truly listen to my words. “I like who I am when I’m with you.” I look up at her a desperate, broken man, dying for her to stay with me. To still be mine. “Don’t give up on me yet. Please.”
Kira peers down at me with dark, molten eyes that are so emotive and sincere, they destroy me. “Ky Parish, you almost sound like you were begging.” She trails her fingertip softly over the mutilation across my eye.
“A man would be a fucking fool not to beg for you.” I touch her hand. “Not to fight for you.”
