“I’m sorry,” Livvie said as she walked toward a side door. She was wearing a pink robe with teddy bears on it. I would never have chosen an outfit like that for her. I followed her onto her balcony and watched her light a cigarette. “I got out of work late and I figured you were probably asleep.” She inhaled deeply and let the smoke out smoothly, a sign of a well-seasoned smoker.
“How long have you been smoking?” I asked. I hadn’t noticed her smoking during the course of my surveillance. She smiled and scoffed sarcastically.
“You going to give me shit about it?”
“No. We all have our bad habits.” I would be doing something about the smoking, but I didn’t need to get into it right then. She turned her head toward me and gave me a grin.
“Not all my habits are bad.”
I smiled despite my unease.
“There’s a few I’m quite fond of,” I quoted her. I stepped closer and brushed her hair away from her forehead. I liked touching her. I liked to remind myself she was alive. To my relief, she closed her eyes and enjoyed my touch.
“I only do it when I’m stressed out. I took it up after I left the hospital. I haven’t had one in months.” She turned away and took another drag from her cigarette.
“What’s the real reason you didn’t call?” My fear surged. “Did you… change your mind? About us?”
She glanced at me over her shoulder before pointedly staring off into the night. She took two more drags from her cigarette.
“I don’t know what us is.”
My eyes were burning. The smoke, maybe.
“It could be whatever you want it to be, Livvie. Or it could be nothing. It’s up to you.” I knew the moment the words left my mouth they were a lie. She scowled at me.
“No, Caleb, it’s not so simple. It’s been a year. A fucking year! You never gave me the chance to be angry with you. You just disappeared and left me to worry that maybe you were dead. I had the FBI up my ass and the whole time—the whole time—I defended you. I defended what you did to me because I loved you and you’d just risked everything to save me. And now you walk back into my life.” She wiped at the tears on her cheeks. “And goddammit I can’t bear the thought of being without you again. But there’s all this other shit too. All the things I never let myself feel because I didn’t want to admit that maybe Reed and Sloan were right. Maybe I can’t love you.”
Adrenaline coursed through my veins as my dormant and underutilized emotions were accosted.
“Please,” I heard myself whisper. I didn’t even know what I was asking for. Perhaps it was only that I wanted her to stop saying those things. Her words hurt me. They hurt me more than I thought anything could hurt. They hurt nearly as much as the memory of Rafiq’s eyes going dead. My own words taunted me.
“I did think it was really cute when you said you loved me though.”
Livvie, in her infinite capacity for compassion, put out her cigarette and wrapped her arms around my waist. I took the lifeline she offered and held her in my arms. I might have squeezed her too hard. I didn’t want to let her go. I couldn’t.
“Caleb,” she gasped. I loosened my grip but didn’t let her go. “I don’t want you to disappear again. Please, promise me you won’t.”
I searched blindly for my voice and had to clear my throat before I could speak.
“I promise, Livvie. But I… I don’t know what to do. I’ve never been here before.”
“Neither have I, Caleb. And we’re seriously more fucked up than anyone else I know.” She laughed morosely. “But you have to give me time. You have to let me be mad at you. You have to promise that no matter what I say or do, you’ll forgive me. You’ll wait for me to let it go.”
So many emotions and I couldn’t let them out. I settled for stating the obvious.
“Livvie, I’ll forgive you whatever the hell you want. You don’t need my forgiveness; you never have to ask for it. It’s yours, Livvie. Anything that’s mine to give is already yours.” I placed my fingers in her hair and tilted her face up to mine. Her lips were salty with tears, her mouth tasted like smoke, but beyond that there was just Livvie. I needed Livvie.
In my best interpretation of every superhero movie I’d ever seen (and I hadn’t seen too many by that time), I lifted Livvie into my arms and carried her inside. She kindly gave me directions to her bedroom. We made love on her pastel-yellow sheets amidst a ridiculous amount of throw pillows.
***
Later, after we’d finished having sex, Livvie engaged me in conversation. It reminded me of Mexico. We had always been better in the dark. I’m going to spare you and, admittedly, myself the agony of the details of what happened after we finished making love. You know what Livvie went through. You know the truth about my past. After that night, I knew it too.