But of course, everything is still so very wrong.
I go back with Kayla that evening to her apartment. I told her I’d gladly stay in a hotel, that if she didn’t need me around, I wouldn’t be around. But she wouldn’t have any of that.
It’s weird being back in her place. It feels like decades ago when I first came in here, blind in my lust for her, with no idea what could happen between us. I must have known, deep down, that she was going to be the love of the life. I just didn’t know that our love would be so fraught with so many challenges.
Or maybe I did know that. I still said “fuck it” and went for her anyway.
I can’t say I would ever do it differently.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she says, dropping her purse on the table. “I haven’t been clean for a long time.”
For a moment I think she might invite me, like she always had in the past. But she just gives me a tired smile and closes the door behind her.
I sit down on her couch and let it all sink in.
I wish I knew what we were to each other.
She said she loved me over the phone.
Could that matter right now, through all of this?
And if it could, what does that mean for us?
She’s in the shower for a long time and when she steps out, her hair wet around her shoulders, her towel wrapped around her, she takes my breath away. So beautiful that it feels like a knife.
“Will you come to bed with me?” she asks. Her voice is quiet and she looks at me shyly, like she’s unsure if I’ll say yes, unsure that she should even ask to begin with.
I nod, getting up. “Of course.”
I follow her into her bedroom. Even in the dark it’s a disaster zone, the product of someone who has been living through hell and can’t be bothered with much. I can imagine her sleeping here at night, so alone and in so much pain.
She removes her towel and gets under the covers and I stare blindly at her naked silhouette, both terribly turned on and hopelessly in love.
But I don’t want to make any presumptions. I take off my boots and socks, my pants, but keep my underwear and shirt on. I know there’s the stirrings of an erection – it can’t be helped when she’s naked around me, especially when I haven’t seen her for a month – but I ignore it. I don’t want to be inappropriate with her, not now, when she’s so close to breaking.
I get under the covers, staring at her warily, unsure how to act, how to be. She turns to me and settles into my arms, her face on my chest, hand on my heart.
I want to live in this moment, the quiet comfort of her skin against mine.
“Thank you for coming,” she says after a few beats.
I rub my hand down her back, wincing when I can feel her ribs. She’s gotten so thin.
“Anytime,” I tell her. “Thank you for telling me you love me.”
She pauses and I worry I’ve said the wrong thing. “On the phone,” I add. “Whether it’s true or not, thank you for that. You can’t know what it meant to me.”
A few heavy moments tick on by, seeming so long in the darkness.
“I still love you,” she says, pressing her hand down on my chest. “Here. I love you here, your big, beautiful heart.”
Those words, those words.
Hope flies within me.
“But, it’s not enough,” she says and as quickly as it had risen, the hope is dashed, fallen from the sky, wings cut to the bone.
“I understand,” I tell her, voice ragged with pain, even though I don’t understand. I can’t. Because my love for her can conquer anything.
Then again, not many things can conquer death.
“It’s just…it was so hard, you know. At times. And I know we could have worked through it, but you needed help that I couldn’t give you.”