"What happened between me and him," I said falteringly. "You shouldn't take out on him. It was me. I'd have done anything back then just to get your attention, just to hurt you how I was hurting."
He was shaking his head, lip curled up in disgust. "No. Bullshit. Did you know I sent Nate to you to comfort you? He was supposed to help you, because I couldn't. Instead he took advantage. I'll never forgive him for that."
My God. I hadn't known that. Just when you think a thing can't be worse, some new evil is added into the mix just for panache.
Story of my life.
"I won't stand for it. You need to stop talking to him." His voice was clipped, curt to the point of rude, demanding to the point of ordering. "Cut off all contact. Immediately."
I opened my mouth to argue with him, just on principle I suppose, instinctual contrariness, but then I stopped myself. He was right. If we were going to work, there were some things you couldn't take back, people you couldn't have around, reminders that you couldn't keep close—not for any reason.
It took one insanely jealous person to be sensitive enough to understand another. "Fine," I said carefully.
I made the mistake of thinking that was the end of it, but it seemed fated to be one of those days. The phone call had started it, set the tone, and after that, we were just at each other's throats. Thin-skinned and feeling destructive.
It was some random dig he made over some silly thing that had me taking it a step too far, delving into things I wasn't ready for.
"God, can't you ever just say you're sorry? For anything?" I asked him heatedly, but more than temper, there was pain in it.
"You want apologies? I see. What exactly should I apologize for? Tell me, tiger, please. Where would I even begin?"
Hello, temper. Again. Because every sentence out of his mouth held something in it, some bit of appeal that was the apology in itself, that told me he was sorry for everything, that somehow he'd taken it all on himself, added it to his cursed martyrdom, and I was supposed to have known it.
"I'll apologize for anything you ask," he said quietly, "but that's not the issue. What you're missing is not my contrition, and I think you know it."
I waved him off. "You're blowing things out of proportion."
"You need to find your faith in us again," he said with quiet intensity.
And just like that, he had me. I'd gone from annoyed and argumentative to sad and desolate. "I don't know how," I said, voice raw with the helplessness of it.
His eyes softened, and just like that I was in his arms. We were out on the back porch, and he sat down in one of the loungers, cradling me on his lap.
He stroked a hand over my hair, then again. "Do you remember when my touch used to comfort you? Do you remember when it brought you peace?"
I couldn't even speak, my eyes closed. I remembered too much.
It filled my whole being, the remembering.
Eventually I nodded, but not before rogue tears were seeping past my eyelids.
"I can be ruthless." His voice was quiet but vehement. "I can be mean. I can be jealous, and wrathful. I have a hellish temper." Whisper soft, his fingers traced over my tears. "We both know this too well. There have been times where I was so angry with you that I didn't think I ever wanted to set eyes on you again."
He paused, just stroking and stroking my hair, his touch tender and steady, and it seemed he wanted some response from me.
Finally I nodded.
He continued. "I can be manipulative, and I know I've done some things you don't agree with, things you don't understand. Things that sorry does not, and will not, cover. I know that at times your faith in me has been lost."
For some reason one tiny, hapless sob escaped me at his last sentence, and he paused for a moment, comforting me, before he continued. "But search your heart, angel, and tell me, and yourself, if you believe that any of my actions, no matter how messed up, or misguided, no matter how unforgivable they may have been . . . Ask yourself, do you truly believe that any of the things I did weren't for you? We can disagree on my methods, but do you have any doubts that what I did, I did to protect you?"
I didn't answer, just let him rock me, and stroke me, wipe my tears, and comfort me. All the while, I was doing as he said, searching through my ravaged heart.
"Find the answer to that question, and you'll find your faith again."
I'd had my eyes closed for a long time, but when I opened them, I found him doing something that helped me to see the truth.
He was rubbing the chain around his neck, rolling the key and rings between his fingers—Gram's ring had been added—over and over, like it was a very old habit. For the first time in years, I let my hand cover his, let the pad of my index finger trace over the objects, let it linger on them, remembering them.
His shoulder jerked as he shook off a shudder. "You get it. I know you do."
"You never took them off. Even at the worst of it, you kept them on as reminders."
"Touchstones, yes. They help to calm me. And they help me remember what we are. What we're supposed to be. That no matter what, we'll find our way back to each other."