Shane
I TRACE MY eyes over her body. The places I want to reside with her. I hunger for her touch, feel the heat of her fingertips as they traipse over my skin. I want to learn every curve, every bend every sway of her body. I want to memorize the smallest scars and deepest wounds. I want to fill them with my words, my love, my urge to hear how deeply and madly in love she is with me. God, I’ve missed her. I just want to forget what we were yesterday. Forget what people think, what the world will make of it. I just want to dissolve in this moment.
She clears her throat, the beautiful sound of her vulnerability is twisting me in knots.
“My whole life has been a huge fucking mess and I couldn’t ask you to clean it up. I thought if I left where I was just existing I could find myself and in some ways I did. God, my throat is so dry,” she says, her hands shaking uncontrollably, she doesn’t even realize how intrinsic she is when she admits her weaknesses. You don’t have to be strong all the time . . .
Let me take care of you. “Would you like something to drink, tea, soda, water?” I ask foolishly. She shakes her head.
She didn’t come here to drink tea, could she have come here to find what she lost? Could she be looking for what will make her life less complicated, and keep her safe?
“Sit?” I ask as she comes in and heads to my sofa. She takes my hands, hers are so soft, so delicate, yet filled with stories of a life lived in pain. Are they willing to explore what she fears? Is she willing to take a chance on discovering I might be the one to calm her raging sea? A million scenarios skip through my mind. Has she done this before? Maybe, but not like this.
She sits on the sofa, pulling me down next to her she twists, makes her knee a barrier between us. A stance of distance, a fear she doesn’t want to face.
“I’m glad you’re here.”
“I needed to see you. I need to know if you still feel the same way as you did when you wrote the letter to me. I need you to . . . I guess what I’m trying to say, is that I’m scared that I’m . . . that I’m too late.”
She seems like she’s not ready for me to comfort her, not completely. I slip my arm around behind her, making sure to rest on the top of the cushion of the sofa.
“No, God, no, you’re not too late. I’m here, I meant every word and I’m listening,” I answer trying to harness the electricity surging through every cell of my body.
Her expression is filled with desolation. A tear breaks free and rolls down her delicate cheek. I want to touch her, brush my thumb across the side of her face and let her tear soak into my skin, but I don’t. I see she’s trying to find the strength to give me an explanation of how tightly wrapped she is.
“You’re so beautiful, Rose,” I whisper.
God, give me the strength . . .
“I worked through a lot of things, Shane. A lot of things while I was up in Portland.”
“Portland?” I ask. “That’s a lot farther than I thought.”
“Yeah, well, I just hopped in my car and drove until I was far enough away to stop. My whole life I was never anyone’s number one. I know now that I deserve to be someone’s number one.”
She’s so small, delicate even.
“You’re my number one, Rose. You’re my number one, my number two, every number that exists in my number line.”
We’re both raw, scared, needy.
My body’s vibrating, and my heart is thundering so loud in my ears I can’t hear myself think. I take a chance. I caress my fingers against her delicate skin, dampened by her tears that are speeding down her cheeks. I feel electricity as my skin meets hers. I’m meant to do this, I’m meant to be right here, with this delicate, beautiful creature.
“You really believe that?” she asks.
“Yes. You’re my everything, I’m here and will always be as long as you’ll have me.”
She leans into my touch before she drops her head to my shoulder, and as if I’m an old friend, a comfortable blanket, she pushes into me. Her knee, an afterthought is pinned under us. We begin to sway back and forth, soothing motion, trying to find the actions to mirror the fireworks taking off in my body.
I ache to heal her, help her curb the anger that thunders through her body when she’s cornered like a vicious dog, a rattler, a lion. She opens just enough to let me in.
I feel it when her body language tilts, she lets go and rests her weight across my shoulder. She’s opening to me, her breathing is deliberate. Burying her face against my neck, she starts kneading her lips against my flesh.
Her words are muffled against my neck, it doesn’t matter, I hear them loud and clear. “You’re so warm. Smell so good. I’ve missed you so much. Would it be wrong if I wanted you to kiss me?”
Tempted by her request, I want to be her first, I want to be the one that fills every missing brick in her foundation.