Sunday Morning (Damaged #7.5)

 

 

“You know how I know I’m brilliant? I picked a man willing to suffer to protect me. I picked a man willing to go without so I can be safe. Too bad that man’s too stupid to realize the only way I’ll ever be safe is with him. My heart can’t belong to anyone else. You’ve claimed it, and you have no right to close the door on me now.”

 

I saw him trying to weasel out of the painful moment. Grabbing his hand, I held it tightly in both of mine.

 

“If you do reject me, it’ll be the cruelest bullshit you’ve ever done. Worse than any crime you’ve committed because you love me. You are supposed to protect what you love. You think you’re doing that by tossing me out, but you’re wrong. This right here with you rejecting me is more dangerous than you calling me your woman.”

 

“You’ve got all the answers, huh?”

 

His words didn’t hurt as much as the chill in his voice. Kirk really planned to walk away from me, and I’d never get him back. I felt him leaving, and his rejection tore away all my confidence.

 

Giving into my tears, I let go of his hand. “I don’t have shit besides you. You’re the only person who’s ever mattered. I know you don’t care, and I know I’m just talking to talk because if I stop, you’ll leave and I’ll be alone. Without you, I’ll always be alone. No one can know me like you do. I might try to find someone else, but he’d be my second choice, and he’d always feel that.”

 

“You don’t know that.”

 

“I do know, and you know it too.”

 

Kirk reached out and wiped my cheeks with his thumbs. He cupped my face and studied me.

 

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I look at you and see a shiny thing with so much light. If I dulled that light or fucked it up somehow, I’d hate myself. I realized long ago that no one would ever care about me, so I better care about myself. If I destroy you, I wouldn’t be worth caring about.”

 

“But you’re not the only one who cares about you now. You have me.”

 

“Yeah but for how long?”

 

So there was the real issue. Deep inside, past all of his worries about my age and being a good guy, Kirk’s big worry was that I’d reject him. He’d rather tear us apart now than wait for me to spring the rejection on him later.

 

“You think I’ll outgrow you.”

 

“Why wouldn’t you? You’re seventeen.”

 

Wiping my eyes, I tried to calm myself. “You’re not done growing. I see you sometimes thinking about shit, and I think you want more than to settle with life. You want to do more, but you’re stuck. That’s not age. That’s a choice. Your life was stale because you settled. You don’t have to do that.”

 

I blew my nose and took a deep breath. “I know about settling because I was going to settle before I met you. I was gonna find the best shitty job I could and hook up with the best shitty man I met, and I was going to find little moments of happiness in my otherwise shitty life. That was it. With you, I don’t even think about the future. It’s too big to know and way too big to fucking control.”

 

“You really are a smart chick.”

 

“And you’re a good man when it comes to me. I don’t care about what you do with other people. Well one day if we have kids, I’ll want you to treat them good. I know you will too. You treat your own like magic. That’s not something you need to be taught. You just do it.”

 

Kirk stared at me for a long time, and I saw him working shit out in his head. By the time he spoke, he looked rather defeated.

 

“I wanted you out of the apartment.”

 

“No, you didn’t.”

 

“I just fucking told you I did a few minutes ago.”

 

“Never happened.”

 

Kirk laughed quietly. “Stubborn Jodi Sears will be the end of me.”

 

“Do you want it any other way?”

 

Kirk’s dark eyes studied my face again, and then he wrapped his strong arms around me. “Hell no.”

 

“Then you never wanted me to leave. None of that happened.”

 

“How do we explain the bruise you gave me?”

 

“Shut the fuck up,” I said, feeling guilty for hitting him. “Never happened. I wouldn’t hurt the man I love.”

 

“No, you wouldn’t.”

 

“And you wouldn’t send me away.”

 

“No, I wouldn’t.”

 

“It was a bad dream,” I whispered as his lips nuzzled at my throat. “Now we’re awake, and none of it happened.”

 

 

 

 

 

14 - Jodi

 

 

Despite spending hours wrapped together with Kirk in bed everyday, I never thought I’d get pregnant. Based on my sex education class, I viewed condoms as a protective wall between me and motherhood. Somehow, the wall was faulty like most things in Chesterfield.