Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
kane
So In Love – Icarus Account
“We need to talk, Ave,” I start, looking at her as I let the rain continue to beat down on me, if that’s what she needs to see that I’m not leaving this time.
“I think we talked enough for one night, don’t you, Kane? Or at least your dick talked. We had a good conversation, I must say,” she snarks with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.
She stands in the doorway, arms crossed and hip jutted out, with a look on her face warning me to back away slowly. Still, I step closer and steel my spine.
Get the girl, Kane.
“No, we didn’t, and I think that’s our problem.
We haven’t talked. Not really. Not in a while, and I know it’s my fault.
I put space between us. I pushed you out, and it was never my intention to do so, Ave.
None of this was,” I acknowledge, hoping she hears the pleading in my voice, the desperation bleeding into every word.
I wring my fingers together as my anxiety spirals. I watch her eyes track their movements, her head tilting at the new ring on my middle finger.
Avery regards me for a minute, her eyes trailing from my eyes down to my lips before she moves to the side and motions for me to come in.
I brush past her, trying to stay far enough away that I don’t soak her too.
My clothes drip on the pink welcome mat as I cross the threshold into her home.
The smell of lemon hits my nostrils—the feeling of rightness bleeding through my chest. My anxiety lessens with a few inhales of that soft scent.
It smells like home.
“Do you want…some clothes?” I hear hesitantly from behind me, that soft voice echoing in the living room of her cottage.
The lights are all dim. I assume Avery was in bed when I knocked.
I turn to her, the floor already soaked as the water drips off me.
“I have some of yours still…” She trails off as she stands two feet from me and crosses her arms again, refusing to make eye contact with me.
“No, thank you. I need…” I pause, raking my hands through my sopping wet hair, trying to compose all the thoughts jumbled in my mind. “There are things I need to say, and I need to get them out,” I strangle out, staring at her.
She looks back at me, her lips pursed, and that adorable fucking wrinkle in her brow staring back at me. Neither of us move as the water makes a bigger puddle around me.
“I’m sorry,” I say simply.
She gives me a look as if to say go on, raising her brows and loosening her arms across her chest just slightly.
“For tonight. I’m sorry, I never should have crashed your date.
I just...” I grab a towel from the back of the couch and run it over my hair and face.
I give myself a second to clear some of the water from dripping into my vision.
“I just saw red. There you were at our place with someone else and I lost it. And I know I shouldn’t have, I have no right. ”
“You’re right. You have no fucking right.
And yet you did. You humiliated me. You broke up with me.
” She stabs each word at me, dropping her hands to her sides, fisting them like she’s holding back from hitting me.
The anger is clear on her face, her skin clear of makeup, showing every line and feature.
The freckles like a beacon on her face, welcoming me home.
Confusion lines my face as I hold the towel in both hands to stop myself from reaching for her.
“I did not break up with you. You said you wanted a break and that you needed space.” I explain and watch as she scoffs and shakes her head.
“And I’m seeing now that’s not actually what you wanted.
You wanted me to keep trying, and I am sorry.
I should not have left that conversation the way we did, but I… ”
She stares at me, emotions blank, and I feel my chest get tight, but I push out the next words while feeling the anxiety rear its head at me.
“I have been struggling with anxiety—panic attacks. My therapist says that’s what it is anyway.
I’ve felt it on and off throughout my life.
After my childhood, there would be times when I felt so suffocated I didn’t know how to talk to you.
I could feel myself pull away from you, and it was as if I couldn’t help it.
My body was trying to protect itself from an unknown enemy, and I couldn’t distinguish in my head what that was,” I finish on a sigh, like it’s some sort of cosmic joke—my body wanted to hide from the one person who has ever seen who I really am.
“Kane…” Her eyes soften as she drops her arms by her sides. “I didn’t know,” she croaks out, holding her hands in front of her—a move she’s always done when nervous.
“I know you didn’t. Why would you? I didn’t talk about it.
We didn’t talk, and I know most of it’s on me.
You asked so many times, and I promise I wanted to tell you.
But every time I opened my mouth, it was like my throat closed and my brain wouldn’t give me the words I needed.
How was I supposed to explain something that I had no idea how to explain to myself?
It wasn’t even until I forced myself to see someone that I realized what it was and that I wasn’t okay.
” I brace my arms on the back of the couch and lean against it for extra support.
I look back up at her and notice her bright blue eyes, wet and staring back at me.
“I should’ve—”
“No, you shouldn’t have pushed me,” I say, cutting her off.
“I think I would have just pushed you further. I didn’t even want to admit something was wrong until the night…
you walked out, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
I was suffocating right there on the floor when all I wanted to do was storm out that door and pull you back.
I wanted to spin you around and tell you how much I loved you.
Still fucking love you, and that there’s not a damn thing in this whole world that could ever make me stop.
How since the day I somehow fell into your orbit, I’ve never wanted to escape.
The day I met you, my dark, lonely world turned into the most colorful existence.
Knowing you, loving you is the single greatest pleasure I will ever experience in this life or the next,” I finish, letting the tears spill down my cheeks.
Some of the fog clears from my mind, and I see an angel standing right in front of me, lightly brushing the tears off my cheeks with her fingers.
My chest warms and sends the panic receding back.
She lights up my world with her touch, bright enough for when the darkness tries creeping its way back in.
She goes to speak when I reach down and grab both of her hands in mine, using her warmth to give me courage. I stand so close to her, allowing her warmth to encourage me to finish it.
“I should have chased you down until I erased every doubt, worry and fear from your mind. I fucked up. Then I continued to fuck up. I told myself I was respecting what you wanted, yet I was stealing pieces of you where I could. The pranks and having you come with me to my parents—where you still looked at me with so much love I know I didn’t deserve.
But I was scared. No, I was fucking terrified.
What if I showed you this and you didn’t want it?
What if I showed you this side of me and decided I wasn’t worth it anymore?
” I choke out as the tears roll down her cheeks, and I wonder how one person can be so beautiful when they look so sad.
She lets go of one hand and wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand. I rub the back of her other hand softly in mine. I let this contact be enough when all I want is to kiss every drop that spills over her beautiful cheeks, erasing their mark on her skin.
“Kane, I…” she starts, taking a breath, her hand finding its way to my chest as it lightly brushes over my soaked shirt where my heart would be—as if she wants to reach in and hold it.
I almost wish she could see it’s been empty since she left, that she is my heart.
“I will always want you. There’s not a thing you could show me that I do not want from you. ”
“I—” I start.
“No,” she cuts me off, some of her fire coming back into her voice. “Let me finish, please.”
I nod and stroke the back of her hand, my backside leaning on the back of the couch as I take in every inch of her. My feet are apart to let her come in closer. I watch her take one more step, so we’re almost chest-to-chest, but with some space left for her to peer her eyes up at me.
Fuck, are they hypnotic, pulling me in and luring me closer.
“There will never, ever be a time when I do not want you. I want complicated Kane. I want sad Kane. I want happy Kane. I want all sides of you that you show the world and the sides of you that are only mine. There’s not a single part of me that is not completely and utterly yours, in the way every part of you is mine,” she finishes.
“I know I should have told you. I didn’t even know what I was feeling until I started therapy and he explained it to me in a way that made sense in my own head—that you won’t reject me just because that’s what I’m used to.
I didn’t take the past four years into consideration or give you the benefit of the doubt.
It all just felt so overwhelming—so suffocating—I didn’t know how to handle it.
” I stroke her palm and pull my other hand up to trail along her drying hair, rubbing it between my fingers.
The feel of her so close has me able to push the lingering anxiety out of my chest.
“And how do you feel now?” she asks carefully.
“Better, or I will be. I feel more centered now that I know what is happening. When I feel the panic, I can help it go away a bit or take myself out of a situation until I feel more level enough to handle it,” I explain, hands slowly going to the back of her neck, testing the waters, hoping she doesn’t pull away.