Chapter Twenty-Eight
chapter twenty-eight
RAFAEL
I stand staring at the dusty pink floral wallpaper that lines every wall in Olive you’ll only care as long as it’s my body on offer.”
My gut churns at the conviction with which she says it, like it’s a fact, like it’s the only possibility. “That’s not true.”
“No?!” Another tear streams down her face and she throws her glasses off her face, sending them flying into the rubble. “You hated me, then you fucked me, and now all of a sudden you care.”
When she puts it like that it sounds exactly like she’s implying, but the thing she’s got wrong is that I stopped hating her long before I had her body.
I reach for her, but she steps back. “Don’t.”
“You’re not going to believe anything I say right now, whether it’s true or not. I know you have this whole ‘never trust men’ thing going on?—”
“Oh, fuck you,” she spits.
“But we’re not all the same.”
“No?” Her voice booms through the empty restaurant. “You didn’t shame me for seeing other men? You didn’t basically call me a slut until it was you that had your hands on me? No, you’re sooo different from every other guy Rafael!”
I throw my hat off my head in frustration. “You never thought maybe I just didn’t like seeing you with other men? You never thought maybe the reason I banned other men from my house is because I couldn’t stand the idea of you fucking someone else in my house?”
She shakes her head, a humorless smile on her face. “I don’t care. I will never put my worth in another man's hands again, you included,” she points an accusatory finger in my direction.
I take two big steps and I’m in front of her, her chest heaving against mine. “If you don’t know by now that I am obsessed with more than just your body, May, then you’re not as switched on as I thought you were.” She raises her hand, but I catch it before she can strike me.
She screws her eyes shut. “What in the world are you talking about?”
I shake my head. “I don’t just like your body, May. I like much more about you than that, and I’ve never expected you to put your worth in my hands. I’ve only asked you not to ignore what’s between us, something that started long before I ever got my hands on you, and you know it.”
I see her jaw clench as she looks up at me. “I can’t do that,” she whispers, and her expression goes from frustration to the fear I saw burning in them that night of the fire.
That fear doesn’t come from her mother’s advice. No, that comes from experience. I pull my hand up to cup her dirty cheek and she flinches away, but I don’t let go. I don’t move until her sad eyes come back to meet mine. “Who hurt you like this?”
Her body falls against mine, and she finally drops the hammer. I wrap my arms around her, supporting her exhausted body. I sit down against a part of the wall that’s still intact and drag her against me. I know that in any other situation she wouldn’t allow this kind of affection, but she’s too tired to fight it as she leans back against my front. In any other situation I wouldn’t allow it either, but something about May makes me want to do everything I usually swear against.
I thread my dirty fingers through her hair as I wait for her to say something. I want to tell her that she doesn’t need to explain herself to me, but I’m too selfish for that. So I just keep dirtying her light hair.
“My dad left when I was born,” she starts so quietly, as if she doesn’t want to admit it. “As soon as he saw me, he just bolted. Didn’t even want to try to be a father, he just left.”
Here I am going on about my nonna. The woman who loved me like I was her own, meanwhile May had someone that never chose her, someone who abandoned her like she was nothing.
“Did he ever come back? ”
She relaxes back into me even more. “Never. If he walked past me on the street tomorrow, I’d never even know it.”
“I’m so sorry, May.” I run my hand along her shoulder, wanting to touch her in any way.
“Don’t be.”
“But then your mom met Dave?”
She nods. “She only put herself back out there when I was a teenager. She never wanted someone to come in and act like a father figure to me, and neither did I. I’d never needed a father before; I didn’t need to start then.”
I nod, even though she can’t see me. Even though I can’t imagine that feeling.
When my papà died, the only reason I stood upright every day was because of Nonna. I can’t imagine growing up without him to steer me, without him to teach me what being a good man looks like. Sometimes I still wonder if I’m living up to his standards, if I’m being a man he would be proud of, if the way I’ve treated May in the past is something he’d be ashamed of.
“That’s why she taught me what she did,” May continues with a sniffle. “Never give so much of yourself to a man that you will fall apart when he leaves. Because she never had the time to fall apart, not with a newborn. And I never did. I never even wanted to. I followed her advice. For years, I didn’t even pay any attention to men. I never had a high school sweetheart; I kept myself at a distance…until I was foolish. I fell in love.” She lets out a big shaky sigh, like the worst part is yet to come. I can’t fight my instinct to touch her, to let her know I’m here, and I’m listening. So I rub my palm over her back, drawing light circles over the skin not covered by her singlet.
“I fell so fast I thought nothing could go wrong. My mom scolded me, she knew it wouldn’t end well, but I forged ahead, thinking she was always wrong and that the man who was my father was just a bad egg. I mean she had Dave, and he had never hurt her.” Her voice wobbles with desperation, maybe for the belief that she’d had back then .
“I’d been with Owen for nearly a year when I started feeling nauseous every now and then. I got so tired after my classes I’d have to go home and sleep during the middle of the day. That’s when I realized that my period was late.” My heart sinks to the pit of my gut as soon as she says it. I close my eyes, but I don’t stop my circles. I continue, hoping their consistency is giving her some sort of courage to keep going.
“I tested. In the bathroom of my dorm, alone, in the middle of the night I tested. Positive.” My stomach is churning now. Guilt floods my system at the memory that we never used protection. I never even questioned it. I lean my head back against the wall.
She must feel my body stiffen behind her. “I know what you’re thinking, and it’s fine. I’m on birth control and if I didn’t want what happened to have happened, then I would’ve stopped it.” I nod, her tone is decisive enough to make my heart rate calm, I start my circles up again when she continues.
“I didn’t know what to do. I was twenty-two, my life had barely started, and I just looked at myself in the mirror and I saw a child looking back, someone who had no idea how to raise one of her own.” She shakes her head, and I know she’s remembering exactly how that felt.
“Isla woke up to me crying. She’s the one who held my hand and sat with me on that disgusting bathroom floor until the morning. Until I had built up enough courage to go and see Owen. Throughout that night the only thing I could think of was that I wasn’t in it alone. I had Owen. He loved me and we would figure this all out together.” She pulls one of her hands up to wipe the tears that have been falling in a steady stream down her face this entire time.
“Except I was wrong.” She shakes her head. “When I told Owen I was pregnant, I could just see it on his face straight away. He had opted out of our relationship before the word baby ever left my mouth. Proving my mom right and leaving me feeling the emptiest I had ever felt in my entire life.”
So many things click into place for me, so many things about the way that May is all of a sudden make so much sense. I don’t think I can blame her for the way she views the male species.
“May…”
She leans out of my touch, and I can feel that she’s not only physically distancing herself, but she just put a wall up between us. “That’s why you never saw me with the same guy twice. Why I can’t admit anything about this thing between us. I refuse to feel that emptiness ever again. I won’t ever let myself get so carried away that I forget the places I’ve been. Sex is just sex to me, nothing more, okay?”
I nod. But the problem is that sex with May was always going to be so much more, and I don’t know how long I can go on pretending like it wasn’t.