Chapter Thirty-Eight
MARINA
PRESENT
I grumble as I slide from the couch onto my hardwood floors, curling into a ball on the floor.
I woke up with a migraine this morning and immediately knew I had gotten my period overnight. I had cramps all day yesterday so I could tell it was coming, meaning I was prepared, but this morning my cramps are absolutely killing me. It hasn’t even been four weeks yet.
I still haven’t decided what action to take regarding my endometriosis. Sofia has called me multiple times wondering what decision I’ve made, but I haven’t made one.
I hate the idea of putting anything in my body that’s not supposed to be there. I’ve lived with this forever, but it’s been a kind of torture; something needs to change. And right now, while I’m curled up on the floor, the idea of going on something to help is becoming more and more appealing.
A knock sounds against my door. “Who is it?” I croak out from my spot on the floor.
“It’s me, princess.” Relief crashes into me like a tidal wave.
“Come in. ”
The door opens slightly before Miles’s eyes widen as he takes me in, dropping whatever he was holding on the floor and taking two rushed steps before he reaches me.
“What’s wrong? Do I need to take you to the hospital?” His hand lands on my forehead, checking for a temperature.
It’s sick, but something about his worry makes me feel better instantly. But I’ve never doubted that Miles cares about me. If what he’s told me is right, then in some twisted way, he cared too much about me to break up with me.
I shake my head. “Mm-mm.”
“Marina—”
“Why are you here?” I lift my head to look at him but wince when my head pounds. Ow .
He runs his hand over my hair. My gaze fixates on the fact that he’s not wearing his sling. “Isla told me you weren’t feeling well so I thought I’d bring around supplies, but I didn’t think it was this bad. Let’s get you up on the couch.” His voice is frantic, like he’s panicked.
He slides his arms under me and lifts me into his arms. “Miles, your shoulder!”
“It’s fine,” is all he says. I barely register it when he sits down on the couch because he doesn’t release me from his arms. I stay curled against his warm body as he strokes my hair.
“Tell me how to help you,” he says, his voice more pained now than when he was in the hospital himself.
He leans back, sinking into the couch and pulling me with him. Tears fall from my closed eyes with every stroke of his hand, with every beat of his heart. There’s nothing I could want more in this situation but him.
“This,” I say. “Just this.”
I let myself be in this moment for a second, let myself feel like this is normal.
I open my eyes and they fall on the basket he dropped on the floor when he walked in. “Did you bring me a wheat bag?”
“Yeah,” he says, not stopping his soothing movements. “I thought you probably have one already, but I brought one just in case.”
My eyes roam over the rest of the stuff he brought: three bars of chocolate, a blanket, a hot water bottle, a bottle of red wine, and a bag of sour peaches. More tears fall at the fact that he brought all of this here for me, knowing I wasn’t feeling well.
I chuff a small laugh. “Can I have a sour peach?”
“Of course you can.” Miles gently maneuvers me off him, walking over to collect the basket he dropped before putting it on the coffee table. I lie down, resting my head on a pillow as Miles grabs the peaches and sits down cross-legged on the floor in front of me.
I watch as he opens the bag, careful of his arm as the seal breaks, filling the silence between us. “Here,” he says, holding out the bag to me with his good arm.
I grab two, chewing on one while I hold the other. He does the same.
I swallow, sending the sugary treat to my stomach before I let out a big breath. “I have endometriosis.”
I expected some big reaction. Some confusion or something. But that’s not what I get. I get the slightest furrow in his brow, and a softening of his eyes, and an “Are you okay?”
A rogue tear falls. “I don’t know.”
“That’s okay.” He grabs my hand.
“When I left your room at the hospital, Sofia found me in the hall. My cramps were really bad. She started asking me all of these questions and I…” I just shrug as best as I can, running my fingers over his as another tear slides sideways down my cheek before landing on the pillow beneath my head.
“Do you have options?”
“Yeah,” I shrug, “but I don’t know if I like any of them.”
He nods, his grip on my hand tightening ever so slightly. “That’s okay too.”
I shake my head. “No, it’s not. I need to decide what I’m going to do about it. ”
“Okay, what are the options?” he asks. I shake my head. “Sorry, you don’t have to tell me?—”
“No,” I interrupt. “It’s not that. There’s no one else I want to talk to. Just you.” All I want to do is talk it out with Miles. To hear him tell me it’s all going to be okay.
“The most common thing to help the symptoms is hormonal birth control. It’s really the only option, actually.”
He frowns. “You never wanted to go on that.”
Another tear. “I know. But it might be the best thing for me,” I say. “There’s other tests but…” I just shake my head.
Miles cups the side of my face. “Everything is going to be okay. You’ll make the right decision. You just have to do what feels right to you, and if you don’t know what that is yet, then you can take the time to figure it out, okay?”
“I feel like I should be getting onto it, you know?”
“Pressuring yourself into making a decision isn’t going to help you make the right one. Take your time, baby.”
That’s the second time he’s called me that, and the second time the butterflies in my stomach have gone wild—today at least. They were fluttering around for hours the night of the al fresco movie, even more so when his hand crept over the top of mine, and I let it.
I nod. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Now here,” he pulls the bag of candy up in front of me. “These are the best form of treatment for anything.”
A smile teases my lips. I reach into the bag and grab two more, shoving them into my mouth and letting the sweet tang explode on my tongue.
I close my eyes and realize that since Miles has been here, the cramps have lessened. They’re not gone, but they’ve faded. Maybe the best form of treatment for me is him.
“Let me heat this up for you.”
I open my eyes to see Miles walking over to the kitchen, a wheat bag in hand. I can’t help but admit that I like seeing him in my space .
“I like your place,” he says. “It’s cozy.”
“It’s a shoebox.”
He turns the microwave on before swivelling around to look at me. “It’s cute.”
“It’s a mess,” I say, only now noticing how much of my shit I left lying around. But to be fair, I wasn’t expecting visitors.
“Well, that’s not really surprising to me. Somehow, I always found something of yours lying in the most random spots at my place in Sorrento. Lip gloss under the fridge. A bra hanging over the kitchen stool. A packet of cookies by the door…”
“A snack for the road is always necessary,” I say, and the way his smile beams across his face sends warmth straight to my core. “And the other one, well I’m not solely to blame for that.” His gaze deepens with desire, and I almost blanch beneath it.
The microwave beeps interrupting our reminiscing, Miles’s attention switching from me to the wheat pack.
As he walks past the bench he takes notice of the puzzle pieces scattered across it that he missed the first time round. “You’re still doing these?”
“Of course I am.”
He picks up a random piece and slots it into place before continuing on his way to me. I have to hold back my smile, because if he could place that so quickly, it means he’s still been doing them too.
“Can you sit up for me?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I mumble, pushing myself up to sit before he slides into the space behind me, his legs stretched out on either side of mine.
“Come here,” he says, pulling on my shoulders so I can lean back against him.
I hesitate for half a second before I give up, leaning back against his body.
My resolve for fighting off this thing between us crumbling away with every soft-spoken word from his lips.
If I'm being honest, it’s been crumbling for a while now .
“This might help.” He drapes the wheat pack over my lower stomach. “Is that okay?”
“Yeah,” I drop my hand to rest on top of his, still holding the pack, fitting my fingers between his. “That’s good.”
Suddenly I’m warm all the way through, the wheat pack heating my front, and warmth seeping into my back from Miles behind me. But mostly because of how it feels to finally be in his arms again.
I close my eyes, allowing myself to soak in the feeling, to focus on that warmth instead of the pain jarring my abdomen every few minutes. Miles adjusts himself behind me, getting comfy as he uses his good arm to hold me tight against him.
I let my breathing match his, let my heart fall into the same rhythm as his, let my mind go quiet as I feel my tiredness wash over me.
“I’m scared,” I whisper.
“I know, princess.”
“Not of the endometriosis, of you.”
Miles just rubs his thumb back and forth over my arm. “I know.”
My head heavy with the remanence of a headache is the first thing I feel when I wake up. The second thing is the heavy weight of a blanket over my body, but despite that, I feel cold.
I force my leaden eyelids open and look around the space to see it looking cleaner than it did yesterday. My clothes are gone off the floor, my coffee table is clear except for the care package sitting center stage. But it’s missing one thing; Miles.
He left.
He left.
He left after that? After I told him about me? After I cried in his arms and told him I was scared? He left ? Tears well in my eyes as I look around the space once more, as if looking for a sign of him but he’s nowhere. He’s gone. He left.
Again .
I screw my eyes shut. I am such a goddamn idiot. He gives me some sour peaches and all is forgiven? I should’ve known better. I shouldn’t have trusted him. I shouldn’t have g?—
“Morning, princess.”
I open my eyes to see Miles standing in the doorway to my room, the door that was shut a second ago. His hair is wet, dripping onto the collar of his green T-shirt. The T-shirt of his I kept all these years. What is he…
He must see the way my eyes are flooding with tears because he takes two big steps before he’s sitting in front of me on the couch, my head in his big hands. “What’s wrong?”
“I—” I’m hyperventilating. “I thought—” I can’t get any air into my lungs; it feels like my tears are filling them instead.
“Breathe, baby, okay? In and out.” His eyes are locked on mine as he takes big breaths, wanting me to mimic his actions. I do, not taking my watery eyes from his penetrating gaze.
He looks at me with pure agony, like seeing me hurting is hurting him just the same, and it pushes the knife even deeper.
I get a few breaths in, filling my lungs with the smell of my shampoo in his freshly washed hair, and whatever deodorant he’s wearing.
He pushes my hair out of my face. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
“I thought you left.” My face crumples as soon as the words come out.
“Oh, baby.” Miles doesn’t wait a second before he pulls me into his lap. “I’m so sorry. I took a shower, I thought you’d still be asleep by the time I got out. I didn’t mean to scare you, princess.”
I can’t do anything but cry. Letting out every tear I’ve held in since that day four years ago.
He didn’t do anything wrong, not today. But those feelings of anger and hurt flooded my system with so much ease it instantly makes me want to build those walls right back up again so nothing can get in.
But I can’t, not while I’m pulled so close against Miles’s chest that I can hear how fast his heart is racing, like he is just as scared of losing me again that I am of him. And it holds those walls at bay.
“I’m sorry,” I say in a hiccup between sobs.
“No,” he says. “Don’t you dare apologise to me. It’s okay, but I’m here. And I promise you, I’m not going anywhere. Not this time.”
I curl my fist in his shirt, nodding against him, trying my best to believe him.
“Where did you find this?” I ask with a sniffle.
I can hear the smile in his voice as he says. “On the floor.”
I cough a watery laugh, and his chuckle reverberates against me.
“Thank you for cleaning up, you didn’t have to.”
“Well someone had to do it, and we all know it wasn’t going to be you.”
I shake my head, not fighting the smile on my lips this time. “Seriously Miles,” I raise my head to look at him. “Thank you.”
His face is so close to mine I can see every strain of color in his green eyes.
The spears of aqua that streak through the bright green.
His eyes are those that seem to change color in every light.
Sometimes they’re bright, like this, where I can almost see every single thread of color surrounding his pupil.
And other times they’re as dark as the forest floor.
I used to try to count how many different colors I saw in his eyes, but I always lost count, or lost focus.
I can see the way they dart to my lips, and all I can think is that if he kissed me right now I wouldn’t pull away. I couldn’t, even though we are supposed to be friends. But he doesn’t. Instead he rests his forehead against mine, breathing me in. “I promise you, Marina, I won’t hurt you again.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“Yes, I can,” he argues. “And if I ever break that promise, I’m pretty sure those guys of yours would bury me alive. ”
I laugh, thinking about how my friends would react if this man ever hurt me again. “That’s probably true. Not before feeding your manhood to the sharks though. We can’t have them going hungry.”
He slowly shakes his head with a smile, his forehead still pressed against mine. “Fuck, I missed you.”
I pull my hand up and brush my finger over the curve of his ear. “I missed you too.”