40. Tate
“Did I hurt you?” If she’s trying to keep the panic from her voice, she’s failing.
When I shake my head, she bounces up on the couch beside me and pulls me into her arms, pressing my face against her more than ample cleavage. “Hey, it’s okay. Let it all out.”
I haven’t cried much since the funeral, not to her, not to my friends, not even when I’m alone. It’s been bubbling inside my body, waiting for the most opportune moment to leak out of my eyes but this isn’t it.
Except, apparently it is.
Scrambling to figure out the emotional trigger, the best I can come up with is that I’m consumed with guilt for getting pleasured when my parents are barely cold in the ground.
Ugh.
Who does that? What kind of son am I?
A shitty one, that’s what.
Yup. The second wave of tears that hits confirms it’s my selfishness, my guilt, my gut-punching grief making me cry. There’s no fighting it as Penelope strokes my face and tells me I’m safe.
I shouldn’t have tried to escape my grief in pleasure. How arrogant was I to think I could outsmart grief? That I could somehow lessen its impact by simply getting off.
The harder I cry, the harder it hits.
There’s no escaping the painful clutches of grief’s misery, there’s no outrunning its exhausting relentlessness, no softening the sharp edges of its ruthlessness.
There is only sitting with it, listening to it, feeling it, and hopefully, somehow finding a way out the other side.
“I’ve got you, Tate. I’ve got you.” Penelope’s soft purrs pierce through my soul-shredding anguish like a lighthouse on choppy seas. “You’re not alone. I’ve got you, your teammates have got you. We’re all here for you. You’ll get through this.” Her words repeat on a loop as she holds me, and over time, my sobs turn into whimpers, and my breaths eventually even out.
When I sit up and look at her, the sorrow in her eyes mirrors the ache in my chest. She sweeps the pad of her thumb across my cheek, catching some stray tears and swiping them off my face.
She plants the lightest kiss against my lips before dropping her forehead to mine. “You’re not supposed to be okay right now. You know that, right?” Her intense eyes search mine. “You just lost your parents, Tate. You’re not supposed to have your shit together. You’re supposed to be grieving, shocked, and searching for solace.”
Her words make sense, but I’m not like everyone else. I should be more okay than this. I should be stronger, harder, I should be able to find a way through like I always do.
“Hey.” The sharpness in her voice draws my eyes back up to hers. “Stop whatever narrative’s playing in your brain right now.” Her voice is softer as she implores me. “Please, Tate. Just give yourself some time. It’s been a week. Your body is still healing, your heart and soul need time to catch up. Trust the process, trust your friends, trust yourself.”
She kisses me again, and for the first time in a week, the cacophony of chaos quiets in my mind as her beams of sunshine stab through the fear, planting seeds of hope in my heart.
“You’ve got this,” she insists.
I hope she’s right.