This Is Love - Chapter 7 #2
He pulled me out of my thoughts. The way he was staring at me made it seem like I had missed something.
Like he had been trying to get my attention for some time.
He was staring at me expectantly. I didn’t want to miss any more moments.
I had already missed so much. I wanted to apologize again.
I wanted him to hold me again. Kiss me again.
But there was a distance between us. I thought we had just closed it.
But in this cold, unfamiliar room? I felt it.
Like there was a crack in the ground separating us.
“Hop in the shower to warm up. We can talk afterward. If you want,” he quickly added. “It’s fine if you don’t want to.” He gave me a small smile that for some reason looked sad.
What had I missed? What had he been trying to ask me?
“Leave your clothes out here so I can give them to my mom’s maid,” he said before I could ask. “I’ll go grab you a towel. And just…let me know when you’re done, okay? There’s another shower down the hall that I’m going to use real quick.”
I remembered showering with him. I remembered doing that a lot.
But we weren’t alone. We were at his estranged mother’s house.
And she and Rob were both waiting for us.
This wasn’t the time or place for us to reconnect.
But I so badly wanted to reach for him. My body didn’t move though.
And my throat didn’t seem to be able to work.
So I just nodded. My apology from earlier definitely wasn’t enough.
How could it have been? I almost ruined us.
And I felt the distance between us reverberating through my soul.
I turned away from him. We weren’t okay. Would we ever be okay again? Tears welled in my eyes as I closed the bathroom door behind me. I waited for the water to run scalding hot before I stepped under its stream. It should have burned my skin, but I barely felt it.
It was like the steam was choking me. Like it was everything I had done in the past week trying to push me down.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I couldn’t breathe.
What had I done? What a fucking mess I had made.
“I’m sorry.” My knees buckled and I fell to the tiled floor of the shower.
“I’m sorry.” My son was alone in a hospital fighting for his life when I didn’t remember him.
“I’m sorry.” My daughter tried to accept the imposter that I was, but missed her actual mother.
“I’m sorry.” And James? James. I tried to leave him.
I tried to dismiss the life we had built together. I broke us. “I’m sorry.”
I heard the bathroom door squeak open and swallowed a huge gulp of air even though it didn’t seem to fill my lungs.
“I have the towels.” James’ voice was quiet through the steam and the sound of the water.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled to the floor. I wanted him to be able to hear me, but I was out of strength. My whisper disappeared into the steam.
“Penny?”
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
The shower door opened but I kept staring at the tiled floor.
“Jesus.” His hands were on me in a matter of seconds, trying to help me back to my feet, but I resisted his help.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Baby, it’s okay,” he said in the voice he used for Scarlett. Like I was just some innocent child that had done nothing wrong. But that wasn’t true. I had done everything wrong.
“None of this okay!” I couldn’t breathe. “I broke us. I broke us.”
“You didn’t break us. I’m right here.” His hands gripped my shoulders. “You came back to me. That’s all that matters.”
“But I tried so hard to push you away.”
“And failed. You failed. I’ve never wanted you to fail in anything you do except this. You failed at this one thing, and I’m so grateful. Penny, look at me.”
I couldn’t look up at him. “How could you possibly keep loving me despite how awful I was?”
“Because that wasn’t you. You weren’t you. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay! I was awful! I tried to leave. I…” I was choking on my words. “I wanted to leave everything behind. I wanted to leave you. I wanted to start a new life that had nothing to do with this one. How can you just stand there saying it’s okay?”
He knelt down on the floor with me. “Oh, baby.” He cradled my face in his hands and tilted my face up so that I’d look at him. “That never would have happened. There’s no way you could live without me.”
It was such a cocky thing to say. But he didn’t say it in an arrogant way. He said it as he stared deep into my eyes. He said it because it was true.
My eyes dropped to the towel that was wrapped around his waist. And the perfect V line that dipped beneath the towel.
I remembered this. I remembered us. But a memory was so different from reality.
I wanted to experience him. And there was no better apology than a blowjob.
I had heard that phrase before. From Rob maybe?
Who the fuck cared. I wanted James to know that I loved him.
That I’d always love him. That I was so fucking sorry.
I grabbed the knot in his towel and pulled.
He reached down to hold it in place.
“You’re healing, Penny. We can’t…”
“I need you. I feel like I can’t breathe. This…this will show me that we’re okay. This…” I pulled harder, but he gripped the towel tighter too. It didn’t budge.
I swallowed hard. I remembered the sex being amazing.
I knew that he was perfection underneath that towel.
But he wasn’t offering that to me. He didn’t want me.
And I honestly couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t want me.
It felt like my heart couldn’t beat any faster.
That my cheeks couldn’t be any redder. I swallowed hard.
He doesn’t want you anymore, Penny. You ruined everything.
I pulled my hand back like his skin had stung me.
Of course he didn’t love me anymore. He was a Greek god.
And I was just…me. The scales were so tipped in his favor that it didn’t make any logical sense for us to be together in the first place.
Except one thing that wasn’t tangible. He loved me.
Love balanced the scales. But I lost it. I lost him.
Minutes ago he had run down the steps of this house and kissed me like I was his whole world.
Now? He had time to realize that I wasn’t worth it.
He had time to see me crying on a bathroom floor.
He had seen me. The real me. A literal puddle of the person I once was. And now he knew better than to love me.
I expected him to walk away from me. Instead, he pulled me into his arms and hugged me impossibly tight. And as soon as his arms were around me, I started crying again. I hugged him back. Maybe he didn’t want to make love to me anymore, but I’d take what I could get.
“I don’t know what else I can say.” My words were jumbled by the water falling on top of us.
“I don’t know how to apologize enough. I wasn’t me.
And I was horrible to you. But that wasn’t me.
That’s not how I feel. I love you. I love you, James.
” I was clinging to him so tightly I wasn’t sure he could breathe.
“Just don’t leave me again.” His words almost got lost in the steam, but I heard them. “My heart can’t take it. Please stop running away from what we have.”
Suddenly everything clicked. Like a million little pieces falling into place. He thought I ran out on him again tonight? That’s what he thought? God. “James, I didn’t run out on you tonight. I didn’t. I know I tried to once, but I’d never do that now.”
“It’s okay, I’m just glad you’re back…”
“James, I swear I didn’t. I was already starting to remember what we had. It was Dr. Nelson. He attacked me in Central Park.”
“What?” The vulnerability in his voice was gone. He pulled back and he looked like he was about to commit murder and end up in a jail cell right beside the one Dr. Nelson was probably sitting in right now.
“It’s okay, he’s in custody. Dr. Nelson tried to hurt me, but Tyler saw the whole thing. He stopped him.”
“Tyler saved you.” He said the words slowly like he didn’t understand.
“Yeah…I guess you could put it that way.” I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say. Yes, Tyler had rescued me. I couldn’t exactly sugarcoat the truth.
He just stared at me.
“Technically he did save me. But it was random luck. He just happened to be on a run. I was lucky.”
“Tyler.” He released me from his embrace. “Of course. I looked everywhere for you, but your fucking knight in shining armor saved the day.” He stood up.
“James.” I scrambled to my feet and almost slipped on the slick tile. “You’re not seriously upset?”
“How am I supposed to feel after I saw that you were reading all about him before you disappeared?”
What was he talking about? “I shuffled the pages around because I read a…” I awkwardly cleared my throat. “I happened to read a heated scene between you and me and didn’t want anyone to know where I left off. I guess something else ended up on top?”
“So it was a coincidence that all your encounters with Tyler were spread out all over the coffee table?”
“Yes.” Damn, how did that happen? Luck was only on my side once tonight, I guess. I was glad I wasn’t dead, but I really freaking wished James wasn’t looking at me the way he was right now. The steam in the shower might as well have been coming out of his ears.
“Penny, the reason you didn’t tell me your favorite movie was because it reminds you of him. He’s your Westley.”
I shook my head. “What? No.”
“You felt him up while you watched the movie together.”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about. When? When I was 19? Jesus, James, it’s like you said. It’s just a dumb movie.”
“A dumb movie that the 19-year-old version of you loved.”
“Well she fucking sucked. I think we both can agree to that. She was an idiot. The only good thing she ever did was sleep with her professor.”
“That’s debatable.”