Chapter Fifteen
Graham
I look toward the hearth below the crackling fire as if it holds the answers to all my problems. Like a siren in a storm, I followed Lily home. Now, I fear I may not recover. I can’t imagine how much more this woman could wreck me, but seeing her first cold and crying and now bleeding and hurt makes my mind race and my heart feel as if it could break.
When I bandaged her hand, I could feel the way she studied me, taking in my features. I almost wanted to ask if I reminded her of the man she fell in love with long ago. I wish the qualities in my nature I know she used to treasure would trigger her to tell me the truth about what happened between us.
I may not be willing to get my heart broken again, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know why it ended. I accept that our love is a lost cause. I can’t help but hope that maybe this one moment in which I get to wrap her up in my affection is God’s kindness in giving me another chance to take care of her. Perhaps I can show her that I’m truly not mad at her. Maybe she’ll see the void in me that has been cold and empty since she left.
“Are you still cold?” Lily asks. I turn to face her, surprised to hear her say anything that could be construed as caring about my well-being.
The firelight reveals the sight of her sitting with her shoulders hunched forward, her hand wrapped with a large bandage. Her usually strong demeanor is frail, fraying at the edges. I steel my jaw with the effort of preventing myself from moving closer to touch her. Touching her face was one thing, but I know she won’t let me wrap my arms around her to hold her closely while the storm rages.
Shaking my head, I move toward the opposite end of the couch. We continue to stare into the illuminated hearth together.
Her hair glows in the flickering flames. The shimmer creates a halo around her head. Her ponytail flips at the ends. She tries to pull it down with one hand, but the band gets snagged in her hair on the way out. I’ve only seen Lily’s hair down around her shoulders once, and the sight about did me in. She winces when the band pulls at her hair. Before I can think too much of it, I’m beside her.
“Let me,” I say, the gritty quality in my voice like the crackling wood in the fire as it turns to ash.
She turns toward me. With wide eyes, she searches me, no doubt looking for any traps or ulterior motives. But my defenses are down, shattered. I have nothing except the intense need to feel her hair between my fingers again, even if it isn’t in the way I once had hoped.
Finally, she nods lightly. She throws down a small decorative pillow on the circle of carpet beneath our feet. Slipping to the floor, she leans forward so her spine is aligned between my knees. As she arches, her long hair trails down her back.
I force my hands to stop shaking. As one hand cups the bottom of her deflated ponytail, I use my other hand to slide the band from her hair as gently as possible. For a moment, I revel at the rapid increase in her breathing at my touch.
I extend the band over her right shoulder, allowing it to glide softly over the creamy patch of skin peeking out of the top of her sweatshirt—a Boston University sweatshirt, my alma mater, nonetheless. I take note that her fingers don’t pull away when we touch in the exchange.
Clenching my jaw, I move my neck side to side to try to rid myself of some of the tension.
“Do you—do you need a brush?” she asks softly, the vulnerability in her voice sending a flash of heat through my chest.
“I don’t think we’ll need it.” My reply comes out husky and deep.
She nods lightly. I count to ten to convince myself not to forget this moment as I simultaneously will my hands to stay steady.
Before I overthink what I’m about to do, I trail my fingers through her hair, starting at the bottom. Inch by inch, I run my fingers slowly and softly through her pale golden strands, gently working out any knots I find, moving my way up with precision.
Her breathing slows in response. When I reach the base of her neck, a shiver is all the evidence I need that she is as affected by this moment as I am.
I sense that her reaction is an honest one, and it reminds me how much I’ve wanted to care for her since the moment we met.
Lightly, I massage her scalp, pushing my fingers through the silky sections, watching it flow like golden water through my hands. When I hit a tangle or a piece still heavy with water from the storm, I do my best to patiently sift through it all until her hair flows down her back, smooth and combed with my own two hands.
At some point in the process, Lily relaxes in a way that causes her to angle back toward me. Her neck tilts to the side under my hands, losing its stiffness.
I hear a sniffle. I know she’s got more emotion caught up in that mind and heart of hers, but I keep moving. Instead of saying anything that might embarrass her, I carefully part her hair into three sections and begin to braid it.
Piece by piece, I intertwine the strands to create a long braid. As I near the end, the hollow in her lower back dips inward. I will time to stand still.
Before I can ask, the hair band appears over her right shoulder. I reach for it without releasing the ends I’ve gathered in my other hand. As our fingertips brush, Lily grasps the ends of mine with the lightest pressure. It feels as if her hand is hugging mine. I return the gesture before tying up the braid, content that my work seems to suit her. I’ve never seen Lily in a braid. The fact that she didn’t protest the choice I made for her seems like a small victory.
“My hand hurts,” she says. “I’m going to grab some ointment.”
She pushes herself off the floor with her uninjured hand. Grabbing a flickering candle, she disappears toward the bathroom. I’ve always loved the sway of her ponytail in the air as she walks, but something in the bounce of the braid against her back immediately swirls a new level of appreciation across my mind.
When she returns, a shy smile appears on her face. “Where did you learn to braid hair?”
A flush crosses my cheeks. I steel myself and decide not to be embarrassed by something that is a part of who I am.
“Uh . . . my mother has pretty bad arthritis. It started when I was in college. I learned in case I ever needed to help her with something she couldn’t manage anymore.”
Without a word, she simply nods and moves to sit near me on the couch. Rather than pull away, she leans a bit closer to me. I’m mesmerized as her head angles backward, and she shifts to look at me.
“Do you like weddings?” she asks in a thoughtful tone.
“I—I like them,” I answer. “Although, it’s been . . . harder lately to picture my own.”
Her head nods, her eyes turning up toward the ceiling. “I know what you mean.”
Immediately, I feel what we’re both picturing but not saying aloud. I bought a ring for her. I wanted a wedding of our own. Once, I would have given everything to know she was the one who would be waiting for me at the altar.
“You still want your own?” she continues. Casually, as if this is the most commonplace conversation, her hand draws patterns on the couch. The other palm rests face up on the seat, the bandage angled toward the fire.
“I—I do.” Her eyes flash up to mine, and I’m caught in their lavender-grey glimmer.
“Hm,” she hums. “Then, I hope—” her voice catches. “I hope that you get to know what it’s like one day. ”
My heart drops. It is as if she is wishing me well, with no hint of animosity between us. But I also hear what she’s not saying: There is no way she’s included in my future plans, no matter how much I want her to be.
∞∞∞
A flash of light in my eyes wakes me. I shift stiffly, a groan escaping as I try to sit up but feel a heavy blanket draped over my chest and legs. At some point last night, I fell asleep on the floor after a series of card games with Lily. As I drifted off sleepily, I watched her looking toward the fading firelight. She was angelic, our theoretical fighting gloves off and tossed aside. Last night, there was a new openness in her demeanor that made me melt back into imagining what could’ve been.
At some point, I closed my eyes. I must have been lulled by the warmth of the fire and the comfort of knowing Lily and I were in the same space again. I haven’t slept that well in ages.
Forcing my eyes open, I take in the ceiling. It is grey in the morning light, with the candles burned low and the fire long extinguished.
The smell of something floral stirs me. I register the pressure of a ribcage pushing against my own and hear soft breathing. Lily.
She’s pressing against me, her body stretched out, chin tipped up toward mine. She looks as if she was watching me sleep when she drifted off herself.
Did she know what she was doing? How did this even happen?
A blanket is spread over me. It isn’t covering her, though, and I realize she must’ve covered me up with it and then ended up beside me. I hope I kept her warm enough, even though the side of her arm is chilled. Her bandaged hand is across my stomach. Her braid trails over the edge of my arm. I feel the curve of her waist under my hand because of course I would instinctively hold onto her, even when I didn’t consciously mean to do it.
My heart beats faster. I force myself to keep it steady so as not to disturb her. I will wake her up soon because I know it’s better if I don’t let her feel uncomfortable that she settled beside me.
But for a moment, I let myself study her, taking in the freckles dusting her cheeks, the beauty mark sitting softly on the inside edge of her nose, the way her lips hold a soft pink that looks like she’s wearing a hint of lipstick when I know very well she’s not wearing anything at all.
This—here—is everything I’ve ever wanted.
I may have challenged Lily not to fall in love with me—the words a shield of armor to protect myself rather than an actual bet—but I realize now I was just as much challenging myself not to fall in love with her again. And the truth is, I know full well that I never stopped loving her.
If this were the nineteenth century, she would be my Elizabeth, and I would be her Mr. Darcy. I wasn’t kidding when I told her I wasn’t the Wickham of our story. She miscast me from the start.
At this moment, as she hums softly in her sleep, I resolve to do everything I can to show her that I’m still in this. I may not understand what is happening between us, but sometimes, that’s what love is. Not understanding everything and still moving forward. Proving that the fear of rejection doesn’t mean we call it quits.
Peace between us is going to start with not embarrassing her for something she probably didn’t mean to do. So, I turn my head to the side, shut my eyes, and rustle my hand enough to gently nudge her awake. Lily inhales deeply, with a sigh that causes a smile to threaten to break through on my face. I know the moment she realizes where she is.
A slight jump. A sharp inhale. A shuffle to stand.
And then, without a word, I feel the edges of her fingers in my hair. The unexpected contact nearly startles me into giving my pretense of sleeping away. I will myself to be completely still and keep my breathing steady, even though I want to lean into her touch.
“I’m so sorry, Graham,” she whispers, “for all of it.”
The words bring emotion to the back of my throat. I’ve needed to hear them for years. I’m a few seconds from opening my eyes when I feel the soft brush of her lips against the side of my temple. They are gone an instant later, and I question whether I imagined it.
But the tingling of my skin and the moisture pooling under my closed eyes tell my heart and mind that I didn’t imagine it at all.