Chapter 17 Stormy #2
Tex's eyes are wet. He hasn't moved. He hasn't reached for me.
He's sitting with his back against the headboard and his hands at his sides.
His eyes are filling with tears and he's letting them fill because he knows that if he moves, if he touches me, if he does anything to make this about his feelings instead of mine, I'll stop talking.
"It got worse. Different places. Different men.
Different situations." I look at my hands in my lap.
They're shaking. "I'm not ready to tell you everything.
Not yet. But I will. I promise I'll tell you because I want you to know.
I want you to know all of it because I don't want anything between us that's hidden. "
"Okay," he says. Just that. No pressure. No questions.
"The reason I'm telling you this now is because.
.." The hot shame surges and I have to breathe through it, have to push the words past the thing in my throat that wants to choke them back.
"I need to get tested. Before we go any further.
Before I... before I put my mouth on you or we do anything without.
.. I need to know that I'm not carrying anything.
That I'm not going to infect you. Hurt you. "
My voice breaks on the last word and the tears come. Ugly tears that bend you forward and make your shoulders shake and your nose run and your face crumble. I'm crying in Tex's bed with the shame pouring out of me like it's been dammed up for years. I can't stop it and I can't control it.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," I keep apologizing like it's my fault, like any of it was ever my fault.
"I finally found someone I want. For the first time in my life, I actually want someone.
I chose you and now I might not be able to — I might be —" The words won't come straight.
"What if I'm carrying something that means I can never touch you the way I want to?
What if they took that from me too? They already took everything else and now the one thing I finally want for myself might be the one thing I can't have because of what they did to my body. "
I'm shaking and I can't stop.
"I should have told you before last night.
Before we kissed. Before any of it. You deserved to know before you put your mouth anywhere near mine.
And I was too selfish because I wanted it so badly, Tex.
I wanted one good thing so much that I kissed you.
I'm sorry for what I am. I'm sorry that I'm this broken thing that showed up at your bar and you were so good to me and I can't even give you —"
I can't finish. The sobs take the rest of the sentence.
Tex moves. Slowly, carefully, the way he does everything with me.
He slides across the bed and he puts his hands on either side of my face and he tilts my head up until I'm looking at him.
His face is wet. Tears in his beard, tears tracking down his cheeks, and he's not trying to hide them.
He's not trying to be strong. He's crying for me.
He's sitting in this bed with tears running into his beard and he's crying for the ten-year-old boy who couldn't tell anyone.
"Listen to me," he says. His voice is the steadiest thing I've ever heard. "You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing. Not one single thing. What happened to you was not your fault. It was never your fault. Not at ten and not after and not any of the places in between."
"I should have told you before last night. Before we—"
"Stop. Look at me." I look at him. His eyes through the tears are fierce. "You told me when you were ready. That's exactly when you were supposed to tell me. And I'm grateful you trust me enough to say it now."
"You're not... you don't think I'm..."
"Don't finish that sentence." His thumbs wipe the tears from my cheeks but more come to replace them.
"I think you are the bravest person I have ever met in my life.
I think you survived things that would have destroyed most people and you came out the other side still standing.
I think you are kind and smart and strong and worth more than every single person who ever hurt you combined. "
The sobs hit harder. I fold forward and my forehead lands against his chest and he holds me.
His arms come around me and his hand cups the back of my head.
He holds me while I cry, body-shaking, voice-breaking, snot-running crying that comes from somewhere so deep it doesn't have a name.
He holds me through all of it. He doesn't shush me.
He doesn't tell me it's okay. He just holds me and lets me empty out.
When the crying slows, when my breathing evens out from ragged to just unsteady, he speaks.
"Here's what we're going to do," he says. He's a man who always has a plan and is going to take care of things. "We're going to eat breakfast and get dressed. And then we're going to drive to the clinic and we're going to get tested. Both of us together."
I lift my head. "Both of us?"
"That's right. You and me. I haven't been tested in over a year because I've been solo for what seems like forever, and I should be tested too.
That's what you do when you're starting up with someone.
You go together. You're not going alone, Stormy.
We're doing it together. Same waiting room. Same paperwork. Same bad magazines."
"Tex—"
"This is not negotiable. You are not walking into that clinic by yourself.
I will be sitting next to you filling out forms and complaining about the fluorescent lighting because clinic lighting makes everyone look terrible and I refuse to look terrible in your presence.
Also, those gowns. If they try to put me in one of those paper gowns, I'm going to look like a refrigerator wrapped in a napkin.
Nobody needs to see my big ass hanging out the back.
I'm bringing my own shirt. I'm staging a one-man protest against clinic fashion. "
A sound comes out of me that's half sob and half laugh. I don't know which one wins. His hand is on the back of my neck, and he's looking at me with eyes that are still wet but steady.
"One more thing," he says. "And I need you to hear this. Really hear it and believe it."
I look at him.
"No matter what those tests say. No matter what comes back.
It doesn't change anything. Not one thing.
Not how I feel about you. Not what you mean to me.
Not what we are. If something comes back that we need to deal with, we deal with it together.
There are treatments, there are options, there are ways to handle anything that comes up.
We'll figure it out. The results won't make a difference to me. "
"You can't promise that. You don't know what—"
"Yes, I most definitely can promise that.
I am promising that. Right now." He takes my face in his hands again.
"Stormy. I was willing to wait for you forever.
I spent six weeks standing six inches away from you, not touching you, not kissing you, just being near you, because having you in my life without ever touching you was better than not having you at all.
Do you think a test result is going to change that?
Do you think there is anything on this earth that could make me let you go? "
I can't speak. I open my mouth and nothing comes out because the words are too big and my throat is too tight. The thing I'm feeling is so enormous that language can't hold it.
"Whatever they did to you," he says, and his voice drops to barely a whisper, "whatever they left behind, we carry it together.
You don't carry anything alone anymore. That's over.
That ended the day I made a U-turn on a beach road and picked up the most stubborn, beautiful, brave person I've ever met. "
I kiss him. Not with desire. With gratitude so big it has its own gravity. I kiss him and he tastes like tears, his and mine, salt like the Gulf water that almost took me and salt from the tears that are giving me back to him.
"Okay," I say when I pull back. I'm completely wrecked. "Okay. We'll go this morning."
"Now on to breakfast," he says. "I'm making pancakes because this is a pancake kind of morning and if you argue with me about pancakes I will be deeply offended."
"I'll never turn down pancakes."
"Smart man. The pancakes are non-negotiable.
I have a ranking system for mornings, Stormy.
Regular mornings get eggs. Good mornings get bacon.
Mornings where someone I care about trusts me with a big deal that matters get pancakes with blueberries.
It's a whole system. Sheila doesn't know about it.
She thinks she gets the best breakfast. She gets the second-best breakfast. You get the best. Don't tell her.
She'll reorganize my entire kitchen out of spite. "
He gets up like it's a normal morning and goes downstairs.
I hear the familiar sounds of him starting breakfast. Pans on the stove.
The fridge opening. His voice, humming, because he's always making noise, always filling the silence, and right now his noise is the most comforting sound in the world.
I sit on the edge of the bed. My face is swollen, my eyes are raw and my body feels hollowed out in the way it does after you cry that hard, and the space it leaves behind is empty, but clean.
I told him. Not everything. Not the terrible details, not the names, not the full horror of it. But enough that he knows the shape of what happened to me. Enough that when he looks at me now, he sees the whole picture, not just the parts I was willing to show before.
He's still here. Making pancakes. Humming. Planning a trip to the clinic like it's a trip to Walmart.
I go downstairs and sit on my stool. He slides a cup of coffee across the counter.
"Blueberry pancakes in five minutes," he says.
I wrap my hands around the coffee and I look at him across the counter. He just held me while I cried and told him the worst thing about myself. Yet, he still looks at me like I'm still worth wanting.
"Tex?"
"Yeah, baby?"
"Thank you."
He stops flipping the pancake. He looks at me and his eyes are full of everything he said upstairs and everything he'll say at the clinic and everything he'll say every day after that.
"You never have to thank me for being here," he says. "This is where I want to be. With you, darling. Always with you."
The first pancake burns while he's staring at me.
"Shit! That pancake gave its life for this conversation and I want you to know that I respect its sacrifice.
We'll have a moment of silence. Actually no, I've never had a moment of silence in my life.
We'll have a moment of loud acknowledgment.
That pancake was a hero. Hang on, I'll make you a good one.
I'll eat the burned one this morning. Extra syrup fixes anything. "
Tex hands me a plate and I dig in.