CHAPTER 46
LIFE REALIZATION #20: MAKEUP IS NOT WHAT MAKES YOU BEAUTIFUL
For three seconds, after his smile had faded and we’d finally pulled apart, when his eyes searched my face, I regretted not taking the time to change and make myself presentable. Not in the usual way I’d needed to maintain a flawless face, but when he looked back at this moment, I didn’t want him to remember dark smears under my eyes and hair so big it could knock someone over.
Grant, in his black T-shirt and flannel pj pants, ushered me into a bathroom that looked like a spa you’d find in the wilderness. The candle-like lamps flickered, casting a golden glow across the rough-hewn stones that lined the walls. The sink was a metal bucket and sat atop a whiskey barrel. In the back left of the room, a distressed copper claw-foot tub beckoned guests to shut themselves away behind the burlap shower curtain. Stepping into the detached shower, which had the same natural rock as on the walls, would be like tucking into a cave, another world, protection from everything outside this bathroom. I wanted to pull Grant inside and never come out.
He grabbed a fluffy white towel hanging from an antler sticking out of one of the rocks and wrapped it around my shoulders.
Our silence mingled with the heavy drops beating down on Chuck’s metal roof, a peaceful melody for our reunion as he gently patted me dry.
Then his fingers intertwined with mine, and he lifted my hand to his lips, kissing each finger on my right hand. “I can’t believe you drove here in weather like this. It was too dangerous. I could’ve lost you.”
I wondered if he’d thought he’d already lost me. “Grant, I am so sorry.” Words were inadequate, so I pushed everything I didn’t know how to say into my eyes, hoping they would somehow convey the depth of my regret.
His finger moved to my lips. “Shhh. We’re together right now, and that’s what matters.”
Of course that’s what he would say. That’s who he is.He wasn’t about to let the past stand in the way of his future. And I’d work to make sure he’d never regret his decision to let me back in.
He was the type of man many didn’t understand, but he kept being Grant no matter what.
“And you’re sure you want this?” I gestured to the mess in the round hanging mirror as I held my rapidly frizzing hair in a ponytail with my hand. But what I really meant was the whole mess: me, my life, my hang-ups, my emotional basketcase-ness.
“Yes, Penelope, I am quite sure you are exactly what I want.”
I pointed back toward the mirror. Probably because it kept me from asking if he was sure, really sure, because I still didn’t understand it. “Well, maybe not just like this,” I offered.
“Maybe not just like this.” He moved around me.
For a few seconds I thought he might find me so repulsive that he’d need to leave and let me get myself together, but he grabbed a whiter-than-white washcloth on one of the carved shelves on either side of the whisky barrel. He turned the hot tap on at the sink in front of me and let it run as he moved the cloth back and forth under the water.
I was mesmerized by his hands as they wrung out the cloth and then moved to my face.
“You are beautiful.” He ran the fabric across my forehead with a gentle sweep of his hand. “But you try to hide, behind this.” The cloth swept under my eyes. “You don’t need it.”
He was taking off my makeup, what was left of it at least. I closed my eyes, and he moved over my eyelids, hardly pressing at all. The tenderness of his hand, as it skimmed across every inch of my face, soaked into the pores of my skin all the way to my core.
“That’s better.” He placed the washcloth on the edge of the sink and pulled my hand out of my hair so it fluffed out. Then he took my clean face in his palms. “I knew I’d like this face best, and where have you been hiding this hair?”
He turned me until I was facing the mirror. He wrapped his arms around me and positioned his face close to mine. And there I was, my naked face pressed next to his, my natural hair nearly suffocating him. No cover. No perfection. Just me.
“You have always been beautiful,” he said to my stripped reflection. “But you are more beautiful now than I have ever seen you.” I knew his words had nothing to do with my reflection.
My heart filled with an indescribable sensation that gathered me up and somehow, even with the future uncertain, gave me security.
We stood in silence, staring at each other’s reflections. In that time of quiet, I thought about all Grant had, all the people in his life who were there for him without question, all those who loved and cherished and appreciated him. I thought about how, as much as he did have, he still wanted me.
“I like you,” I said. “I didn’t think I liked you when we first met.”
“I’m pretty sure you hated me from that first night.”
“‘Hate’ is a strong word.”
He lifted his eyebrows.
“Okay, maybe I hated your mustache, but I think a part of me was irritated because you were the person I was trying to be.”
“You were trying to be a man with a freaking awesome mustache?”
I hip-bumped him, and we both laughed. But I wasn’t done. My feelings for him had remained tucked away, even from myself, until now, until this instant, when there was nothing left between us. The fear was still there, nipping at the edges of my brain, making the words somewhat halting, but it was now something I could overcome—because of him.
“You changed my life. You saved me. I owe you—”
He was shaking his head, hard and with purpose. And then he turned toward me, looked into my unlined eyes.
“Me?” He shook his head again. “No. Don’t you ever attribute such amazing feats of strength to me. You didn’t need me; I didn’t save you. All this”—he pointed to my chest—“was right here. Always. You did this. You are the hero. You are my hero. All you needed was someone to show you it was possible, that you could. And maybe I can take some credit for that, but everything else, Penelope, is on you. ‘Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.’” I squeezed his hand. “Anything is possible, to anyone at any time, but you decide if and when you believe that and what to make of it when you do. I didn’t do that for you. You did.”
“Grant.”
“That first night we met, when you hated me, you know?” I rolled my eyes, and he smiled. “You’d just left everything and started over when you realized you needed to. You were doing it all. All. And I’d been focused on doing it one way. There is more than one way to live and be happy. You taught me that. That’s why I bought Deanna’s property. You changed me.”
His words wrapped around me and lifted me off the floor, suspended above my body, immune from time and place.
I didn’t know how to respond, so I responded with an unburied truth: “I want to marry you.”
“I want to marry you too.”
I shook my head. “I’m serious. I want to marry you right now. I’ve been so afraid my entire life, so afraid to lose, that I’ve missed out on everything. And I’ve just now realized life isn’t about holding back. It’s about holding on.”
I looked around the room, a bathroom, but I was going to do it anyway. I went over to the shower curtain, unhooked one of the rings holding the fabric across the tub. I turned back to him, got on my knees, and held out ... a shower curtain ring. I felt incredibly silly and second-guessed myself when my knees hit the bathroom rug. But I thought about him bringing me that green tea and dropping to his knees all those months ago, even though he barely knew me, even though Chad was half-naked and staring him down, just to get what he wanted, no matter how he looked.
We’d been dating for approximately two months, but we’d known each other for near eight, and it felt like so much longer. But no matter how long it had been, it was enough.
“Grant, will you marry me?”
He joined me on the floor. “Penelope, yes, I will marry you.” He wrapped his arms around me, holding on as our breathing synchronized.
He didn’t ask me if I was sure. We didn’t talk about what came next or the sorrow at the periphery of our happiness. We didn’t discuss diagnoses or treatments. We didn’t look with longing at the future we might or might not have.
Instead, I inhaled his scent, the essence of nature.
My fingers ran across his skin.
I gasped when his hands moved against mine, across my shoulders, to my upper back, to the clasp of my dress. The heat from the zipper moving down my back made me shiver.
As the dress parted, he peeled the damp fabric from my body and moaned as his eyes scanned me from head to knees—makeup-less, in the black matching bra and panty set I’d put on over twenty-four hours ago, still wearing exactly eighty-one pearls.
Then he kissed me, a slow, steady kiss that lingered on my lips even as his mouth trailed down my neck and chest. He groaned when he made it to the top of my bra, his hands replacing his mouth as he gently ran a finger over the lacy black fabric. My heart stretched in my chest, underneath his touch. I didn’t need anything to hold me together, but I wanted those hands on me, on every part of me, as I let every part go. His palms followed the curve of my sides until his thumbs rested on the barely there waistband across my hips. My whole body warmed when the tips of his fingers circled my waist and then dropped to graze my inner thigh.
He moved to my eyes, his gaze so heated the whole room caught flame. And then he pulled me to my feet, and as he lifted me off the ground and into his arms, he whispered, “I’ve wanted to do this for a very long time.”
I flicked my tongue against his earlobe as he carried me across the hall to his bedroom, unconcerned that we might run into the owners of this house.
And behind that solid, wooden door, under a flannel comforter and beside rustic cabin decor, we lived in the only moment we had, the only one we were promised, the only one anyone can ever be promised.
Twice.