Chapter 10 #3
He reaches for me, but I pull back ever so slightly.
I want him to take me, I want this so bad, but there’s something inside me, that stupid tightness, V’s echoing words, telling me this is all some sort of trick.
Even as he stares at me with those deep brown puppy dog eyes, mouth agape in a look of longing, my mind keeps telling me I’m an idiot to stay here, that he’ll tire of me any moment now.
He tries again, this time not for an embrace, but a gentle interlacing of fingers, and I give it to him, another compromise. For a moment, I let myself pretend that his fingers are a fortress, sheltering what little of my soul I can fit in my palm from the inevitable.
Slowly, that ease spreads up my arm, into my shoulder, helping me relax just enough that I no longer want to flee, but not so much that I’m not terrified of the moment.
I drop, rolling into him, head resting on his arm as he finally pulls me in to a tender embrace, that fortress expanding to the size of a titan generous enough to share a cigarette with a panicking lunatic.
“I’m so tired of running,” I whisper into the sheets, the words muffled and raw. “Tired of being the spectacle. The wild story. The 'one-night adventure.' The idiot chasing foolish dreams. I just want to be the last chapter. Not a juicy footnote.”
He pulls me close, as if he wishes he could force me inside him, let me wear him as a suit of armor to protect him from the horrors of the world.
The words he whispers in my ear are so kind and full of promise, they burn all the way to my heart.
“You're not a story, you're an epic, and I want to read every page.”
The burning behind my eyes, the pain that started when he asked me to stay, finally oozes out as unexpected tears, tracing a hot path down my cheeks and soaking into the skin of his arm.
It's somewhere between sadness and release.
The breath I didn't know I was holding rushes out of me in a shaky, relieved sigh.
I nuzzle back into him, wishing there were some way to be closer than the border's skin creates.
“An epic. That's what you called me. Not a cautionary tale. Not a tragedy. An epic.”
“I mean every word.”
For some reason, it’s not enough; those stupid voices in my head are still screaming at me, telling me that he’s just like Chad and all the others.
That even if he is the kindest, sweetest fruit I’ve ever tasted, he’ll sour eventually, just like they all do.
I pull myself up so I can look at him, my hair a disaster, my body slick with our mingled fluids, and yet despite the truth of the moment, the doubt is still there.
So I do the only other thing I’m good at, I lie, trying to pull the rug out from under myself before he can do it for me.
“I have to go, I have... obligations.”
Without a moment's hesitation, something hardens on his face. “Then I’ll follow, I’ll chase you if I have to.”
“You can’t mean that! You have a life here.”
“I can write on the road. I barely get paid at the bar, so it’s not like I’ll miss that.”
I can’t stand it, the abject terror, not of Manny, but of the possibility he keeps dangling between us. He’s giving me hope, the thing that’s hurt me so many times.
My defenses kick in, a last-ditch attempt to protect my heart. A bitter, self-deprecating laugh escapes my lips. I pull back, creating a sliver of space between us on the bed.
“You don't know what you're saying,” I say, shaking my head, my voice strained. “This isn’t one of your books! You'll 'chase' me, sweep me off my feet, and we’ll live happily ever after. But it's not that pretty.”
I gesture to the space around us, the tangled up sheets, my messy hair, and the still steaming dish towel in the sink. “It gets messy. My baggage is old, ancient, and it fights back.”
Manny sits up, a fire in his eyes I’ve only seen when I’m on top of him. “There’s just one problem. I'm a writer. Maybe not famous, but I'm going to write the ending I want. And if that ending means chasing you to the end of the earth, then that's what I'll do.”
His face splits into a toothy grin as some thought plays behind his eyes. “Oh, this is going to be one hell of an epic.”
I stare, speechless. That toothy, ridiculously optimistic grin on his face should annoy me.
It should feel na?ve, unrealistic, foolish.
But instead... It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. He isn’t afraid of the mess, just like he isn’t afraid of me.
He sees my messiness not as a flaw to be managed, but as a plot twist, a complication to overcome, a challenge worthy of his art.
The last brittle piece of my armor cracks and falls away.
A watery laugh escapes me, a sound that feels like sunrise after a long, dark night.
My hands grasp his face as I fall into him, a deep kiss straining our faces, depriving us of air in exchange for something greater.
When I pull back to look at him, my eyes are shimmering, my own smile wide, as fierce and unburdened as the one creeping across Manny’s face.
The voices are still there, but for the moment, they are finally quiet.