Chapter 24
SIENNA
We slept, we made love, kissed, held each other. For two days now, that’s all we’ve done. The sun came out and then it started raining again and then the sun came again, but we’ve just been ensconced in our little motel room. No rush to go anywhere, just enjoying each other.
“This is just like the good old days, isn’t it?” I ask, snatching the last French fry from the huge meal of hamburgers, fries, onion rings, chocolate milkshakes, and apple pie we had delivered, since we missed breakfast and lunch today.
But the fry tastes like cardboard as I chew it. Because clouds are gathering over his peaceful ocean blue eyes and I had promised myself that I will not ruin what we have here, what we’re rebuilding, by talking.
But there I went, spoiling everything before it could even get started, because that’s what I do. I spoil and destroy. Especially the things that matter to me the most.
“We could’ve had ten years of this,” he says and starts tossing the empty food wrappers into the paper bag it all came in.
It’s raining so hard outside it looks like someone is emptying bucket after bucket of water right outside our window. I feel the coldness of that water deep in my chest, feel it beating against me and I have nowhere to hide, because there is no shelter to find.
“I suppose this is where you tell me we’re hitting the road to LA now,” I say and toss my half eaten French fry in the bag with the rest of the trash. “So you can get rid of me for good.”
He’s not saying anything and I dare not look at him. I don’t want to see that I’m right, I don’t want to hear it.
I want for the past five minutes to never have happened.
I want to go back in time to where I stole the last fry and say something different, like, you snooze, you lose.
Or something else childish like that, something that would make him come take that fry back by kissing me, and then lay me down on the bed so we can start working up the hunger for our next meal together.
“I’m fine right here,” he finally says and I’m almost certain I didn’t hear him right, but I look at him hopefully anyway.
He’s not exactly smiling, and the clouds aren’t completely gone from his eyes, but he’s not frowning darkly either.
“There’s nothing there for me in LA,” he says. “There’s nothing for me anywhere. Everything I touch just turns to shit.”
“You and me both,” I say, cracking a grin which isn’t exactly a happy one.
He nods and shrugs at the same time.
“So I guess we should stick together, right?” I ask, with so much hope in my voice I cringe. I wanted to sound cool and sarcastic and flippant. But I guess we’re way past that.
He doesn’t nod this time, just locks eyes with mine. I never wished I could read what someone was thinking as much as I wish for that ability right now.
But do I even want to know the truth of what he’s really thinking? Probably not.
As long as he’s with me, as long as he’s not sending me away, I’m just fine, I don’t need anything else.
“There’s no going back to the way things were,” he says. “I’m a wanted man. A fugitive. A danger to anyone with me.”
I take his hands in mine and squeeze. “You’re not a danger to me. And even if you were, I’d gladly walk through fire with you. Or for you.”
It’s what I wanted to say to him so many times while we were apart.
“I cursed myself so many times for abandoning you like I did,” I say. “I never should’ve done it. I should’ve told everyone you did it for me.”
He scoffs even as he holds my hands tighter. “Why? Then we’d both be in prison. Separately. No, you did the right thing cutting me loose.”
“I should’ve at least stayed by your side when you were arrested and put on trial,” I say. “I should’ve done that.”
He shrugs. “Saying that now doesn’t change anything, Sienna.”
I love the sound of my name spoken in his voice. But hate everything else he just said. Most of all, I hate myself.
“Why didn’t you come get me when you escaped?”
He looks genuinely confused for a moment, before his eyes darken again.
“Because you washed your hands of me.”
“You still should’ve come to take me with you,” I say. “Because I’d have gone anywhere with you. And I still will.”
For the first time since he came back into my life his eyes turn soft. Like they were back in the day before he’d seen and done all the things that made him so very hard.
“Are you bullshitting me?” he asks sharply.
I shake my head. “No. Never.”
“Because if you’re lying to me again just to get what you want…”
“I never lied when I told you that I love you. Or that I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” I say. “And I’m not lying now when I say all that’s still true.”
He wants to believe me, I can see that much in his eyes. But I also see that he can’t.
I wish he’d just tell me he loves me too. But in what world would that be possible? Not this one.
“Let’s go back to bed,” I tell him and rise, still holding onto his hands like I have any hope of pulling him after me.
His hands just slip from my grasp. Just like the stupid words that started this hard, pointless, destroying conversation slipped from my mouth. And now here we are and neither of us knows how to move from here. At least I don’t.
I’m just standing there, looking at him hopefully, even though there’s no hope actually left in my heart.
But then he rises, smiling at me, and it’s like the sun came out again. Even though it’s night out and the buckets of rain are still pouring down in sheets outside the window.
“Why not?” he says, takes my hands and leads me to the bed.
And after he lays me down and kisses me, a little ember of hope lights back up in my heart.
It’s enough. It’s more than I deserve. And as it glows brighter and hotter, I’m daring to believe that it might just be enough to get us through this dark night. And all the dark nights to come.