Chapter 33 – “All I Want Is You” — U2
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
HENRY
I’ve been breathing the same air, at the same time, in the same place as Kait for months. It was once my fondest wish, but in my dreams, she was curled in my arms. My wish was granted the first time she giggled at the name on my coffee order.
Sad Eyes. Tiny Giggles. Eóghann.
Kait.
I’ve been going through life like a poltergeist haunting my own footsteps and quiet moments, but she made me feel like someone would notice if I quit showing up.
It was Kait whose giggles reminded me there was still a tiny bit of human connection left in my life that wasn’t family or a work obligation.
I threw what we had away, and here she is, again, helping me heal.
Watching her sad eyes turn into smiles made it easier for me to get up every morning. I’ve been mourning her while she’s brightening my darkest days. Have I been watching her recover from wounds I inflicted? Nausea hits hard and fast at the thought, and I clap my hand over my mouth.
Please, god. I send a tiny prayer upward. Please?
I catch up to her as she strides to the front door.
“Is it really you? Kait?” My voice breaks on her name.
She’s looking away from me, with her arms wrapped around her body. She doesn’t smile, she doesn’t frown, but she gives me a little nod.
“Have you always known?” Did she let Julian make an ass out of me for months for her amusement?
She tries to fight it, but her lips twitch, and a hint of a smile appears before she says, “Not until you said I was too cheap to buy one of my paintings for you.”
She’s regal in the dress and heels, with her hair tumbling down her back. She skips the pleasantries. “Let’s make this quick.”
I’m thinking of auburn-haired babies with highlights that shine like pennies in the sun and have my eyes and her perfect, full lips, and she wants to hurry up and finish this thing we had.
“We were circling ever so slightly closer every day,” she says, pained. “Duncan has told me twice this evening he wants to introduce me to his friend.”
She looks at me, her eyes kind but her smile hard.
She says, “Kaitlin. My name is Kaitlin.” And I understand she wants to get this over with.
Too many emotions are happening at once to parse them out, but the loudest one is gratitude. The most important question I have ever had—“Kait, will I ever hear your voice again?”—has been answered. Now I know her first name too.
“I am thankful for this opportunity to speak with you.” I sound like a robot, working hard to get every word out.
She bursts into real, honest laughter and says, “If you get any more nervous, we’ll be able to put coal up your ass to produce diamonds large enough to make De Beers jealous.” And that makes me smile a little. “Now that we’ve gotten our job interview greeting out of the way…”
“I don’t know what to say first. Do I tell you how much I love your art or beg for forgiveness first? Do I tell you how much I’ve missed you, or should I be quiet and let you speak?” I wince and close my eyes, willing myself to be silent.
“Are you okay?” she asks, answering none of my questions.
“Good. Fine. You know, good. I’m good. Fine, I guess, even.” It’s the kind of lie you tell a stranger who asks because it’s polite, not because it’s true. I can’t remember the last time I answered honestly. I haven’t been fine for a long time.
“Lies still do not become us, sir. Are the cone of candor rules still in play?” Her tone implies there’s a correct answer, and her eyes miss nothing.
“I think they should be. I mean, I’m used to it, and I would vote for yes, given the opportunity.” I can’t look away. I try, but I keep drifting back. I lied to her when we last spoke. I need to fix that.
“The cone stands,” she says with a nod. Her words are gentle, and she looks at me with concern as she studies me. “I’ll ask again, are you okay?”
I’m shit scared.
“I’m better today than I’ve been since May.” The most miserable days of my life.
She toys with the lip of her paper cup and says softly, “Well, everyone likes closure, don’t they?”
No. No, they don’t. I don’t want closure. Is this finishing the last chapter rather than starting a new one?
“I told you we would, at the minimum, be the kind of friends who have coffee. Here we are, in a coffee shop, doing what we’ve always said we were going to do.
This is supposed to be fun, right? I’m keeping my word.
” She looks at the walls of paintings and hesitates on the With Or Without You paintings.
She waves a hand toward a wall covered in paintings.
She plays with her cup, but she can’t hide.
The hint of anger, the pain in her eyes, sadness.
It’s all there. “I find this incredibly embarrassing. I wrote Rule Five, and yet I ended up in this situation.” Pretty sure Rule #5 is never trust a caller.
I deserve that reminder that I was special at one point and she shared things like her list of rules; now, I’m just another caller.
At a loss for something witty or profound to add, I try giving her something she used to want. “It’s lovely to finally meet you, Kait. I’m Henry Benedict Alister Sterling.”
She bursts into wry laughter. “The dog. The Declan Sterling got the damn dog to answer to Alister.” She guffaws, unabashed. I stare at her while she laughs at me, wiping tears from her eyes.
How lucky am I to see her laugh before she leaves me behind? Or is this adding fine details to the torture when she’s gone?
“Nice to meet you,” she says, shaking my hand like we’re at a business meeting. I’m touching her, and the heat of her soft hand slipping into mine echoes through my entire body like a gong.
“I’m Kaitlin Eóghann MacGregor. Another promise kept. I said we would have coffee one day and I’d tell you my name. That squares things up nicely.”
The stupid Henry poop song starts, and she can hear it too. She giggles, then sobers, looking over all of the paintings.
“I’m pretty sure ‘Lucky Man’ is supposed to be playing right now,” I say, and Kait winces. Moving on.
We sit at Kait’s favorite table like old friends who see each other every few years to honor the old out of obligation for a minute or two. “An Arrow In the Wall” plays in my head. I take it for the warning it is as she escorts me toward the door to usher me into the night.
“I’m glad we made time to do this like we always said we would. Closure obtained?” she asks, polite, her words soft, but her jaw clenches as she waits for my response.
No. No. The word is a scream in my brain. Closure has not been obtained. I’ve barely apologized. My chest is weighty, my heart a lead ball filled with regrets too numerous to count and too heavy to bear.
This was her word meaning something to her, not me meaning something to her.
I know her better than I know myself. She’s never coming back here for tea in the morning. To the depths of my soul, I understand that she will be vapor the second she leaves this shop. I know her name now, but I’m not welcome wherever she’s going.
I’m never going to see her again.
“Kait.” I’ve hurt her deeply. I’m still hurting her. I should let her go, but I can’t. Not without a fight. I’m not above begging, but I go with gut-wrenching candor, the kind that costs me something precious.
I stand my ground, holding space in the doorway while she holds the door open, politely imploring me to leave.
Now or never.
“Kait, if you can’t forgive the man who hurt you, maybe you can find a little grace for the one who’s been lost without you?
” I sniff, and then she sniffs, and the freaking busybodies and staff and everyone are watching.
I lean closer and whisper, “I must have left you wondering if any of it was real, while I was left knowing that I destroyed something extraordinary. Something magical.”
I want to comfort her, but I can’t bear to see her flinch away from my hand, so I stuff it in my pocket instead.
“Can we walk for a moment? The park across the street, no audience, some real truth that needs to be said?”
She’s quiet, her eyes sad, but she gives me a small nod.
We walk side by side and slowly stroll the perimeter of the small green space in the darkness.
She rubs her bare arms, and I put my too-large coat on her.
She starts to protest, but I must have a look because she allows me to help her into it.
“Thank you, H—” she says, cutting herself off, and it’s like a steak knife to my belly. “Thank you. You’re very thoughtful.”
I take a big breath, release it slowly while counting to ten, and summon courage. I stop, take another deep inhale, then launch into it. Eye contact with her while drowning in shame is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but she deserves it.
“Kait, there are no words to adequately describe how wrong I was or how sorry I am.” I say it while wrapping my scarf around her neck but holding her gaze.
“I watched that show and told myself I was being used yet again, but I acted out of fear. Fear of losing control, fear of putting myself out there, and more than anything, I knew one day I was going to call, and you’d be gone, off to grad school.
I thought it would be better for me to choose when our—”
Call it what it was, Henry.
“—relationship ended. I haven’t been okay since. I’m hollow, aimless, shuffling through life. I get on the plane, I show up on the conference calls, but my life is empty. Even worse, I know it’s empty.” I was lonely before her, but ignorance was bliss. It wasn’t painful; it was normal.
“It’s always been you. From the first time we spoke, it’s been you.
I’ve paid every single day for my stupidity and selfishness.
I see something funny, and I want to text you about it.
I fly to Ireland, and I miss talking to you before I go to sleep.
Everything, tea, chairs, music, sleeping, breathing…
it all reminds me of how much I miss you. ”
She’s listening but looking at some point in the far distance, and I’m grateful.
“I dream of you. I wake up thinking of you, and for a few seconds, I’m happy. Then I wake up, and it isn’t real, and the pain is fresh every morning. Time isn’t helping. I have tried to come up with ways to find you. You are more than I ever imagined, and I don’t deserve to be part of your life.”
I am a grown man sobbing in a public park, and that’s just going to have to be okay.
“You owe me nothing.” I sniff. “And I am profoundly sorry.”
She looks at me, locking eyes for a second and nodding before looking away. Real tears start silently spilling down her face. We find an empty park bench and sit, on our separate ends, not touching.
I look into her eyes and tell her what I should have said long ago. “You’re the only person I’ve ever trusted to know all of me.”
Something visibly softens when I say those words. Her shoulders relax, and she leans back into the bench.
“I’m finally with you, and I’m still mourning the loss of you. How do I convince you I’m deserving of a second chance when I’ve proven I’m not worthy?” I swipe at the tears. I’m shameless.
I have nothing to lose. I’m not sure how a person comes back from something like this.
“For a guy who doesn’t have a clue how to be in love, I know how to have a broken heart. I’m terrible at love, spoiled, and selfish too. But I will never intentionally hurt you again.” I man up and capture her eyes, and they are terrified. “We were never meant to end this way.”
I wait silently for her to decide our fate. I’ve stated my case, but she’s the jury.
She’s quiet. It’s comfortable silence; just enough time passes to let our tears slow and dry. I resist the urge to fling an arm around her and pull her close, like I would with anyone else in my life who was hurting.
She slowly nods, like she’s having a silent conversation with herself.
Maybe we can be friends. That would be a win. “Can we be—”
“First, we try, then—maybe—we trust.” She says it with a flinch, but she says it, and my heart soars. She knows me too well—it’s a riff on a line from one of my favorite movies from my teen years.
And when I can’t take one more wonderful thing without my heart imploding from the sheer wonder of it all, Kait reaches over and takes my shaking hand, lacing our fingers together. A hot zing starts in my fingers and sprawls through my body.
Her lips start to tilt up, a fraction of a smile, but it’s okay, my grin is big enough for both of us.
I may need a defibrillator.
We sit like that for a moment until Kait stands and tugs me to my feet with more strength than I expect.
She totters on her heels, and I step in to catch her before she tumbles.
Our bodies collide with an oof. She remains upright, safe and warm in my coat and my arms, and I don’t know who starts the kiss, I don’t know who steps into whom, but I groan as our mouths meet and our bodies align, perfect together.
One touch and I feel whole, like everything has locked into place, the timeline restored to the way it was meant to be.
Kait and Henry.
Henry and Kait. Together.
She’s right. We are inevitable.
Why I ever thought that our first kiss would be tentative or gentle, a soft brush of claiming interest, I don’t know, because this is world-ending, total devastation at its finest. Joy and heartbreak, love and tenderness—and a fair amount of bone-deep lust, if I’m being honest—all wrapped up in one endless kiss.
This is my ruination. The ending destiny prescribed.
I’m toast for all other women after a single brush of her plump lips on mine—as if I wasn’t before—and when I groan into her, Kait takes it as an invitation. It’s hard, deep, and frenzied, and I slide my fingers through her silken hair because I can’t resist.
You can be undone by a single kiss.
I am.
It’s so splendid that it spreads through all of me like warm maple syrup, coating me in pleasure that trickles down my nerve endings.
Phone Kait was amazing, but the reality of her here, her hands on me, is incomparable.
The tiny whimper she makes when I hold her close becomes a complaint of loss when we part.
It’s a minor miracle that I locate some tiny semblance of self-control before I ravish her on a public park bench. I start to pull away, but she has a vise grip on my tie and keeps me close until we’re both short of breath and panting.
“My place,” she says with a tug at my tie. It’s charming and, let’s be honest, incredibly hot. “Come with me?”
“No, mine is super close, two minutes away,” I say in protest. “Two minutes walking, max.”
Stop talking, Henry. The woman wants to show you where she lives. She’s not running away. Let her.
She laughs and points to a window on the other side of the street, a few stories above the Bean, with a view of the park. “I’m closer.”