Chapter Ten #4
She whirled around, lowering her head, burying her face in her hands.
“You’re so infuriating.” She turned back to him, her cheeks crimson.
“I don’t know what either of us was thinking.
That we were going to go into this and come out the other side without changing anything?
We are idiots. We are idiots who didn’t let another human being touch us for years.
And somehow we thought we could come together and nothing would change?
I mean, it was one thing when it was just me.
I assumed that you went around having sex with women you didn’t like all the time. ”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because you don’t like anyone. So, that stands to reason. That you would sleep with women you don’t like. I certainly didn’t figure you didn’t sleep with women at all. That’s ridiculous. You’re... Look at you. Of course you have sex. Who would assume that you didn’t? Not me. That’s who.”
He gritted his teeth, wanting desperately to redirect the conversation.
Because it was going into territory that would end badly for both of them.
He wanted to leave the core of the energy arcing between them unspoken.
He wanted to make sure that neither of them acknowledged it.
He wanted to pretend he had no idea what she was thinking. No idea what she was about to say.
The problem was, he knew her. Better than he knew anyone else, maybe. And it had all happened in a week. A week of talking, of being skin to skin. Of being real.
No wonder he had spent so many years avoiding exactly this. No wonder he had spent so long hiding everything that he was, everything that he wanted. Because the alternative was letting it hang out there, exposed and acting as some kind of all-access pass to anyone who bothered to take a look.
“Well, you assumed wrong. But it doesn’t have to change anything. We have five more days, Maddy. Why does it have to be like this?”
“Honest?”
“Why do we have to fight with each other? We shouldn’t. We don’t have to. We don’t have to continue this discussion. We are not going to come to any kind of understanding, whatever you might think. Whatever you think you’re pushing for here...just don’t.”
“Are you going to walk away from this and just not change? Are you going to find another woman? Is that all this was? A chance for you to get your sexual mojo back? To prove that you could use a condom every time? Did you want me to sew you a little sexual merit badge for your new Boy Scout vest?” She let out a frustrated growl.
“I don’t want you to be a Boy Scout, Sam. I want you to be you.”
Sam growled, advancing on her. She backed away from him until her shoulder blades hit the wall. Then he pressed his palms to the flat surface on either side of her face. “You don’t want me to be me. Trust me. I don’t know how to give the kinds of things you want.”
“You don’t want to,” she said, the words soft, penetrating deeper than a shout ever could have.
“No, you don’t want me to.”
“Why is that so desperately important for you to make yourself believe?”
“Because it’s true.”
She let silence hang between them for a moment. “Why won’t you let yourself feel this?”
“What?”
“This is why you do farm animals. That’s what you said. And you said it was because nobody would want to see this. But that isn’t true. Everybody feels grief, Sam. Everybody has lost. Plenty of people would want to see what you would make from this. Why is it that you can’t do it?”
“You want me to go ahead and make a profit off my sins? Out of the way I hurt other people? You want me to make some kind of artistic homage to a father who never wanted me to do art in the first place? You want me to do a tribute to a woman whose death I contributed to.”
“Yes. Because it’s not about how anyone else feels. It’s about how you feel.”
He didn’t know why this reached in and cut him so deeply. He didn’t know why it bothered him so much. Mostly he didn’t know why he was having this conversation with her at all. It didn’t change anything. It didn’t change him.
“No,” she said, “that isn’t what I think you should do. It’s not about profiting off sins—real or perceived. It’s about you dealing with all of these things. It’s about you acknowledging that you have feelings.”
He snorted. “I’m entitled to more grief than Elizabeth’s parents? To any?”
“You lost somebody that you cared about. That matters. Of course it matters. You lost... I don’t know. She was pregnant. It was your baby. Of course that matters. Of course you think about it.”
“No,” he said, the words as flat as everything inside him. “I don’t. I don’t think about that. Ever. I don’t talk about it. I don’t do anything with it.”
“Except make sure you never make a piece of art that means anything to you. Except not sleep with anyone. Except punish yourself. Which you had such a clear vision of when you felt like I was doing it to myself but you seem to be completely blind to when it comes to you.”
“All right. Let’s examine your mistake, then, Maddy.
Since you’re so determined to draw a comparison between the two of us.
Who’s dead? Come on. Who died as a result of your youthful mistakes?
No one. Until you make a mistake like that, something that’s that irreversible, don’t pretend you have any idea what I’ve been through.
Don’t pretend you have any idea of what I should feel. ”
He despised himself for even saying that.
For saying he had been through something.
He didn’t deserve to walk around claiming that baggage.
It was why he didn’t like talking about it.
It was why he didn’t like thinking about it.
Because Elizabeth’s family members were the ones who had been left with a giant hole in their lives.
Not him. Because they were the ones who had to deal with her loss around the dinner table, with thinking about her on her birthday and all of the holidays they didn’t have her.
He didn’t even know when her birthday was.
“Well, I care about you,” Maddy said, her voice small. “Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“No,” he said, his voice rough. “Five more days, Maddy. That’s it. That’s all it can ever be.”
He should end it now. He knew that. Beyond anything else, he knew that he should end it now.
But if Maddy West had taught him anything, it was that he wasn’t nearly as controlled as he wanted to be.
At least, not where she was concerned. He could stand around and shout about it, self-flagellate all he wanted, but when push came to shove, he was going to make the selfish decision.
“Either you come to bed with me and we spend the rest of the night not talking, or you go home and we can forget the rest of this.”
Maddy nodded mutely. He expected her to turn and walk out the door. Maybe not even pausing to collect her clothes, in spite of the cold weather. Instead, she surprised him. Instead, she took his hand, even knowing the kind of devastation it had caused, and she turned and led him up the stairs.