Chapter 35 #2
Could I pick her out in a crowd at all?
Just as the room begins to close in on me, an arm hooks mine and pulls me toward the wall.
“What is going on with you?” Emma whispers.
“I don’t know,” I grit out, swaying on my feet.
She looks around, checking if anyone is watching, but no one is.
They’re all focused on the party, enjoying themselves, living in the moment.
Something I am clearly incapable of doing.
She realizes she’s gripping my arm too hard and drops it, frustration simmering in her eyes before she smothers it.
Why won’t she just fight with me? I’m not breakable.
“Why were you just standing there like a powered-down robot?”
I scoff. “What are you talking about?”
She scoffs back, incredulous. “Steven. You’re just standing out there like a statue. Like you for—”
She slaps a hand over her mouth, horrified, her emerald eyes instantly glistening with tears.
“Like I what?” I bite out. “Forgot?”
“I didn’t mean…” She covers her face with her hands. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“Yes, you did.”
“Steven, no.” She looks at me with such a pained look it punches me right in the chest. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry,” she rasps.
I rub a hand over my face, my button-down shirt stretching against my arms and back. She’s close enough to touch, close enough to want, and my mind feels blank. It doesn’t know what to do. But her eyes are begging me to know, to figure it out, to do something.
The ability to breathe starts to slip away the longer she looks at me.
“I need air,” I say, bolting for the back door.
The alley is cold and dark, with one streetlamp buzzing overhead. The stupid, gaping holes in my mind scream like air passing through a wind tunnel. My head pulses as I pace back and forth.
The door I came out of squeaks open as Emma steps out, washed in the yellow light of the streetlamp like a halo, like a neon sign that says look at what you’re running from, you idiot.
Her green silk dress glows softly, hugging her curves in places I dream of, places meant for my hands.
My fingers twitch at the longing that moves through me, filling my mind with new things. Desire, heat, adoration.
“Steven, what is happening?” She steps toward me but halts. Again, like I’m a bomb or a deer she might scare off.
“Stop doing that!” The shout blasts out of me before I can stop it, and she flinches.
“What am I doing?” she murmurs through chattering teeth, hugging herself. The air slaps us, and she shivers as goosebumps scatter across her arms and chest.
I strip off my jacket and wrap it around her shoulders.
“What am I doing wrong?” she whispers.
My anger is quickly replaced with regret, the heat dissipating and replaced with a stale, sticky cold that clings to my neck.
“It’s not you.”
She snorts, mimicking a deep, dramatic voice. “It’s not you; it’s me.”
I smile, sliding my hands up her arms, tugging the jacket to cover the bare skin of her chest and neck.
Her breaths hitch and fall unevenly, goosebumps rippling as I tug her closer.
My lips brush the hollow of her neck and the wisps of hair that dangle near her jaw.
“You’ve done nothing wrong,” I murmur against her skin.
I pull her into me, not knowing what else to do, but it seems like enough in the moment.
Emma’s body melts into mine, and her trembling eases as she grabs a fistful of my shirt and pulls me flush against her.
A shiver runs down me, settling deep in my core at the feel of her against me, how well we fit together.
“I’m sorry for what I said,” she breathes.
“Don’t apologize.”
“But I am.”
“Emma, stop.” I step back just enough to block the wind. “You don’t have to apologize. You don’t have to tiptoe around me. I know what I looked like in there. A lunatic staring at a table. I need to get a grip.”
“You’re going through a lot, Steven.”
“You are too, damn it!” My voice ricochets off the brick, and she winces. I inhale sharply, pressing her wrists to my chest, feeling terrified to let her go.
“We’re all going through a lot right now,” I say. “You don’t need to treat me like some feral cat that’ll bolt if you make eye contact with me. I’m a grown man. I’m not going to run away.”
Something about my words hits her too hard, and she stumbles back, the jacket slipping down her arms.
“What? No, come here.” I reach for her.
“I…I think I need to go,” she whispers.
“What are you talking about?”
“I have work Monday, the boys have school. I think we should go home early.”
I blink. “Okay, we can leave first thing in the morning.”
“No.” She swallows hard. “I think you should stay here.”
“You don’t want me to come?”
“That’s not…” She breathes, her eyes fighting the urge to look away again. “I think, like you said, we’re all going through a lot. I think you need space. Time to work through all of this. Time to see if things come back and…”
“And what?” I snap. “See if my life is better without you in it?”
She gapes at me, but her silence is answer enough. I know it’s what she’s thinking. She thinks if I’m away from her long enough, I’ll realize I don’t want her. That losing my memories will show me I’m better off without her.
“That’s not—”
“Emma, please. I know, okay? I know what you’re thinking.” My voice shakes, but I push on. “You think this is your fault. That you’re the reason things are hard. That I’m too stressed because of you.” I swallow. “You probably even think you’re the reason this”—I tap my temple—“happened.”
She recoils like I’ve offended her. Maybe I have, but the truth hurts. And she can’t keep running from it.
“I…” Her mouth opens, closes. She drags her teeth over her red lip, her lipstick for the night still firmly painted there. “I don’t know how to help you. I feel like everything I do makes it worse.” Her voice trembles at the admission, at the pain she’s feeling.
I don’t want her to go. But I don’t know if forcing her to stay will be any better.
“Please don’t leave,” I say, and my voice cracks so pathetically it barely sounds like mine. “Please, Emma.”
Her tears fall onto my fingers as I cup her face. My thumbs trace her cheekbones, her lips, her jaw, desperate to keep her. She’s slipping away, and I can’t stop her.
I love you, I want to tell her. My mouth opens to say it, but all that comes out is, “I can’t do this without you.”
I’ve never felt so weak, so vulnerable. I know myself enough to know I would never let a woman see me this way.
This fragile shell of a man. And something tells me I haven’t let myself break in front of her before.
At least not fully. I can tell by the way her eyes search mine, searching for reassurance that she’s not the only one falling apart.
Tell her she’s not alone. Tell her.
Disappointment and heartbreak glaze her eyes when I don’t say anything else. Her hand finds my cheek as she traces the stubble along my jaw. She presses a trembling kiss to the corner of my mouth and heads for the door.
“Emma, wait.” I grab her waist, pulling her to me, longing to hold her here forever.
My mouth finds hers before she can answer.
She gasps then rises onto her toes, kissing me back like it’s innate in her.
Her hands cradle my face, and my fingers trace up her back, her heartbeat hammering against mine.
“Steven,” she pants, the taste of champagne lingering as her lips brush mine.
I want her so bad, so deeply, I feel it in the blood that courses through my veins.
An aching pulse that travels so fast I feel flushed and lightheaded as she moves against me, kissing me the way I know we used to.
It’s familiar, the taste of her, the feel of her, the sheer euphoria of us.
For one perfect moment, everything feels right… and entirely mine.
But then she stops. Panting, she pulls back from me, her lipstick now gone and cheeks flushed. Her eyes are shining as she gazes up at me in a way I long for, a way that says she loves me. I’m still clinging to her, chest to chest, hands splayed across her back, reluctant to let her go.
“Maybe some time at home will be good for you,” she whispers, brushing her thumb across her lips and then mine.
“Em,” I whimper, shutting my eyes.
“Hey.” She tilts my face up, and I open my eyes. There’s a flicker of reassurance in her eyes, a promise there that I so desperately need. “I’m not abandoning you. Stay here, work through things, and come back when you’re ready. I’ll be waiting for you, and we’ll figure out what to do next.”
Then she’s gone, and I’m alone in the alley when an awful thought sinks in.
What if her version of next doesn’t include me?