Chapter Twenty-Four
“I can’t do this right now.” Julia’s voice shook as she tried to close the door, but Marin’s trembling hand stopped her.
“Please, Jules. Please,” she begged, her hand still firmly placed, holding the door open.
Marin paused as she took her in, in her entirety. Julia hadn’t slept in days. Dark bags cupped her sleepless eyes. Her face was puffy, not from crying, but from the fear that held her down. Her clothes were stretched and baggy from being over worn, overslept in. Her hair was blatantly ill kept and fell in tangled twirls from her clip. She looked disheveled in a way she never had before. It was the picture of everything Julia Jenner was not.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her eyes turned downward in genuine concern. Her chapped lips parted slightly, words hanging on the tip of her tongue. How long did she wait outside that door in the cold before she rang that bell?
“I can’t do this, Marin.” Julia shook her head. “Not today. Not right now.”
“I’m sorry,” her raspy voice came out breathless gasp, desperate to say it before Julia closed the door.
“What?” she asked.
She heard her; she just couldn’t process the statement. She had to fight back the tears that threatened to make their grand appearance. Of course. Now she’d cry, in front of the woman who didn’t deserve her tears.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I’m sorry for everything,” she paused, hoping Julia would fill the space, but she couldn’t. “Please, let me in.”
Julia stood there, one hand across her stomach gripping her waist at the other side and the other still firmly on the door. She could close it. If she pushed it hard enough, Marin would have to let go. She’d ignore the doorbell and knocks that’d follow, and eventually it would stop.
“I signed your damn papers.” Her voice was quiet but layers of disdain could be tasted at the last note. “You’re free.”
Marin’s face winced at the word free, as if she wasn’t the one who walked out without another word, throwing fifteen years of marriage down the drain.
Julia wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to do this, that she could just leave. She was finally liberated; there was no more of her old bag and chain to weigh her down. She could live her life the way she’d always wanted, go after what she was missing, and there’d be nothing to hold her back. Not anymore.
“I never wanted to be free,” she sighed, her voice broken beneath layers of regret.
Julia didn’t know she was doing it, but she opened the door further so she could step inside. Marin hovered in the hallway, eyes glued to the empty walls that still hadn’t been cleaned. She looked around at the lack of decor, lack of her presence, lack of a life moving on.
“I’ll make some tea,” Julia murmured, walking to the kitchen as she rubbed her eyes.
She put on the kettle as Marin walked slowly from the entryway–her eyes darting across rooms and solemnly falling to the floor. She inched closer to the kitchen, her eyes scanning over the living room. Julia’s blanket and pillows were on the couch, ruffled and wrinkled, obviously used for days that blended together.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” Marin asked, pulling her red hair behind her ears. She leaned on the island, gripping her shaking hands together.
“I haven’t been feeling well,” Julia answered reluctantly.
She turned towards the cabinet and took down two mugs. Her hand hovered over the ceramic one Marin always used–the one she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of–but she chose the green one next to it instead.
“Maybe you should see Dr. Rosel,” she suggested with good intentions, but Julia turned to her with a defeated look. A look of surrender? A look of exhaustion? “I’m sorry–it’s not my place.”
“It’s not,” Julia quietly agreed.
She placed her hands firmly on the countertop, her back to Marin. She closed her eyes tightly as a deep breath filled her lungs and the kettle screeched in the distance. She poured steaming water into both of their cups and set them aside to steep.
Leaning on the counter, she turned back to her red-haired beauty. Oh, how she missed staring at those ocean-depth eyes. Marin’s sweatshirt hung over her jeans, but they didn’t look basic on her. She was all her own, undeniably.
They stood in silence. Julia turned back towards the tea, dripping just a little honey into Marin’s.
“You remember,” she said and smiled as Julia slid it across the counter.
“I made it for you like this for almost twenty years.” Her voice was colder than she intended. “You don’t just forget.”
“Right,” she said as she nodded slowly, avoiding eye contact entirely.
“So, what is it?” asked Julia. “What is so important that you need to talk to me right now?”
Marin thought about her answer, turning towards the living room when words failed her. “Did you throw them away?” she said, motioning to the blank walls.
Julia just looked at her for a moment. She was going to give her another cold, feelingless answer. It was right on the tip of her tongue. Then she really looked at her. Her already thin face was sunken in, eyes not sparkling like they used to. When she pulled her lips up to smile, it was just slight and then gone.
“No,” she surrendered. “Never. They’re in a box in the basement. You can have them.”
“Oh,” Marin replied.
Her voice was so soft, so relieved and hurt at the same time, that it twisted Julia’s stomach even more. Was this just as hard for her as it was for Julia–to have her standing in a place that was empty due to her absence for so long?
“Come sit,” Julia suggested, but more for her weak legs than the comfort of her guest.
Julia picked up her tea and walked to the couch. She pushed the blankets to the side and took a seat. Marin could have sat next to her, but she took the safe route and sat in the chair on the other side of the room. She held her warm mug in her hands, her eyes never leaving the steam swirling above it.
“I meant it when I said I’m sorry.” She briefly looked up. “I will forever be sorry.”
“Why?” Julia asked.
She wasn’t trying to get a rise out of her. She wasn’t trying to be coy. She wanted to know how she could be so sorry, but do it anyway. Not just stick with it for a few days and then come back, but a year of nothingness.
“Because you always deserved better.” She let out an exasperated breath, tears glossing over her eyes.
Julia involuntarily grunted, her eyes rolling. That was crap. The biggest steaming pile of crap she’d heard in a longtime. You don’t just leave decades of a life with a woman you claim to love without another word and then come back and tell them they deserved better. No shit, Sherlock.
“And yet, you never reached out. Never called. Never explained what happened. You never gave me the chance–”
“I’m sorry for that too,” she cut in.
“What happened?”
Julia could barely fight the tears. She was too afraid to blink because then they’d start falling and never stop. They slammed on a door in the back of her eyelids, splitting the wood as they begged to be let out.
“I didn’t know the state we were in,” Julia confessed. “Not to the extent it would have taken for you to leave me.”
“I, I, I,” she couldn’t get it out–tears glistening over the cerulean in her eyes, “I woke up one morning and you were still asleep.” She set her tea down on the table as she wiped above her cheeks. “I just looked at you and I felt so much love, even after all that time. I looked around and I couldn’t remember what we were doing. I couldn’t remember the last time I made you laugh–really laugh. I couldn’t remember the last time I thanked you for making my lunch, or getting me tea, or making the bed. I couldn’t remember the last time I told you how beautiful you are.”
Julia’s face was now covered in streams of salty tears blurring her vision, but she refused to wipe them–too afraid that if she allowed her eyes to close even for a mili-second, Marin would disappear just like last time.
“I realized I was no longer good for you. I was always mad,” she paused, “and at you, of all people, when you were nothing but the sweetest partner anyone could ask for. I wasn’t putting you first. I wasn’t thinking about how my words, or how the lack of, could hurt you.”
“And so you ran away instead of telling me?”
“Jules, I ran away because I didn’t know how to fix something that broken.” Now she was crying too. “My love,” she sobbed, “I wanted you so badly to be happy… It killed me when I realized that I couldn’t do that anymore.”
Julia sighed and stood, grabbing the tissue box before her shirt was permanently stained. She pulled out a few and then slid it across the table to Marin. She didn’t sit back down. She paced behind the couch–the tissue pressed firmly on her eyelids until red dots blurred her vision like painful sun rays.
“You know what?” She stopped walking and faced her. “You shouldn’t have made that decision for me. You don’t get to go around and make decisions that affect us both. You don’t get to leave and leave me in this big house! You don’t get to make me think it’s my fault!”
“You’re right.”
“You don’t even get to say that,” Julia’s voice broke. “I tried. God knows I tried, Mar.”
Tears streamed down her face and soaked her sweater. She wiped them with her already drenched tissue, smearing those salty droplets across her skin. Marin leaned forward on her knees, her legs and hands visibly shaking.
“You tried harder than you should have,” she agreed. “You were trying for the both of us when I already gave up.”
Her voice cut off at the end. She broke into such a gut clenching cry that she hid her face in her hands. How could something happen so long ago but still be so fresh? How could any layer of healing be instantly taken away by such a momentous flood?
“Why,” Julia cried, “why couldn’t you just admit that then?”
“Because I didn’t realize it until I was too far gone,” she confessed–her tears streaking mascara down her face. “I told myself over and over that you were better off without me. I said it again and again until I believed it. I couldn’t bring myself to see you because I knew I couldn’t walk away from you again. I never wanted to in the first time. Then I saw you in that theater and I didn’t know what to do.”
“I just started to heal.” Julia held her breath, forcing the cries to settle in the back of her throat. “I just started learning how to pick myself off the floor and then there you were calling me Jules.” She gasped for air–holding her breath for too long as she shunned all feeling away.
“I didn’t know–”
“You should have known.”
Marin was now on her feet, walking towards Julia, who was leaning against the back of the couch for support. She placed her hand on her back, the feeling of her fingertips like the warmth of the sun on a chilly November night.
“When was the last time you thought of me before seeing me in that theater?” Julia asked.
She looked up into Marin’s glistening eyes, lost in the comfort of her scent. Marin pulled her into a hug, Julia’s face nestled into the curve of her neck. She still smelled like feminine spice, like fresh apple pie during the holidays.
“Every day,” she breathed into her hair, “every single day I thought of you. Every day I remembered what we had. I don’t know why it took me so long to realize how special it was.”
They clung to each other like it was the last thing they had left. They sobbed into hair, onto skin, making it sticky and wet. Everything was felt in those fingertips, the pounding of their heartbeats reverberating back and forth.
“I’m so sorry,” Marin cried. “I wish I could take it all back.”
Julia looked up into those crystal eyes, awkwardly wiping the tears from her cheeks. Just months ago, she would have given anything to have those eyes looking at her like they were. She dreamed about it, and on some days she even prayed. But now?
That’s when Marin kissed her.
She placed a gentle hand on her cheek and pulled her into her lips before Julia could even recognize what was happening. They rushed together like rain on damp dirt, soaking up every inch, taking every breath within her.
Marin pulled her closer, lips lost in the time it took to find Julia’s again. At first it was slow, finding that familiar rhythm again. Then her hands slid down to Julia’s side and her breath was stolen. Marin pulled away and smiled.
Before she would have given anything to bring her back, anything to feel her velvet skin. But this feels wrong. She should push her away, should remind her of all the reasons she left in the first place. Instead, she pulled Marin back to her, desperate to remind her of everything she lost, desperate to be the one thing that holds her together.
Marin pinned Julia to the back of the couch–her spine arching to reach her face. They kissed so passionately–hands tangled in clothes, in skin, in hair–they fell over the couch in a heap, laughing as their fingers found their place once again beneath clothes.
Kisses grew deeper and hands traveled farther until Julia’s shirt was on the floor and Marin’s clung around her neck. Julia followed her lips as she stood and walked backwards to the bedroom. She followed. She would follow her to the ends of the Earth, to hell if that’s what it took.
They fell into the bedroom–quite literally–Marin still walking backwards as she tumbled to the floor. Julia rolled on top of her, straddling her at her hips. As she kissed her–Marin’s hands traveled beneath the loose waistband of her sweats–everything she feared came rushing back.
She wished for this. She imagined this. They’d been here before. They’d done this a million times, but it felt different. It was different.
They began inching towards the bed, their lips never parting. Julia pulled Marin’s jeans off, allowing her hands to linger at the zipper longer than she needed. She soaked up every inch of her, drinking in her taste and scent as she trailed along her body.
But...
Marin stood and pulled her to the edge of the bed. She picked her up–strength that didn’t match her slim build–and plopped her down in the fluff of the comforter. She smiled as she dipped down again to kiss her neck. She traveled down the swell of her breasts, to the line on her stomach, kissing her hip bone as she pulled those ratty sweatpants off.
Marin paused for a moment, lost in the sight of her–lust in her eyes as her lips parted just slightly–and then bent down to kiss the dip in her hip again.
Julia fell so deep into it, tried so hard to push out the thoughts that plagued her head. She allowed her body to give in to every quivering impulse as Marin laid on top of her, kissing every part of her, pushing against her hips.
Then she started wondering what comes next. Could they just pick the baggage up right where they left it? They put the pen down and stopped writing their story. The book was closed, sealed in a vault a million layers deep with no combination. After a year has passed, could that story just begin again as if nothing happened?
Erin.
She couldn’t do it.
As Marin kissed her again and reached behind her body to unhook her bra, her free hand strolled down Julia’s leg. It came back up, resting just lightly over the soft skin where her pelvis met her inner thigh. The latch of her bra broke free as Marin’s fingers became dangerously close to grazing over her lace panties.
Julia wanted her so badly, wanted to sink back into the way their bodies moved–wanted to kiss every inch of her, tracing each curve to make sure nothing was out of place. She wanted it all back. She shouldn’t have been stripped of it in the first place. But she was.
“Stop,” Julia muffled through staggering breaths and a face full of red hair, “please, stop.”
Marin pulled away abruptly, shifting her weight to the bed in an instant. They both breathed heavily, completely out of sync. The world came spinning into view.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, still fighting for a steady flow of air. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” Julia shook her head, pulling her hands to her face. She was too embarrassed, too, over her head. “I just can’t do this.”
“What do you mean?” Marin leaned on her elbow, pulling up the sheet to cover her almost naked body. Fear and embarrassment flushed her face in strokes of pink and red.
Julia turned towards her–well past the point of feeling the need to hide her bare body from the woman who could identify every stretch mark on it. She held a hand up to Marin’s face, gracing it so sensually with her thumb before dropping it to the bed.
“All of those reasons,” Julia quietly spoke, tears clouding her vision once again, “all of those reasons you left before still exist. I’m still the same person who drove you away. Even if we do this–even if we allow ourselves this one time–they’ll always be there. I’m too old to fix myself.” A tear escaped her eye and plopped onto the disheveled sheet below her. “And I don’t want to spend the rest of my life trying to fix us anymore.”
This was goodbye. It was the moment when all the chess pieces fell in line. The game was over.
Marin’s eyes were now full of tears, too. They glistened too brightly, making Julia too aware of all of the pain they held. She folded into her, their warm bodies pressed together as one while they clung on. Every year of happiness, every moment of pure ecstasy, every laugh, every smile was squeezed into that embrace.
It would be too easy to release into the comfort of Marin’s body–too easy to forget that it would mean something–and allow herself to take the skin that was once hers. But it would never mean what it used to. They could never have what they once had. No amount of plaster or putty would fix it.
“You will forever be my once in a lifetime love,” Marin cried into Julia’s ear, her hair soaked with years of regrets.
Julia didn’t realize how much she needed to hear that–how much she needed to know that she meant more than the exit Marin made from their lives.
“And you will forever be mine,” Julia’s voice broke, but she refused to sob.
She held onto the woman who was once the light of her life as she held her own breath, too afraid of what might break, what might crumble within her if she let it go.
The sun disappeared over the horizon and left them curled into each other’s arms in dusk covered darkness–their bare bodies still twisted into the other with nothing but a cold sheet draped over them as armor.
Somehow, laying there listening to Marin’s breath heave and fall–the warmth of her vulnerability wrapping her in such deep comfort–was more intimate than any love making could have been. For the first time in what felt like a never ending cave of blackness, she found home once again, but now for the last time.