Chapter 20
Twenty
“I don’t know what to do with my hands.”
The sound of the door still echoed in my ears, even long after it slammed.
I didn’t even remember walking home, just the blur of cold air, almost autumn already, the ache behind my ribs, the pins and needles in my hands, and dizziness.
Tears in my eyes, but they didn’t want to fall on my cheeks; just stayed there, blurring my eyesight.
So I just… moved, one foot carefully in front of the other, like I’d forgotten how they worked.
I made it home. I kicked off my shoes somewhere by the door, tossed my bag on a random chair.
Walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table like I had something to do there.
I didn’t. I just sat, hands flat on the table, staring at the chipped corner of the fridge, then the smudge on the window, then nothing at all.
Then my phone buzzed, the last sound I wanted to hear.
Paul?:
Alicia. Please.
Another buzz. Two more.
Paul?:
I know what I did.
But don’t let it end like that. Not like this.
Please, let me know you made it home safely, at least.
I turned the screen face down, didn’t want to see his name, not like that anymore. But a minute later, I flipped it back over to find another message already there.
Paul?:
I can’t give you everything. I’m so fucking sorry.
But I still need to know if you’re safe. I will always need to know if you’re safe.
I read it once, while my eyes burned, but still didn’t tear up. My chest felt like it was filled with smoke.
Paul?:
Alicia.
I’m going mental over here.
I’m coming over. I don’t know what else to do.
If you don’t want me to, just say it. But if you don’t say anything, I’m already on my way.
I stared at the words like they were in a foreign language.
He was the one who spoke in half-truths, who made me believe, played home with me while loving someone else.
I looked down at myself: still in the same clothes, with a small wine stain.
My fingers were trembling again, and I couldn’t steady them.
The same way they tremble when I think about touching a cockpit door.
Me:
You shouldn’t. Stop.
So I just sat there, with no intention of changing or waiting for anyone, watching the light flicker from the streetlamp outside, my heart beating too fast and too slow at once, still wondering if the final page of this story was already written… or if I was about to watch him rip it out.
It felt like I had been sitting at the kitchen table for hours, when in reality only twenty minutes or so had gone by.
Still trying to understand what had happened, not just a few hours and days ago, but throughout the sun brought by spring and summer.
The fridge hummed rhythmically—or my ears did.
The streetlamp outside still flickered; someone really should take care of it.
Paul?:
I don’t want this to be the last thing. I don’t know what I’m doing.
Just let me see you. Please.
Alicia. I’m outside.
Then, slowly, like I wasn’t even inside my own body, I stood up.
The hallway felt longer than usual, and every step toward the door made the ringing in my ears louder.
When I opened it, he was there: his hair messy from the wind, a hoodie pulled over his head, he looked tired, like he hadn’t slept since he got back.
His eyes were glassy, probably from wine, and the same sadness that had shattered me earlier was still in them.
Maybe even more. He didn’t say anything at first, just looked at me, trying to read me, but I was numb and looked numb.
“I didn’t want it to end like that. Your last words about saving your dignity nearly killed me, Alicia. When I’m the one who lost it.”
His eyes scanned the house like he was checking if we were alone, and continued. “I shouldn’t have played those songs,” he said, standing there, not moving closer. “I thought maybe I could… explain something I don’t even understand myself.”
“You didn’t lie,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
“That’s the thing. You didn’t say anything false with that song.
It was beautiful. Loving someone else is not a sin.
Making me believe you could love me is cruel.
Speaking in half-truths is cruel. Hiding from the world is.
Letting me share everything with you is.
Making me wonder now whether you were thinking about someone else while touching me is.
Making me wonder if you just needed me to fill your loneliness or void is.
And finally, saying this is more than a fling, more than chemistry, to make me fall in love with you and want to touch you, and be hugged by you all the time, is the cruelest of all. ”
He winced, like it hurt to be understood, and to understand his biggest mistake: that he let me believe he could be anything more than going to that meadow and forgetting everything. Then a silence so heavy settled between us it could have swallowed the living room.
He took a tentative step toward me. Then another. Stopped, just inches away. His hand moved near my jaw. “Can I…” he asked, but didn’t finish the question and didn’t allow me to answer.
He cupped my cheek. His thumb brushed under my eye, where the salt of tears had dried, worried and caring.
Then, he leaned in. As always, almost half-bent to reach me twelve inches lower.
A kiss. Just a soft press of lips like an apology without language.
He tasted like wine, and something stronger: rum, or whisky.
“Do you want tea?” he asked suddenly, eyes flicking to the kitchen. “Water? I… I don’t know what to do with my hands.”
I shook my head, unsure if it was a no or a yes, or a please don’t talk.
“I’m not here to fix anything,” he said, more to himself than me. “I just… needed to be close to you tonight, wanted to see that you’re safe. That you’re… you. That’s all I know.”
I allowed myself to take a small breath while he stepped closer. His arms slid around my waist, and I let him pull me in. I let him hold me so I didn’t break down in tears. He kissed me again, slower this time. Then we moved to the bedroom without a word, tiptoeing around a burning room.
He undressed me slowly, carefully, like it was the last time, and he didn’t want to miss a single detail. I missed him already. And—quite tragically—needed him, because I felt calmest when he was this close.
I let him kiss my shoulder blade, my scarred neck, my stomach.
I watched his face as he moved above me, and I saw everything I didn’t want to see: pain, guilt, tenderness, confusion.
Awe, maybe, but not the kind that stays.
He entered me with his face buried in my hair, breathing into my neck.
We moved together in a rhythm that wasn’t about lust, not anymore.
It was quiet, almost unbearably so, with eyes locked after a while.
Breathing shallow. No moans. No dirty talk.
Just the ache of two people holding onto something already slipping through their fingers.
At one point, his hand tangled in mine. At another, I whispered, “Just look into my eyes. What do you see?”
Still melted into one another, he said between broken breaths, “You… This hazel… is liquid gold.”
He came into me with his messy hair and face buried between the curve of my breasts.
Still holding my hand. We lay there in silence for I don’t know how long.
His breath slowed, but mine didn’t. I turned my head to the side, away from him, and the tears came quietly, landing on my cheekbones.
He kissed them off me, gently. His arm tightened slightly around my waist, and that, somehow, hurt more than if he’d pulled away.
We didn’t move for a long time. He lay behind me, his chest warm against my back, his hand resting over my stomach like home. Like… he loved me.
The light was fading outside, smearing amber across the ceiling. Vancouver Island’s early autumn dusk made everything look more golden than it deserved to be. Like the moment might break if I inhaled too deep. Paul shifted, brushing his nose against the back of my neck.
“You need to go. My family will be home soon,” I said, a sad hush. “I don’t want them to see me like this. They don’t need more of my tears.”
He sat up slowly, and I felt the bed tilt with his weight.
Then the rustle of him finding his shirt on the floor and pulling it over his head, moving like someone trying not to wake a sleeping animal, like he was trying to leave without leaving a trace.
By the time I sat up, he was at the door, hand on the knob.
“Paul.”
He turned. I looked at him for what felt like the first time in hours. He looked broken. Less like the man who’d pulled me into the sky and more like the boy who never really landed. I opened my mouth to say something. Closed it. Opened it again.
“I’ll see you at the office.”
He stood there, caught between staying and running, as always.
His lips parted, maybe to say something, but nothing came, only a small, almost imperceptible nod.
I saw the ache bloom in his eyes and the apology he didn’t know how to shape.
And then the door clicked shut between us.
I didn’t cry right away. I stood still in the hallway instead, listening.
He didn’t move at first—I could feel him still on the other side.
And then I heard it: the soft creak of the stairs.
His walking away. That’s when the sound came out of me: just one broken, breathless sound, like something inside me, my ribs, were collapsing.
And then I heard the familiar sound of a key in the front door downstairs.
My family was home.