Chapter 42 #2
“There what is?”
“That.” She said, pointing toward my face. “What is that?”
I wiped at my beard. “Do I have crumbs?”
“No. Not that.” She pointed again, higher on my face. Toward my eyes, maybe? “What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“The sadness in your eyes,” she replied. “Where’s that coming from?”
And there it was—her seeing me. Fuck me, I didn’t want to be seen so deeply so soon.
It had already been a bad week. We’d just reconnected.
I wanted to pretend that it would be easy.
I wanted to make believe that when Karla looked at me, she saw me like the rest of the world.
Like a man who was content and doing OK. That I was fine. But she didn’t.
She saw the shadows and called them out.
Why did you have to do that, Karla? We were doing so well.
All we had to do was eat some dessert and be light. I didn’t sign up for heaviness that evening.
I broke our eye contact and glanced at my watch before standing up.
“Shit, sorry Karla. I have to feed Rolls before he gets pissed at me. I forgot to refill his feeder. Plus, I also have to work early, you know, and if I want to get a workout in before my shift, I should at least get a few hours of sleep,” I rambled as I gathered myself.
“Thanks for having me over, though. This was nice. Real nice. It was nice to catch up, and we’ll have to do this again at some point. ” I didn’t look back at her.
I couldn’t.
“I’m sorry, I, uh, did I do something to offend you?” she said, a slight choke of hurt coming off her tongue.
I paused my steps.
I still didn’t look back at her.
“Karla. I swear, it’s not you.”
“Oh,” she said, this time even with more hurt. “Yes. Sorry. I understand.”
The tone of her voice proved that she didn’t exactly understand, though.
The tone of her voice proved that she completely misunderstood.
If she understood, she wouldn’t sound so sad.
As if she believed she did something wrong, which was a ridiculous concept, because she could never do anything wrong.
Her heart wasn’t made for that concept, and I was certain it never would be.
So I forced myself to turn around to meet her stare. Not for me, but for her well-being.
“It wasn’t you, Karla,” I whispered. “You are perfect.” She was. “But I promise, this is about me.” Even though I tried to push off how bad my past day had been, it was seeping out of my system. Most people wouldn’t have noticed. But Karla saw it.
She nodded at my response, and I hated that I’d turned to look her in the eyes.
Because that forced me to see the tears in hers.
That forced her to see my eyes, too. Which was bad, because the moment I noticed her teary eyes was the same exact moment she noticed mine.
And when I saw that she was sad, all I wanted to do was swallow up her hurt and take it on as my own.
Because I’d want to cry every tear for the rest of my life if it meant she never had to cry another. Besides, I was used to sad lately.
Sad was something I could handle.
She took a step toward me. “Ash—”
“Stop,” I begged, the word getting jumbled in my throat. I shut my eyes and held a pausing hand in her path. “Please, Karla,” I choked out. “Just let me go tonight.”
I couldn’t hear her footsteps anymore because she respected my request.
I swallowed a few breaths before I made it to the door to leave. There were only a few more steps for me to take before Karla called out my name. I stopped walking, but I didn’t turn to look at her.
I listened to her footsteps growing closer to me. Each one made my soul shiver from anticipation.
Her hand gently touched my back.
My whole body relaxed from that touch. How did she do that? Relax me and drive my mind into overdrive all at once?
I still didn’t turn to look at her.
I couldn’t.
If I looked at her one more time, I wouldn’t be able to leave, and I needed to leave. Now.
“What did it feel like for you, when you first saw me again?” she asked with her hand still on my back. “What did it feel like for you?”
I inhaled deeply and choked on the hesitant exhalation. “Like my very first breath in years.” I lowered my head as her hand stayed placed against my back. “What about for you?”
There was a moment of silence from her before she shared her thoughts.
“Home,” she replied as her fingers slowly slipped away from my back. “It felt like home.”
I didn’t say another word.
I left her standing on the rooftop. I headed downstairs and left her apartment. I drove back to my place. I sat in my darkened house. I sat across from Rian’s bedroom door, but I didn’t open it. I never opened it.
I mentally beat myself up for being scared. I shamed myself for walking away from Karla that night, because it felt like that for me, too.
She felt like home.
* * *
After my last time hanging out with Karla, I became shockingly busy whenever she reached out to me.
I didn’t completely ignore her text messages.
I responded, though with very short, simple responses.
When she asked me how I was, I said good.
When she asked me what I was up to, I said not too much.
I didn’t dive into any details, and I wondered if she was wondering why I was being so short.
God, I was such a dick. Karla was good, and I was treating her as if she wasn’t.
I knew I was, too. I just wasn’t prepared to feel so intensely around her.
And for some reason, adult Karla made me feel things even deeper than before.
It made no sense, and the feelings alone terrified me.
It even scared me how much I cared about her. Each second that passed, I cared more.
I had four great guy friends who meant the world to me. I’d die for all of them without even a hesitation. I knew they’d do the same. But it was different than that with Karla. For my buddies, I’d die, but for Karla I’d want to . . . live.
I knew that felt like an upside-down kind of thought, but truthfully, I stopped living the moment my father passed away. I’d been drowning, and the last thing I wanted to do was put my sadness on Karla’s shoulders. She’d already had enough of her own troubles. She didn’t need to carry mine, too.
At least that was part of the truth of why I ghosted her all those years before.
The other part was the fact that I needed to push Karla away.
I was afraid of losing her, too, because I’d already lost my brother and my father.
My mother was hardly living after both of those losses.
She was a walking zombie. Therefore, it felt like I lost everyone I loved.
What if something happened to Karla? What if she got hurt? Or even worse, died? I didn’t think I could handle that. So I said goodbye before life could take her away from me. Before I could fall deeper for her. Before we’d even had a chance to figure out what we could’ve been to one another.
But now, she was back in my life, and I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to push her completely away again. I felt like I needed her. It had been a long time since I felt as if I needed someone.
I knew Karla was a good person to have in my life, if not the greatest. I knew for a fact that she’d perform CPR on me and bring me back to life.
That fact alone scared me the most. I wasn’t certain I was ready to live again.
Living meant pain, and I didn’t need any more pain. I had enough of that for a lifetime.