Chapter 30 Sydney
Sydney
Afull moon glimmers silver light into our bedroom through the uncovered window.
I thought after the mind-blowing sex we had in the pool this morning, things would be different between me and Gabriel. Closer. We crossed a line that should have had important consequences.
But while I feel fundamentally different on the inside, Gabriel performs the exact same bedroom routine as every other night.
He bends over me where I lie against my pillows, kisses my forehead, and murmurs, “Sweet dreams.” Then he walks around the bed and settles in to sleep beside me, leaving the usual ocean of distance between us.
I shouldn’t feel hurt by it—I’m not—but my heart weighs a hundred pounds.
Gabriel rolls one way, then the other, before landing on his stomach and punching his pillow into place, then, finally, falling silent beside me.
Fear freezes the words “I love you” on my tongue. I tried to say them in the pool. I would have meant them, but my mouth wouldn’t cooperate. There are things I can say with my whole heart, though.
I clear my throat. “The old me constantly waited for you to go back to being the man I met, but I don’t remember you then. I only know you now, and you’re strong and selfless and kind. You got sober, and you stay that way, even in the face of unimaginable stress and pressure.”
For a moment, he does nothing at all. Then, he rolls to face me. Shadows turn his familiar features into something harsher, leaving my imagination to fill in the details. His green eyes have bleached to silver-limned pools of moonlight.
“I’m sure I told you before, but I don’t remember. So, I’m saying it now. This version of me. I am so proud of you,” I say.
His moonlit eyes disappear into darkness, then he turns his face away with a huff that could be a laugh or an expression of annoyance. I guess it’s not something he wants to talk about or remember. Maybe he thinks I’m making it about me. It’s not as though he needs my or anyone else’s approval.
Then I feel it. Beside me, his body jerks in a silent shudder. Then again. My sinuses burn, and my throat aches when I finally understand why he turned away.
Tears.
He covers up every hint of vulnerability. Even now, he works to keep it hidden.
From the moment I woke from captivity, I’ve built walls between us from sheer necessity.
Tearing them down may hurt us both in the long run, but tonight I won’t wait until he falls asleep to hold him.
I won’t steal my own comfort while denying him his.
Sliding over, I place my hand on his back until I feel the steady thump of his heart.
He rolls toward me, caging me, with one thigh between my legs.
His breath, minty and cool, brushes featherlight over my lips as he speaks with gravel in his voice.
“You never told me you were proud of me.”
How could I be so cruel? How was I not proud of him when he deserves it more than anyone I know?
His thigh, anchoring my center with delicious pressure, nudges against me, an almost irresistible distraction and reminder of what I’ve been craving from him, but fear and guilt ice my veins. The more I learn about our previous relationship, the angrier I become at myself.
I’m not sure anyone could feel so many things at once and remain completely sane. “I was heartless.”
He cups my face. “Never. If you knew me then, you’d wonder how you ever looked past it at all.”
“You’re not a can of peaches. You deserve to be seen for who you are now without my prejudice attached.”
“Some trespasses are unforgivable.”
“Yes. But yours aren’t, or I wouldn’t have married you.”
His laugh sounds strangled. “Do you want me to tell you about them?”
I slide my fingers into his hair, and it feels like cool silk. Like home. “No.”
I don’t want the things the old me judged him for to affect the way I see the man he is today. I won’t give him up to some unbending, unforgiving past version of myself. Maybe that’s more self-delusion, but I trust him more than I trust myself.
I tug him closer and press my lips to his.
His muscles go rigid, every piece of him frozen except for the hot, hard thrust against my thigh and the drumbeat of his heart under my palm.
One beat. Two. Three. Then he moves, gently at first, then deepening.
He licks the seam of my lips in a nudge that says, “Let me in.”
I do, and he plays with me. There’s no other word for it.
For me, I’ve only had a handful of encounters like this with him.
For him, it could be the thousandth. He’s privy to secrets I didn’t know I had.
The way he sucks on my tongue, then retreats just as I forget to breathe, and the way he uses his mouth to make love to mine is nothing less than a master artist at work.
I slide my hands down, determined to lift his shirt and feel his skin against mine, but he catches me by the wrist and raises his head, his breathing ragged. “Not tonight.”
It takes several seconds for his words to make sense, then a wave of humiliation crashes over me. He was having a serious moment. We were talking about his sobriety and when he showed vulnerability, I—
“Hey, whatever you’re thinking, stop. You did nothing wrong.”
“I d-don’t understand.” He’s hard. He wants me.
“If you want to feel good, you have a vibrator in your bedside table,” he says gently. “Use it, not me.”
“I don’t want to u-use you,” I say, stung. As if I could replace him with someone else or with a toy. He gave my words back to me. I told him he could make me feel good. And then I couldn’t say “I love you.”
“I-I—” I do love you. But the words stick in my mouth. They won’t come out no matter how hard I try to push past the obnoxious apraxia, so controlled by my emotions. Shut up. Don’t speak. Words can hurt him. “I-I—”
“Shhh. It’s okay.” He brushes my hair away from my face and eases off my body, settling on his back beside me.
Like hell, am I going to be made to feel like I somehow stole his virtue in the pool. “Y-you got off . . . e-earlier . . . too.”
“I did,” he says.
“McRae—”
“Don’t call me that here.” He pauses, then speaks more gently. “Please. It doesn’t belong in our bed.”
I shrink beneath the light comforter.
He reaches for me, sliding me tight to his side, his bicep acting as my pillow. Then he takes my hand and holds it against his heart. “Is this okay?”
I nod.
He plays with my hair, and we lay in the quiet, holding on to each other. Eventually, his breaths slow. He’s warm and steady beneath my palm, and, true or not, I’d swear this is the greatest safety I’ve ever known.
Why is that so terrifying?
Craving a man, let alone allowing one to affect my emotions, is the last thing I’ve ever wanted. Most of my college memories returned the day I made pizza. Once I remembered Clarissa and Bronwyn, that time filled back in as if it was never gone.
I dated serious, studious, and what my roommates considered “boring” guys then. There were never tears when we broke up from either of us.
I would spend a weekend a little bummed that it hadn’t worked out, then, ultimately, I consoled myself with the fact I could start starfishing face down in my own bed every night and that I could hang with my friends on my already limited downtime.
These were guys I never fought with but also didn’t invest in.
Gabriel is different. A cold sweat breaks out all over my body when I think about the way he makes me feel.
What if he dies? What if he starts drinking again?
What if he gets tired of me or cheats or leaves?
How do people fall in love without losing their minds? Do they not think about those things?
I’m married to my worst nightmare, a man with the ability to break my heart.
Maybe other people don’t worry about everything that could go wrong because they weren’t raised by Allen Walsh. They haven’t experienced the reality of when the worst of what could happen does. But Gabriel is a different person than Dad was.
My remembered anxiety about his past makes sense to me now, but I can view it from a distance. Eight years is a long time. People are allowed to grow and change. My dad didn’t, but Gabriel did.
“Some trespasses are unforgivable.”
The words sink in, hitting me on a delay. That doesn’t sound like I had a random problem because he happened to be a drunk. It sounds personal.
I couldn’t trust him any farther than I could throw him.
I ease away and sit up. My college memories end before graduation. I remember being excited about commencement being nearly there, the culmination of years of hustling. It was a big deal to me. The biggest. But my memories cut off before that day.
Bronwyn technically graduated the previous semester, but she’d added a few more classes specific to running the youth center she wanted to open, just to be better prepared.
She’d remained in the house in Blackwater to finish them.
I had no family to attend my ceremony, but when I told Bronwyn I was going to skip the ceremony, she’d screeched in horror.
According to Bronwyn, I’d earned that moment.
She was right. I had, but “what’s the point in sitting through the ceremony when there’s nobody there to care one way or the other, anyway?”
That’s when she grabbed me by the shoulders, looked up at me with that “Mom Look” she always got when she was about to impart some deep truth, and said, “I care, Sydney. I’ll be there. I’m going to cheer so loud for you, you’ll need earplugs. You get me a ticket.”
I didn’t expect it. I hadn’t asked. She volunteered. And I requested my first ever “family” ticket for a college event.
No one had ever attended anything like this just for me. In high school, if a staff member came to some event, there were always at least three of us involved, and their primary job was to wrangle up the foster kids and drive them home.