50. ABRAHAM
AbrAHAM
ASTREAK OF WHITE primer paint on her cheek, her curls piled on top of her head, she didn’t look sad or withdrawn or like a woman grieving a marriage, she looked fucking radiant.
Her eyes were big and bright, her skin glowed, and I was ashamed of myself for being annoyed by that, but it’d been eight months and I knew this woman. At best, she went stir crazy if she wasn’t being fucked.
It was the last thing I should’ve cared about.
If I was smart, I’d be encouraging her to move on because then maybe I’d finally be able to, myself, but old habits didn’t die hard, they slept light. And I couldn’t even lie to myself about the fact that I thought about her more days than I didn’t.
I bandaged her arm in silence before moving to her ankle. Feeling the already swollen area with my fingers, it didn’t feel broken to me but she’d have to confirm later with an X-Ray. For now, I wrapped it with a bandage and grabbed her one of the ice packs from the freezer.
“I swear I’m not inept or anything,” Nineah started. “I think I just move too fast for my own body sometimes and it never ends well.”
I snorted. “Since I have known you, you’ve had two ambulance rides, two asthmatic episodes, LOC twice, bruised ribs, a broken wrist, two broken ankles, and a traumatic brain injury,” I told her. “This… is past inept.”
She laughed, leaning forward in a way that I could see she was topless under her overalls. Ignoring her body, I quickly cleaned up the first aid shit and zipped the bag.
“All good.”
Nineah examined her forearm. “I guess if I end up in any more unlucky situations, I’ll have to go the ER like everyone else now.”
“Anyone else and I’d agree, but your new partner might want to take a few first aid courses.”
She scrunched her nose. “My what?”
“Whoever you’re sharing your body with should know what they’re getting into, that’s all.”
Nineah’s eyes widened. She let out a disbelieving snort. “Before I ask what in the world led you to such a conclusion, humor me for a second, are you or are you not doing exactly what you forbade me from?”
A stupid relief I wanted to hate settled the fire under my skin.
Nineah smirked. “Ask me.”
Fuck that. I wasn’t asking her shit. “It’s your life. Your body. Your house.” I glanced around the kitchen I’d spent hours renovating. All of the projects I’d enjoyed whose memories were worth more than the cabinets, hardwood, and fixtures combined. “It always was.”
Her smile fell. “Look, I understand if you don’t want to be an active part of my life anymore and I may not have the past to look back on, but this will always be my first home.
Where I made my first family. Where I loved for the first time in my life.
You gave me that. But I gave you that, too. This house is yours.”
I swallowed. “You were mine.”
She looked down at the floor, but didn’t respond to that.
Jesus.
I couldn’t do this.
I couldn’t be here again.
Not in this city, this house, this place as a man…
It was time to officially put in for my transfer and be done.
I had to. Because as long as this woman and I were in the same place at the same time, I would remain in this in-between where I wasn’t making choices, moving, being, I was just stuck.
And I’d always be stuck at the same exhausting crossroads where what I wanted was constantly defending itself against my better logic.
“The last thing I want, is to make you feel guilty,” she said, clearing her throat.
“Or to persuade you in any direction. I just need to say what I’ve been holding in for months now because…
because I’m about to do something insane and risky and possibly stupid, and if I’m going to teach a child that the point isn’t that life will always go your way but instead, being brave in the face of it, I need to know that I’m not speaking from a place of hypocrisy. Okay?”
I swallowed. “Okay.”
Closing her eyes, she took a beat before meeting my gaze.
“I love you. Not because of what you have done for me. Not because I will never forgive myself for having taken so much from you. Truthfully, I don’t even think I have reasons for this love, even in the face of so many, because you are so much more than the sum of what you do for others.
I love you because I see you. Because from the first time I saw you from behind a computer screen, I have always seen you and you have fascinated and frustrated and surprised me.
I know it’s hard for you to hear this because so much of your identity has hinged on utility and purpose but I need to say it because you need to hear the truth—you are everything.
The darkness, the light. The warmth, the cold.
And I am the one grateful for the skin that feels you. ”
I paused.
This woman I’d sank my life into… my future, my trust, the woman who’d obliterated said trust so devastatingly I couldn’t even be properly upset because this reality had never once occurred to me, stood statuesque with hope, but also despair-filled brown eyes that made my chest ache.
I tried desperately to process her words, to make some of my own form together for a response, but I’d officially malfunctioned in the face of the most unfamiliar of my emotions—shock.
I was hesitating.
And I was so fucking shocked, panicked, and partially confused all at once that I couldn’t find the humor in that.
“One day, you will find someone again. Someone funny, beautiful, and smart. So, when that day comes, I recommend keeping her close for her sake.” She smiled sadly. “I can’t promise I’ll be nice.”