13. Lucas
THIRTEEN
Lucas
It’s mostly my things that we move into the new room.
When we were packing up, I saw what I wish I’d seen months ago.
Roman is very bothered by all of his possessions from his life before.
I said to leave everything but a few essentials, that we could replace it all with new things.
He seemed surprised by the idea, but then he seemed relieved.
It’s made me think a lot, and there’s something I need to talk to him about.
He carries a box of my shoes into the room and shuts the door. I’m at the counter making coffee. I love this room already. It’s like a little apartment with its kitchenette and private patio .
I can see why Quinn liked it, but I can also see that he is indeed doing better with Vitali. He’s happier. He’s … lighter.
I want that for me and Roman. It’s not that we’re unhappy. Things are just so heavy sometimes.
“Is that the last box?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“We’ll find new things for you. Things you like.”
“It seems wasteful,” he says.
“I don’t care if it’s wasteful.” I realize my voice is sharp and soften it. “It’s more important that things feel good.”
He nods, but I can see that he’s confused. He doesn’t understand why this whole thing has upset me.
That’s a truth that’s hard for me to admit, but I make myself do it. “I wish I’d seen it,” I tell him. “That you hated the room. It upsets me that I missed that.”
“Oh. No, Lucas.” He walks over to me, and I feel how a subtle tension that I barely knew was there eases between us. He puts his arms around me from behind. “That’s not on you.”
My hands settle over his forearms, avoiding the bandage still wrapped around his left arm. “I still wish I’d seen it. I don’t have context for everything. I didn’t know you … before.”
He stays with me, but his body tenses slightly. He says, “I’m glad you didn’t. You wouldn’t have liked me. ”
It’s hard for me to imagine not liking Roman, but it’s also hard for me to imagine him being any way other than he is now. I like him as he is.
But all of this makes me wonder. “Does it bother you being in this house? Or around Vitali? Sometimes it feels like there’s a lot of tension between you.”
“Maybe. I don’t know, Lucas.”
I sigh, trying not to feel frustrated. I believe him. I don’t think he knows.
And that’s the point, isn’t it? That’s what I need to talk to him about. I think he needs help sorting through things.
At first, he just needed time. I don’t think that anything but time would have helped in the beginning. But I think he’s past the point where time alone is helping.
Roman has a lot to sort through. Too much. He’s overwhelmed. I think that’s why he said he doesn’t belong here. He’s so fucking overwhelmed that he doesn’t know what to do.
But the fact that he said that, that anything like that is in his head, is very fucking serious, and it still terrifies me. And that’s why I can’t be the one to help him sort through things. I’m not objective enough. I can’t be calm enough. I would panic again.
I rub my thumbs over the corded muscles of his forearms. I make myself say, “I think you need someone who can help you sort through things like that.”
His body tightens instantly behind mine. His fingers dig into my stomach. “What do you mean? ”
His reaction makes me anxious, but we have to have this conversation. “Like … a therapist.”
“Oh.” Roman breathes out, relaxing. “You scared me.”
I huff, relieved but also a bit annoyed. “What, did you think I meant someone in place of me? Do you imagine that I would ever, for one second, give you up or share you?”
“It was just a gut reaction.”
“And would you give me up, Roman?”
He reacts exactly like I expect. He bites the crook of my neck and growls against my skin, “ No. ”
I shiver, pleased. But I need him to hear me, so I rub his arms soothingly until he releases the bite.
“I know it would be hard for you,” I say. “Talking to someone. We’d have to find the right person. But I feel like … I don’t know, Roman. I feel like there are things we need to talk about but can’t.”
“Because I can’t,” he says, sounding frustrated.
“They’re hard for me too.”
I leave it at that. I know we need to talk about it sometime, what he said that day and how I reacted, but not right now. It’s not the point.
It’s hard for me to stay still and silent with him breathing hard behind me. I can feel how upset he is, and it’s agony. But I have to give him time to process this idea.
Eventually he says, “I’m sorry. I know I make life hard for you. I do see that, Lucas. ”
“Roman, no. You don’t make life hard for me. You make life the best thing it could possibly be for me, and I don’t want you to change. I just want you to be … god, I don’t know. I want things to stop hurting quite so much.”
He takes a deep breath and lets it out. “I don’t see how I could do that. Talk to someone, I mean. I don’t see how it would help.”
I turn in his arms and tilt my head back to look up at him. He’s troubled. I can see it in his eyes. So even though I want to push, I know it’s not the moment for it. Maybe we’ll talk about this again sometime, when he’s ready.
“I love you just like you are,” I tell him, because though I think he knows this, I don’t want this conversation to put doubts in his head. “Thank you for letting me talk to you about this.”
Most people, I think, would have gotten upset. Defensive. But Roman isn’t most people. He makes space for the things I say, even if they’re hard.
He takes my face in his hands and strokes my cheekbones with his thumbs. “Why are you so good?” he asks.
It makes my eyes sting because I know it’s not true. “I’m not,” I tell him. “I’m selfish. I won’t let you go. You’re mine, Roman, and nothing gets to take you from me.”
A breath stutters into him. His eyes dart back and forth over my face. Roman doesn’t hide his emotion from me, and I’m so glad. I love that about him. I love so many things about him. Tears well in his eyes, making them well in mine.
He pulls me closer, wrapping his arms around me. I hug him back, holding on as the tremors pass through him. I soothe him with my hands, but mostly I just let him feel what he’s feeling. I know that he knows that I love him, but I feel it going deeper into his body.
I’ve known from the beginning that our love is deep and strong, but it’s really beautiful to learn that it can get even stronger. It makes me imagine twenty years from now, even forty. It makes me imagine what we could be, and I’m determined that we’re both going to see it.