Chapter 20
Christian
It’s late when I sit on the edge at the foot of the bed, holding the jar filled with my chips in my hand, examining the colors and counting them repeatedly.
A year and seven months. Almost eight.
Everyday this week I’ve had dinner with Lana, and those hours go by too quickly for me. The few hours I have that is me and her before the end of the day are filled with nonsensical laughter, conversation, and subtle touches. Sometimes I have permission to kiss her.
I need more. I need to touch her constantly—all the time. My chest always feels tight and my heart feels suffocated whenever I don’t have her close, and even more so these past few nights, especially since my birthday.
July third was always just another day, but then I met her and she made it the grandest day of the fucking year, every year.
And those days would always end with the two of us, in our bed with twisted limbs, a thin layer of sweat, and whispers of sweet nothings until we were asleep in each other's arms.
I’ve needed that every night since July third of this year. I just haven’t earned it and the only person I can blame is myself for my omissions. I stare at this jar and, with my thumb, trace the black stains of house jar scrawled on it in her handwriting.
To put an end to my self-inflicted suffering, I stand, ready to put this jar away for now. Opening the drawer, I push the jar between folded stacks of my clothing. As I close the drawer, I feel her.
“Hey,” her soft voice murmurs.
I work myself up to face her—to see her standing at the door in an extra large shirt, her legs bare underneath it, and her hair a long, wavy mess.
It’s strange how every time I look at her it takes my breath away, again and again.
I know what she looks like, I know each and every detail of her skin, the measurements of her features—I know her blind.
Yet, once I look at her, it’s as if I don’t.
It’s always like seeing her for the first time.
My hand flies to cover my heart, feeling her beauty like a bullet. “Hey.” Feeling weak and defeated, I drag myself back to the foot of the bed and let my body drop onto it. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m here to ask you the same thing,” Lana says.
“I’m okay.”
She takes a step into the room. “I’m starting to hate that word.”
“But it’s what I am.”
“I thought we were better than this,” she sighs, taking two steps forward, the moonlight making her smooth, olive skin glow. “Lying to each other.”
“I have never lied to you.” Not about the drinking or the mistakes. But there is an omission…
“I know.” In another few steps, she’s standing between my legs. “So why are you lying to me now?”
Lana’s hands come onto my shoulders, her fingers soothingly run up and down my upper arms. Back on my shoulders, her fingers scratch into my hair at the back of my head, and she breathes, “Christian.”
“Keep doing that.”
“You’ve had a bad day,” Lana says softly.
I sigh heavily, my shoulders curving forward.
“Today, when I called you at the supermarket,” she says, “I had a feeling.”
I nod, keeping my head down, ashamed. But her hand comes to my chin, urging my head back. “Yeah.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” I ask.
“Don’t do that to yourself, baby,” she rasps.
“I just don’t want it to have any power over me,” I confess quietly.
“Christian.”
“Yeah,” I rasp.
“When was the last time you drank?”
I swallow and plant my hands on her hips. “Last year.”
A year and seven months since I’ve come out of rehab. After I almost died.
Her lips flinch with something of a smile, both her hands back in my hair, and a spark of pride flashing in her eyes. “You have more power over it than you think, baby.”
“Keep doing that too.”
“What?”
“Calling me baby.” I frown. “I missed that.”
“Okay,” she breathes, “baby.”
“Lana…” I need you.
“Yes?” she breathes.
I exhale heavily through my nose.
“Ask for it,” she encourages me. “Tell me how you need me to love you, Christian.”
“I…” I choke on the emotion in my throat. “I just need to touch you.”
“Okay.” Lana does something I don’t expect in the moment—she climbs over my lap, her knees on either side of my body. Her eyes meet mine cautiously, silently wondering what move to make next.
Her eyes, a shade of soft brown, drop to my chest, but my eyes remain on her face. It isn’t until I feel her small, warm hand settle itself over my heart that I know what she’s doing. Then her eyes come back up to mine.
“What else?”
I swallow, blinking and feeling that thickness in my throat return. “I just need to be held right now.”
“Then I’ll hold you.” Her arms wrap around my middle instead of my neck, and she buries her face against my chest, molding her body with mine. “Is this okay?”
My arms wrap around her body, holding her close, and I breathe her in. “Yeah.” I sniff back the intense emotions brewing. “Yeah.”
“What else?”
“Just this for now, please.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No, I— I’m okay. I talked to Terrance today,” I tell her. “It helped.”
“Good.”
I sit in silence with her body on my lap and her arms wrapped around me—healing whatever broken parts of me remain.
Lana’s superpower is putting me back together, holding me together.
Keeping me strong and making me feel loved and special—even if it’s only with a single touch, she does that, and I don’t think she knows how grounding her presence is for me.
She never has to talk, never has to do anything other than this for me to feel okay. She only needs to put her arms around me, her hand on my chest, or her hand in mine, and everything ugly in the world or within me is washed out. Easy as that.
“Can we try this thing?” I ask suddenly.
Lana pulls back and throws her arms around my neck. “What thing?”
“It’s an eye contact, honesty thing…” I shrug, running my hands up and down the curves of her body until they settle on her hips, beneath her shirt. “I don’t know.”
“Okay.” Lana nods and cradles my face in her delicate hands. She rolls her shoulders, licks her lips, and her eyes lock into place with mine. “Let’s do it.”
My eyes flit to her lips for a moment too long before they snap back up to her eyes. And that is when I determine this might be a terrible idea. “Okay.”
There is a long string of silence between us, and her caramel eyes never once leave mine—or mine hers.
Too many things to name begin to stir in my chest. My body feels more alive than it has in a long, long time, and my heart picks up just before it calms. I inhale sharply, and exhale shakily, my chest heaving a bit.
The love I’ve always felt for her has been so pent up, waiting to be released and given to her, that now my body relaxes.
My fingers beneath her shirt, wrapped around her waist, twitch against her warm, smooth skin.
And I want to worship her. I want to throw her back onto this bed and kiss her dizzy, lazily, and slowly until we’re asleep.
Then in the morning, I’ll remove her clothes and kiss across every inch of her skin.
I want to hold her close as I make love to her, slowly and intently, whispering my adoration in her ear.
I just want all of her. Everything that comes with loving her, I want it. The house, the kids I didn’t know I wanted until I fell in love with her, the ring I’ll buy to slip onto her finger—she’ll have everything she deserves.
Fuck, I need to kiss her.
It’s a second too late when I realize I’m wetting my bottom lip.
And Lana giggles suddenly. “Sorry—Sorry, I…”
“You’re beautiful, baby,” I whisper.
Her laughter dies and her tiny gasp is mostly silent before she says, “So are you.”
“I missed you,” I breathe. “I thought about you every day.”
“Me too.”
“And everyday I didn’t want to do it anymore—every day that I wanted to give up and let myself die…”
“Christian—”
“I saw you and thought of you. I love you, Lana. I’ve never loved anything or anyone the way I love you.”
“Is this how this thing is supposed to work?” Lana asks quietly. “Just quiet confessions.”
“I think so.”
“It’s very…intimate,” she whispers.
“Is it weird?”
Lana shakes her head and breathes, “Christian.”
“Yeah, baby.”
“I love you,” she blurts out quietly. “I love you so much.”
My jaw loosens, lips falling open slightly, and I feel my body float. So many things leave my body at once, I physically feel lighter.
Three words she hasn’t told me since I’ve been back, and she says them now.
The corners of my vision blur as I choke out, “You do?”
“I always have. There hasn’t been a day I haven’t.”
“Can I ask you something?”
She nods, her thumb wiping beneath my eyes.
“When did you know you loved me?”
Lana smiles. “The first time you took me to the carnival, I knew for sure. You gave me your hotdog when mine fell. And when I told you it was fine and you didn’t listen. You wiped the mustard off your hot dog and found ketchup to put on it. Then you gave it to me.”
“You hate mustard.” I smile.
“I do,” she whispers. “But you put ketchup on the hot dog and made sure I ate it.”
“You were starving, Lana. I could hear your stomach.”
She chuckles softly. “That’s when I knew I was in love with you. And that’s when I knew I was always going to be.”
“I’m sorry I stopped being like that.”
“You were always like that, and now, you’re even better,” Lana tells me. “You’ve always been kind and caring, and the most loving person I’ve ever met. You’ve always wiped mustard off hotdogs for me, Christian. And it’s impossible not to love you for it.”
“I’ll keep wiping off mustard for you for the rest of my life.”
She huffs a quiet laugh. “You think you’re damaged, baby, but you aren’t, not even a little bit. Addiction is a disease. And it doesn’t mean you’re damaged or broken or a horrible person. It just means you need a bit of extra care, love, and help.”
“I’m a little bit damaged—”
“Not to me,” Lana says. “Not to me.”
“You love me again,” I breathe, a smile curving my lips.