Chapter 35 Consumed #2
“I should have told you that night outside the perfume shop. Because I felt it that night. I felt it then, and before, and after, and now. And all the time. And as soon as I realized how monumentally stupid I was for not saying something so simple as I’m in love with you, I had to see you.
I had to tell you all the things I should have told you a million times already.
The things I let myself believe were too hard to say.
The things I was afraid of because of the last time I said them to Aubrey.
But you’re not her. You’re you. And I am in love with you, and I couldn’t wait for you to come back to the hotel.
I didn’t come to Paris to not be with you,” I said, inching closer to the woman I adored.
“Why did you come to Paris?”
“I came here because I can’t be without you.
And I’ve held too much back. I’ve kept it all in here,” I said, tapping my chest. “But I was feeling it all along. Denying it, but consumed by it. And I love that you call me out on my bullshit. And I love that you invited me to Paris. And that you let me spend the night with you. You let me into the part of you that you were scared of. The part that made you feel vulnerable. You brought me into all of that,” I said, and my heart beat so hard and so furiously, it might leap out of my chest and into her hands. But that’s where it belonged. With her.
Her brown eyes were so big, and a tear slid down her cheek. I wiped it away with my thumb, and brought the salty streak to my lips. “Don’t cry,” I whispered.
She just shook her head, unable to speak.
“I’m not done,” I said. “Because I’ve done a bad job telling you how I feel.
I thought if I kept it all inside, I wouldn’t hurt you.
I thought words were what had ended Aubrey’s life.
And that if I didn’t say them, I could somehow protect you.
But you made me realize I was a stupid, fucking selfish idiot for thinking that. ”
“You’re not an idiot.”
I nodded several times. “Yes, I am. I’m an idiot for not telling you in the doorway.
I’m an idiot for not telling you at the restaurant last night, or later in the hotel room.
Or even this morning. I’ve been so consumed with regret that I let it dictate everything in my life.
And everything with you. And I’m not a therapist, I’m not someone who understands the fine details of emotions, or how people heal or move on.
And I know you’re worried that I’m not capable of love. ”
She started to speak, but I silenced her as I held up a finger to signal I had more to say.
“It’s okay, I’d be worried too. And all I can do is tell you this—I have never felt this way for anyone.
I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.
You consume my thoughts, you fill my heart, and I want so much more than thirty nights with you.
I want the days too. I want days like this.
Good days and bad days. I don’t want another week.
I want all the weeks. Maybe I’m a work in progress.
Maybe I’m like a rough piece of clay. But I can be refined, and shaped, and become better with you.
I want to go back to New York and not have an expiration date.
I want you to let me keep loving you. The way I feel for you is without question,” I said, and now I didn’t resist the impulse to touch her.
Because I’d done enough resisting. I needed to connect fully with her.
“I want that too,” she said in the tiniest voice, full of so much vulnerability.
I cupped her cheeks, holding her face in my hands, looking at her.
At the woman I loved madly. Deeply. Truly.
Without any regrets, without any reservations.
“I’m going to tell you over and over how I feel.
Because I need you to know. I always ask you to give yourself to me, and you do, and have in every way.
And I want to give myself to you,” I said, and she was trembling under my touch.
Her shoulders shook and her lips were parted. “If you’ll still have me.”
“Oh Jack, you know I will. You know I love you. You know I’m madly in love with you. You’re not a work in progress,” she said, her voice breaking.
“I kind of am, but I want to be a work in progress with you.”
“We can be that for each other,” she said, tilting her chin up.
“You want me to kiss you, don’t you?” I said, our playfulness coming back.
“Always.”
“I will always want to,” I said, and kissed her in the garden, on the bridge, the weeping willow the witness to my deep and abiding love for this woman who’d challenged me, who’d changed me, and who’d healed me simply by loving me.
That was what had truly washed away the regret.
Yes, her words, her insight, her kind understanding of my past had helped me see all that I was clutching unnecessarily.
But ultimately, I’d been letting go already. Because she loved me.
Michelle
We had a very late lunch at a café in town, laughing, talking, touching.
I hadn’t expected him to show up. I’d resigned myself to my own hotel room, to a few more lonely days in Paris, and then to a long string of empty nights back in Manhattan, as I immersed myself in another 10K, in more Spanish lessons, in bowling, in whatever I had to do to rid this man from my mind.
But I didn’t have to, because there was no longer an arrangement or an end. There was only this new beginning.
At lunch, his phone rang. He glanced at the screen, then hit ignore, then silent. “Just a customer. I’ll call him later. I will regret it more if I miss this lunch right now,” he said, then laced his fingers through mine.
After we ate, we wandered through Giverny, getting lost in the shops, and getting found again.
Instead of calling the call service, we simply caught a train back to Paris.
Because the train was what we needed and wanted.
The last one, and we were all alone in the car.
The conductor took our tickets, and then the overhead lights dimmed.
I gazed out the window as the train rattled through the countryside at night.
The hum of the wheels and the din of the engine made for a relaxing soundtrack at the end of the day.
I felt his hand in my hair, a gentle tug as he pulled me close. He turned my face so I was looking at him. “Make love to me on the train,” he whispered.
It was the first time he’d said that. Make love.
The words were like diamonds to me, and just as valuable.
I wanted to be as intimate with him as I could, after he’d said those gorgeous words over and over at the gardens.
Besides, we were living in the bubble for a few more days, existing outside the public eye of prying New York City gossip sites.
Carla had advised me to be cautious, but as far as I could tell that guidance applied to New York, not to this moment in time.
I kissed him, sweeping my tongue across his lips, savoring the taste of his mouth.
His kisses were consuming; they rocketed me to another realm; they turned me on in mere seconds.
I felt that sweet ache between my legs, the one only he could soothe, so I straddled him, and unzipped his pants, so grateful to be wearing a skirt.
Then, I sank onto him, and gasped silently.
He filled me so completely, and held me like I was all he’d ever wanted.
I cupped his cheeks, and he gripped my waist, and I made love to him on the train back to Paris.
“Michelle,” he whispered, keeping his eyes locked on mine.
“Yes?”
“I’m so in love with you,” he said, holding tight to me, his words better than any dirty ones he’d ever spoken, and those had melted me with heat.
But this was something else entirely. This was the deepest connection, my greatest wish.
This was everything I’d ever wanted—to love and to be loved back.
“I’m so in love with you.”
I looked away once to catch our hazy reflections in the dark of the window.
We looked like two people who couldn’t get enough of each other.
His eyes squeezed shut, his breath came fast and harsh, and he moved deeper into me.
I watched for another moment, thrilling inside at all that the window revealed about him, and how he felt for me.
I turned back to him, our bodies colliding, our lips connecting, my arms wrapped around him as we came together once more.
Three days later, we boarded the plane for New York, and flew across the ocean. We hadn’t even needed thirty nights to know we wanted so many more, and we were going to get to have them.
But the look on Jack’s face when he turned on his phone as we touched down at JFK told me that something had gone terribly wrong.