78. Helena
Helena
“Thank you for giving me space,” Helena said. “And food. Truly the best of both worlds.”
“It was the least I could do.” Bertram swallowed. “And if you want me on my hands and knees for this, I will be.”
Helena smirked. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
Bertram slowly sank to his knees, and Helena panicked.
“No, no! Don’t! I wasn’t serious.”
“I was,” Bertram said.
Helena yanked him back up to his feet. “Stop that!”
“Whatever you say.”
“I don’t blame you. I mean, I do, but I don’t.
I would have reacted the same way if I found out someone I trusted hated women or pixies or humans or pansexuals or anyone on the basis of their identity.
I would want that Person out of my life, immediately, forever.
” Helena sighed deeply. “But here’s the difference, Bertram—if I had heard you say something hateful about humans .
. . maybe I would have taken it at face value and stormed out.
But I would have come back—that night or the next day or the day after or even a month after—and asked what the fuck you had said to me and what you meant and how dare you.
With as much as I loved you, I never, ever would have thought something so vile of you.
Ever. Much less not given you a chance to just tell me what you had meant.
If you had just asked me, Bertram! If you had just asked me! ”
Helena was falling through space. She was fracturing into a million pieces. She could never be put back together.
“Here’s the worst thing. Of course I missed the sex.
Of course I missed the cooking. I missed the games and the jokes and the sex, and I know I said that twice, but I really mean it.
But by far the worst part was that us being worlds apart, when bad things happened to both of us—and really bad things happened to both of us—we didn’t go through them together.
We didn’t get to comfort each other. We should have been there for each other!
I should have been there when you said goodbye to Millie.
I should have been hugging you at Urghk’s funeral.
I should’ve said goodbye to him when he first got sick.
You should have been comforting me when my dad died.
And instead, we’ve just been alone! We’ve been alone in our grief, and we didn’t fucking have to be. We didn’t have to be.”
“I know,” Bertram said quietly.
“I miss my dad,” Helena sobbed. “I miss your dad, and I miss my dad, and I miss my mom, and I never even met my mom, and now I only have Jennie, and other than that I might just be all alone in the world, and I have never, ever felt more alone than when I look at you.”
Bertram closed his eyes, and it seemed to Helena as though his heart was breaking.
“Because I have you now,” Helena said, her voice quiet and broken. “But I could lose you any second. If you threw me out once, you could do it again.”
“I won’t,” Bertram said. “I swear I won’t.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you capable of it last time, either,” Helena said. “But if I was wrong then . . .”
“I swear to every god and every hell that I couldn’t.
I barely managed it the first time—that’s why I cut you off everywhere or I knew I would cave.
I’m older and less of a fucking idiot now, and now I know what it’s like to lose you, and I will never let it happen again.
If there’s anything I can do to make you believe that, tell me, and I’ll do it. ”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what it would be. I want to trust you. I really do. I just . . . I don’t know how.”
“I don’t want this to be how it ends between us,” Bertram said. “I—I don’t want it to end between us at all.”
Helena was silent.
“There’s nothing I can say or do to make up for that lost time now.
We can’t change the past. I wish I could, more than anything.
But we can’t go back. All I can do is beg you not to let us spend another five years apart.
If you can’t forgive me, I’ll accept that.
But if you think you can forgive me, please, please find a way to do it now.
It doesn’t have to be this minute or this week, but don’t let it be five years.
For as long as we’re alive, we’re going to suffer through some terrible loss or another, because that’s part of living.
If I can lessen your pain by being by your side, then let me do that.
Don’t let me miss one more tragedy in your life where you’re crying into your pillow instead of my shoulder. ”
“I’m so sorry for both of us,” Helena said. “I hate that you thought that I had rejected you because of who you were, that you thought that for all those years. You must have been so broken.”
“I was,” Bertram admitted. “Part of me still has been, all these years. All these years, I thought the woman I loved didn’t want me because of who I am—of what I am.
If nothing else, knowing that that wasn’t true .
. . It’s helped me, Hel. I hate that I hurt you.
But—you telling me the truth—it fixed something in me.
And it’s not your job to heal me, and I wouldn’t ask you to.
But now that I know how much you were hurting too, we can heal, Helena. Together and separately. We can heal.”
“I’m sorry for my part in it.” Helena leaned against Bertram and he hugged her to him at once.
“Don’t—”
“No, I am. I’m sorry that you were hurting so badly. Frankly I’m shocked that you were able to just forgive me and move on the way you did on this project, still thinking that I had said all those hateful, bigoted things.”
Bertram grinned awkwardly. “Well . . . you’re pretty great. You sort of made me forget everything in spite of myself. And I’m so, so glad that I did.”
“And I’m glad you know the truth now.” Helena exhaled, and she felt a weight lift from her shoulders.
“And I hope, what you said about us not wasting more of our lives apart, I . . . I would like that. Not the ‘wasting our lives apart’ part. The ‘not wasting our lives apart’ part. That is . . . I want to . . . I’m done.
I’m done being upset at you for having been upset with me.
We fought too hard to come back together for me to give up on that now. I—I want to be with you.”
“Good.” Bertram kissed the side of her head. “I want that, too. More than anything. We can take things slow. Rebuild trust. We’ll fix up your tent.”
“Um.” Helena looked away, not meeting Bertram’s eyes. “What if I wouldn’t like that?”
Bertram smiled. “Then we’ll go back to sleeping in the same tent.”
“I think that would be a good idea,” Helena said. “For Lovey. She got really used to both of us being together.”
“Of course,” Bertram said. “I would never want to disappoint Lovey.”
“Thank you,” Helena said. She kissed him softly and quickly on the nose, and Bertram’s posture visibly relaxed.
“Do you—do you still want me to do things for your birthday?” Bertram asked. “If that feels like it’s too much too soon—”
“No, no,” Helena said. “I don’t want to sabotage another birthday party you planned me, only to end up regretting it another five years from now. Just make sure you knock it out of the park.”
Bertram nodded, solemnly. “And what is a protected forest if not a really, really big park?”
“Which just means it’ll have to be a really big swing,” Helena said.
“Four days left? I think I can make things happen. And until after your birthday”—Bertram gently brushed Helena’s hair off her face—“let’s just focus on our friendship.”
Helena’s eyes widened. “Are you—are you breaking up with—”
“No, no, no!” Bertram said quickly. “No, of course not. It’s just, this has been an emotional rollercoaster for both of us.
I understand why you were worried that you can’t trust me, and I want to be trustworthy.
So, I want to pause on the physical side of things. I want to show you that I respect you.”
“Bertram.” Helena frowned. “I am a grown, independent woman. I don’t find there to be anything disrespectful about consensually indulging in my sexual urges.”
“I’m not talking about being respectful to your body out of some weird—virtue—it’s not that.
I just don’t want to go from not speaking to friendship to a deep physical relationship to not speaking to right back into the physical relationship—you said you need to be able to trust me, in the long haul.
And that’s what I want. I want this to be real.
I want this to be something built on a real foundation, of two People who trust each other.
And are thinking through things carefully. I want to prove that to you.”
“Oh,” Helena said. “That’s—that’s very nice of you then.”
Bertram smiled. “Trust me. I intend to be fully, completely, wildly disrespectful to your body. As often as you’ll let me.”
A flush rose to Helena’s cheeks so fiercely hot she looked like she might actually catch on fire.
“Mm. That’s more like it.” Bertram placed a brief, chaste kiss to Helena’s lips, and then turned and walked away, which Helena was grateful for.
Otherwise, she might have had to ignore his sensible proposal and disrespect him right there and then in front of the campfire.
It was going to be a long four days.