She lives!
I know, I've kind of disappeared. I have no idea why. School got insane, my job got sucky, and then by some weird twist of fate, I got a brand new job that's full time.
Sadly, I don't even have the time to write about that as I have errands to run until the end of time before I start my new job tomorrow, and there's a lot to get done before this semester starts.
So...as a peace offering and a promise to post later with a full update of my life, I offer one of my better writings. Not fanfiction, my own personal writing which tends to be about a million times better than my fanfiction. Remember, comments are love. I strive for constructive criticism and making my work better.
Home
Katie Mech
It has been three months. Three months and twenty four hours since you have seen him. Three months, twenty-four hours, and one night with the guy in Marco Island. A night that ended with you on your hotel room floor, your cell phone held tightly in your hand as you sobbed to your best friend about your night with the guy in Marco Island. But you are trying not to think about Marco Island as you pull up to your apartment. His apartment. You haven’t lived there in three months and twenty-four hours. It is his apartment now, which only makes this hurt that much more.
You smooth your hands over the sundress, his favorite. Or it was his favorite. There had been a day when you would take hours getting ready for a party or for a date, and he would poke his head around the door, that lopsided smirk on his lips as he took in your still naked body, and would suggest the sundress. He likes to take it off, and you know that, so even in the winter, you find a way to wear it. Even when it is snowing and barely above zero, you wear the dress. Because it is his favorite. Was his favorite. Before the Affair.
You stare up at the apartment complex, looking through the heavy sheets of rain towards the apartment you chose together a year and a half ago. It had been one of those steps in a relationship that usually you are not ready for, but he somehow always manages to make everything seem simple and safe. Or did manage. Before the Affair.
That is how you classify your relationship now. In two distinct parts. Before the Affair and after the Affair. Before the Affair, you were happy. You were safe. You had an apartment and you were starting to leave websites with diamond rings open on your laptop. Before the Affair, he called your parents Mom and Dad and wanted to get a dog, because dogs are good practice for kids. Before the Affair, you loved him more than you had ever loved anyone in your entire life.
It is after the Affair that everything changed. After the Affair, you couldn’t touch him. After the Affair, you walked into his office and nearly slapped him when you saw him talking to a woman, but realized just in time the woman was heavily pregnant, older, and clearly married. After the Affair, you brought up the Affair during fights, even though you had sworn you had forgiven him. After the Affair, you weren’t sure if you would love anyone else ever again.
Finally, you move out of the car and into the torrential downpour, silently cursing the weather. You have spent three months in Florida, where it was sunny every day, except for the two hours in the afternoon when it would rain. You are used to the heat and the sun, and weren’t expecting bad weather at all. Your espadrilles are soaked and already your small frame is shaking from cold as you start up the stairs. This is becoming harder by the second, but you are prepared. It was the point of the three months after the Affair. Three months to take a step back and re-evaluate. You have re-evaluated, and you are prepared for the inevitable. You are prepared for the break up that comes after a break. Your best friend has prepared you, and you must keep moving. Once this is done, you can fall apart. But right now, falling apart is not an option.
The door looms in front of you and you reach into your purse, brushing your fingers across your keys before pulling back and leaning on the doorbell. Three months. You haven’t been here in three months, have barely spoken a word to him in three months, and you can’t just walk into the apartment you shared with him. Before the Affair. After the Affair. Before the Break. You are not sure of what is about to happen, but you can’t just walk in. Not if he’s met someone. He knows you are coming back today, but if he has met someone…you can’t just walk in. The door swings open and he is standing in front of you. “Mia,” he smiles softly. He has this capability to make your two syllable name sound like it takes a million years to say, make it sound soft and warm, and you bite your cheek to keep from smiling.
“Tom,” you nod carefully, your eyes moving over him. He is still him. Still Tom. Your Tom. His curly brown hair is slightly damp, and you notice that he has cut it. Not short, but shorter than you’re used to. He is wearing the soft jeans you bought him, the ones that create an ass for his skinny frame, and your favorite black button down. You still remember how the cotton feels against your thighs when you pull it on after sex, even if your clothes are closer.
“Oh, Mia,” he murmurs as he gathers you into his arms, practically lifting you off the ground. He buries his nose in your dark hair and you inhale his scent. It only takes a moment for you to realize that he is wearing the cheap cologne you bought him at a fair a year ago. Three months before the Affair. He had gently splashed it on his neck and asked you what you had thought, and you had promised him that if he bought it, he’d get non stop sex for the rest of the weekend. You ended up buying it for him, and he got his non stop sex. For the briefest of moments, you let your knees shake against him. You’re not sure what any of this means, but there is a plan. You are prepared.
He puts you down and then grabs your hand, leading you through the apartment you’re so familiar with. Nothing has changed. In the three months and twenty four hours you’ve been gone, everything is still the same. He grabs a blanket off the couch and then opens the door to the balcony. You pause for a moment, your mind racing. The balcony. The balcony is where you spent your night with him the first time in the apartment. After unpacking, he had ordered Chinese and you had sat with him on the loveseat, watching the stars. You love the balcony. Or you did.
“You look great, Mia,” he smiles, his hand moving down your body, over the curves he used to love. Or still loves. This isn’t what you were expecting and your breath catches, your body automatically leaning into his. “God, you’re fucking gorgeous.”
“Thanks,” you whisper, a small smile creeping over your lips as he runs his fingers across your collar bone and then across the soaking strap of your sundress. His lips fall against your shoulder, kissing the small spot that connects your neck and shoulder and you bite your lip. Your skin is dark, as dark as it used to get when you were a kid and you spent summers with your grandparents in Italy, and your grandfather jokingly said your mother wouldn’t recognize you anymore. The deep tan contrasts sharply against his china white flesh and you close your eyes briefly. “Tom. Tom. We…we can’t.”
He nods as he takes his lips away from your skin, his fingers falling away from your body. You follow him to the love seat and sit down next to him. This is it. This is the moment that you will add a third part to your relationship. Before the Affair, after the Affair, and after the Break. You are terrified, but you hear Alissa’s voice in your head, reminding you that he slept with her. He had an Affair. He had an Affair and didn’t tell you about it, you had to find out from her. From her smug smile as she handed you your change during a girl’s night out at your favorite bar. Julie. A redhead with no self-esteem and no hope for a stable future. You confronted him on the balcony, when you were too drunk to really put any normal thoughts together, beyond anger. He tucked you into bed and you whispered that you had forgiven him.
“I love you.”
The words cut into the noise of the rain falling against the railing of the balcony, a steady and monotonous downpour that sounds like marbles continuously falling against tile floor. You aren’t sure if he has really said it or if you are imagining things, but if he has said it, then the plan Alissa has so carefully erected over the past twenty-four hours is gone. Because this wasn’t part of the plan. This had never been part of the plan. And though you had planned to hate him today, though you had planned to rage and yell and pack the remainder of your things before leaving, you find yourself whispering slowly, “I love you too.”
Silence overtakes the small balcony again, his arm moving carefully over your shoulder as you tuck your cold hands under his black button down, warming immediately at the comforting heat waiting for you. “Christ, Mia,” he laughs, his abs contracting against your palms, “you’re freezing. Why didn’t you wear a jacket or a sweater?”
“I’ve been in Florida, Tom. I wasn’t exactly prepared for Boston’s insane weather.”
He laughs slightly, not necessarily at you, but because it’s a typical thing for you to do. When you had visited his parents in New Mexico, you had barely thought to bring any warm weather clothes. You don’t plan ahead well, and you’re remembering why. Plans never work. “We’re going to be okay,” he promises you. “I know I fucked up, Mi, but shit, we both did.”
“You fucked a bartender,” you roll your eyes, your voice raising ever so slightly. “You didn’t fuck up, you fucked a bartender.”
There is no defense for this, and he knows it. He knows he has betrayed your trust, and he ducks his head down, his slim fingers moving through his damp curls. It’s cold out and his hands are shaking, the hand resting on your upper arm is tapping lightly against your skin and you move your hand up to grasp it tightly. You hate this feeling, hate this part of relationships. You’ve never really been interested in them, at least not them lasting. Before Tom, you had your share of flings, and you had been in love once, though you still aren’t sure if it was love. You had only been a teenager, and you’re still not sure you loved him or if you were in love with him.
You have spent the past three months wishing you were four again. Four was an easy age. When you were four, you loved four things: your mother, your father, your goldfish, and your Barbie. Your father hadn’t left yet, your mother wasn’t overly involved in every aspect of your life, your goldfish hadn’t floated across the top of the water in his bowl yet, and your Barbie was still the most beautiful thing in the world. When you were four, there were no Affairs or bartenders. There was only love. And that would have kept you satisfied every day of your life.
The rain is falling harder now and Tom moves to gently throw the blanket over your shoulders, pressing a kiss to your hair. You settle back into your old position, your hands warming against his abdomen as you sit quietly. This isn’t what you had ever wanted this relationship to come to. When you had met him three years earlier, you had believed you would love him forever. He had told you he would marry you, had promised he would love you forever, and not for the first time, you believed words. The last time you believed words, you were sixteen and the boy you lost your virginity to told you he loved you. He left you for your lab partner, Hillary, and you spent a year wondering what the hell was wrong with you. Over and over, you have sworn not to believe words.
“We have to say something, Mi,” he whispers. “We can’t just sit out here and pretend you didn’t disappear for three months.”
“I didn’t disappear. I stayed with my parents. And now I’m back.”
“You ignored my calls, you paid your mother to tell me you weren’t home.”
“I hate her sometimes.”
“I know,” he laughs and he squeezes you gently. “Come on, Mia.”
You don’t like to ask questions. You don’t like to hear the reasons he chose her over you, even if it was only a few times. When you saw your father ten years after he had left, you never asked him why. You had spent most of your childhood wondering why, but you don’t want to know. Knowing makes it hurt more, knowing brings the guilt back. But for the first time in your life, you decide to be brave. “Why?”
“Why?”
“Why her?” you ask softly, and you hate that it sounds like a whine. You hate that it comes out on a plaintive whisper as you shiver in his arms. There are few things you hate more in life than feeling out of control, feeling helpless, feeling weak. “Why did you have an Affair?”
“I don’t know, Mi,” he sighs. “It was a mistake though.”
“You don’t have sex with someone by mistake, Tom.”
“No,” he shakes his head. “Mia, what I did…I’ll regret that for a long time. You don’t let me forget it, and I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Okay. But you did.” Now that you are brave, you want an answer. You need an answer, desperately. You need to know what was so wrong with you that after three years, your boyfriend, the person you love and want to marry, would cheat on you with a bartender from your favorite bar. “Why?”
He says nothing and you lean back against the love seat, taking your hands away from his abdomen and wrapping them in your lap. It is too cold, but you don’t care. You don’t care that your hands are shaking, you don’t care that at the age of twenty-five, you’re about to be single. You don’t care about anything but the rain falling in front of you, the wind carrying it to spray lightly against your face. You have missed him. You have missed this balcony. And though you hate to admit it, you feel like you are home here. You feel like you are home when you are next to him.
Before Tom, you didn’t need this. You didn’t need to feel like you were at home when you were with a man. You are not that type of a girl. Before Tom, you were never the type of girl who would stay with a cheating bastard. You used to be the girl who believed cheating was the lowest of the low. You had sworn over and over that you would never stay and wait for it to happen again. And yet here you are, sitting next to the man who cheated for two months, and only admitted it when you confronted him. And you are terrified to leave.
“You were disappearing.”
“What?” His words don’t make sense to you, and again you’re wondering if he’s about to make some bullshit argument about your inability to pay attention to him. You had been busy with grad school at the time and your grandmother had been dying. You hadn’t been able to stroke his ego. And he was only twenty-seven. Why the hell did he need that? Why the hell did he look for that from a twenty-one year old bartender?
“You were disappearing, Mi,” he sighs. “I know your life was shit and I get that, but you made it impossible for anyone to understand or take care of you. You wouldn’t let me. You weren’t in this. And I got tired of waiting for you to get back in it.”
“That’s your excuse? Your excuse for cheating on me is that I wasn’t in this? That I was going through a hard time? Jesus, Tom, what’s going to happen when we’re married?”
“No, it’s not my excuse. There isn’t a fucking excuse for what I did,” he groans. “Damn it, Mia, you were fucking disappearing. And I asked if you were okay and your only damn answer was to ignore me. So why the hell did you check out of this? Why the hell did you run to your parents for three months?”
“We needed a break.”
“Bullshit. Fuck, Mia, for once in your life, can you be honest? Can you cut the bullshit?”
You have never lied to him. He has to know that. You have not lied to him. At least, not directly. There are things you hide from him, things you can never tell him. He knows things, of course. He knows when your father left, your mother cried for days. He knows you respect your step father and secretly want to call him Dad, but are too afraid to insult the man who was never really a father. He knows you’re afraid of the dark. He knows you’re jealous of his family, even if his father died when he was ten. He knows you’d do anything in the world for him. Or you would have. Before the Affair.
There isn’t anyway to tell him why you pushed him away. There isn’t a way to explain that while you wanted to marry him, you also wanted him to leave. There’s no way to delve into all of that. But if you want to be with him, if you really want to be with him forever, then you have to. So you look up at him, at his crystal clear blue eyes that have darkened to a light green and you whisper, “Did you miss me?”
“Of course I did, Mia.”
“No…I mean…that was the wrong thing to ask. Do you need me?”
“No,” he shakes his head and your heart drops. “I want you. I want to have you. But this is up to you, Mi. I love you, and beyond that, I’m not sure of anything else.”
“But you want to be with me?”
“Forever.”
You nod carefully, a tear moving down your cheek as you lean back into him, your hands moving under his shirt again. Both of his arms move around you and pull you onto his lap, your hands moving to his chest. You have no reason to stay. There isn’t a single reason to trust him, and everything in you is telling you to leave. Every ounce of you is telling you to walk out right now and not look back. Because he could do it again. He hurt you once before, he could hurt you again.
But then he brushes the pad of his thumb across your cheek and kisses you gently. “I’m sorry, Mia. I’ll be sorry for the rest of my life.”
You cuddle closer to him, burying yourself in his strong arms as you take a deep breath, the cheap cologne from the fair wafting into your nostrils. You love him. You don’t know why and god knows you don’t have a reason. But you love him. You’re not going to beg him not to leave you. You’re not going to beg him not to do it again. You’re not going to say a word. All you can do is wrap your arms around his neck and lay your head on his shoulder. All you can do is watch the walls the you started planning when your father left, the walls you cemented when the first boy you ever loved left you for your lab partner, the walls you finished after the Affair, come tumbling down around you. All you can do is be happy that after three months and twenty four hours, you are home.
Sadly, I don't even have the time to write about that as I have errands to run until the end of time before I start my new job tomorrow, and there's a lot to get done before this semester starts.
So...as a peace offering and a promise to post later with a full update of my life, I offer one of my better writings. Not fanfiction, my own personal writing which tends to be about a million times better than my fanfiction. Remember, comments are love. I strive for constructive criticism and making my work better.
Home
Katie Mech
It has been three months. Three months and twenty four hours since you have seen him. Three months, twenty-four hours, and one night with the guy in Marco Island. A night that ended with you on your hotel room floor, your cell phone held tightly in your hand as you sobbed to your best friend about your night with the guy in Marco Island. But you are trying not to think about Marco Island as you pull up to your apartment. His apartment. You haven’t lived there in three months and twenty-four hours. It is his apartment now, which only makes this hurt that much more.
You smooth your hands over the sundress, his favorite. Or it was his favorite. There had been a day when you would take hours getting ready for a party or for a date, and he would poke his head around the door, that lopsided smirk on his lips as he took in your still naked body, and would suggest the sundress. He likes to take it off, and you know that, so even in the winter, you find a way to wear it. Even when it is snowing and barely above zero, you wear the dress. Because it is his favorite. Was his favorite. Before the Affair.
You stare up at the apartment complex, looking through the heavy sheets of rain towards the apartment you chose together a year and a half ago. It had been one of those steps in a relationship that usually you are not ready for, but he somehow always manages to make everything seem simple and safe. Or did manage. Before the Affair.
That is how you classify your relationship now. In two distinct parts. Before the Affair and after the Affair. Before the Affair, you were happy. You were safe. You had an apartment and you were starting to leave websites with diamond rings open on your laptop. Before the Affair, he called your parents Mom and Dad and wanted to get a dog, because dogs are good practice for kids. Before the Affair, you loved him more than you had ever loved anyone in your entire life.
It is after the Affair that everything changed. After the Affair, you couldn’t touch him. After the Affair, you walked into his office and nearly slapped him when you saw him talking to a woman, but realized just in time the woman was heavily pregnant, older, and clearly married. After the Affair, you brought up the Affair during fights, even though you had sworn you had forgiven him. After the Affair, you weren’t sure if you would love anyone else ever again.
Finally, you move out of the car and into the torrential downpour, silently cursing the weather. You have spent three months in Florida, where it was sunny every day, except for the two hours in the afternoon when it would rain. You are used to the heat and the sun, and weren’t expecting bad weather at all. Your espadrilles are soaked and already your small frame is shaking from cold as you start up the stairs. This is becoming harder by the second, but you are prepared. It was the point of the three months after the Affair. Three months to take a step back and re-evaluate. You have re-evaluated, and you are prepared for the inevitable. You are prepared for the break up that comes after a break. Your best friend has prepared you, and you must keep moving. Once this is done, you can fall apart. But right now, falling apart is not an option.
The door looms in front of you and you reach into your purse, brushing your fingers across your keys before pulling back and leaning on the doorbell. Three months. You haven’t been here in three months, have barely spoken a word to him in three months, and you can’t just walk into the apartment you shared with him. Before the Affair. After the Affair. Before the Break. You are not sure of what is about to happen, but you can’t just walk in. Not if he’s met someone. He knows you are coming back today, but if he has met someone…you can’t just walk in. The door swings open and he is standing in front of you. “Mia,” he smiles softly. He has this capability to make your two syllable name sound like it takes a million years to say, make it sound soft and warm, and you bite your cheek to keep from smiling.
“Tom,” you nod carefully, your eyes moving over him. He is still him. Still Tom. Your Tom. His curly brown hair is slightly damp, and you notice that he has cut it. Not short, but shorter than you’re used to. He is wearing the soft jeans you bought him, the ones that create an ass for his skinny frame, and your favorite black button down. You still remember how the cotton feels against your thighs when you pull it on after sex, even if your clothes are closer.
“Oh, Mia,” he murmurs as he gathers you into his arms, practically lifting you off the ground. He buries his nose in your dark hair and you inhale his scent. It only takes a moment for you to realize that he is wearing the cheap cologne you bought him at a fair a year ago. Three months before the Affair. He had gently splashed it on his neck and asked you what you had thought, and you had promised him that if he bought it, he’d get non stop sex for the rest of the weekend. You ended up buying it for him, and he got his non stop sex. For the briefest of moments, you let your knees shake against him. You’re not sure what any of this means, but there is a plan. You are prepared.
He puts you down and then grabs your hand, leading you through the apartment you’re so familiar with. Nothing has changed. In the three months and twenty four hours you’ve been gone, everything is still the same. He grabs a blanket off the couch and then opens the door to the balcony. You pause for a moment, your mind racing. The balcony. The balcony is where you spent your night with him the first time in the apartment. After unpacking, he had ordered Chinese and you had sat with him on the loveseat, watching the stars. You love the balcony. Or you did.
“You look great, Mia,” he smiles, his hand moving down your body, over the curves he used to love. Or still loves. This isn’t what you were expecting and your breath catches, your body automatically leaning into his. “God, you’re fucking gorgeous.”
“Thanks,” you whisper, a small smile creeping over your lips as he runs his fingers across your collar bone and then across the soaking strap of your sundress. His lips fall against your shoulder, kissing the small spot that connects your neck and shoulder and you bite your lip. Your skin is dark, as dark as it used to get when you were a kid and you spent summers with your grandparents in Italy, and your grandfather jokingly said your mother wouldn’t recognize you anymore. The deep tan contrasts sharply against his china white flesh and you close your eyes briefly. “Tom. Tom. We…we can’t.”
He nods as he takes his lips away from your skin, his fingers falling away from your body. You follow him to the love seat and sit down next to him. This is it. This is the moment that you will add a third part to your relationship. Before the Affair, after the Affair, and after the Break. You are terrified, but you hear Alissa’s voice in your head, reminding you that he slept with her. He had an Affair. He had an Affair and didn’t tell you about it, you had to find out from her. From her smug smile as she handed you your change during a girl’s night out at your favorite bar. Julie. A redhead with no self-esteem and no hope for a stable future. You confronted him on the balcony, when you were too drunk to really put any normal thoughts together, beyond anger. He tucked you into bed and you whispered that you had forgiven him.
“I love you.”
The words cut into the noise of the rain falling against the railing of the balcony, a steady and monotonous downpour that sounds like marbles continuously falling against tile floor. You aren’t sure if he has really said it or if you are imagining things, but if he has said it, then the plan Alissa has so carefully erected over the past twenty-four hours is gone. Because this wasn’t part of the plan. This had never been part of the plan. And though you had planned to hate him today, though you had planned to rage and yell and pack the remainder of your things before leaving, you find yourself whispering slowly, “I love you too.”
Silence overtakes the small balcony again, his arm moving carefully over your shoulder as you tuck your cold hands under his black button down, warming immediately at the comforting heat waiting for you. “Christ, Mia,” he laughs, his abs contracting against your palms, “you’re freezing. Why didn’t you wear a jacket or a sweater?”
“I’ve been in Florida, Tom. I wasn’t exactly prepared for Boston’s insane weather.”
He laughs slightly, not necessarily at you, but because it’s a typical thing for you to do. When you had visited his parents in New Mexico, you had barely thought to bring any warm weather clothes. You don’t plan ahead well, and you’re remembering why. Plans never work. “We’re going to be okay,” he promises you. “I know I fucked up, Mi, but shit, we both did.”
“You fucked a bartender,” you roll your eyes, your voice raising ever so slightly. “You didn’t fuck up, you fucked a bartender.”
There is no defense for this, and he knows it. He knows he has betrayed your trust, and he ducks his head down, his slim fingers moving through his damp curls. It’s cold out and his hands are shaking, the hand resting on your upper arm is tapping lightly against your skin and you move your hand up to grasp it tightly. You hate this feeling, hate this part of relationships. You’ve never really been interested in them, at least not them lasting. Before Tom, you had your share of flings, and you had been in love once, though you still aren’t sure if it was love. You had only been a teenager, and you’re still not sure you loved him or if you were in love with him.
You have spent the past three months wishing you were four again. Four was an easy age. When you were four, you loved four things: your mother, your father, your goldfish, and your Barbie. Your father hadn’t left yet, your mother wasn’t overly involved in every aspect of your life, your goldfish hadn’t floated across the top of the water in his bowl yet, and your Barbie was still the most beautiful thing in the world. When you were four, there were no Affairs or bartenders. There was only love. And that would have kept you satisfied every day of your life.
The rain is falling harder now and Tom moves to gently throw the blanket over your shoulders, pressing a kiss to your hair. You settle back into your old position, your hands warming against his abdomen as you sit quietly. This isn’t what you had ever wanted this relationship to come to. When you had met him three years earlier, you had believed you would love him forever. He had told you he would marry you, had promised he would love you forever, and not for the first time, you believed words. The last time you believed words, you were sixteen and the boy you lost your virginity to told you he loved you. He left you for your lab partner, Hillary, and you spent a year wondering what the hell was wrong with you. Over and over, you have sworn not to believe words.
“We have to say something, Mi,” he whispers. “We can’t just sit out here and pretend you didn’t disappear for three months.”
“I didn’t disappear. I stayed with my parents. And now I’m back.”
“You ignored my calls, you paid your mother to tell me you weren’t home.”
“I hate her sometimes.”
“I know,” he laughs and he squeezes you gently. “Come on, Mia.”
You don’t like to ask questions. You don’t like to hear the reasons he chose her over you, even if it was only a few times. When you saw your father ten years after he had left, you never asked him why. You had spent most of your childhood wondering why, but you don’t want to know. Knowing makes it hurt more, knowing brings the guilt back. But for the first time in your life, you decide to be brave. “Why?”
“Why?”
“Why her?” you ask softly, and you hate that it sounds like a whine. You hate that it comes out on a plaintive whisper as you shiver in his arms. There are few things you hate more in life than feeling out of control, feeling helpless, feeling weak. “Why did you have an Affair?”
“I don’t know, Mi,” he sighs. “It was a mistake though.”
“You don’t have sex with someone by mistake, Tom.”
“No,” he shakes his head. “Mia, what I did…I’ll regret that for a long time. You don’t let me forget it, and I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Okay. But you did.” Now that you are brave, you want an answer. You need an answer, desperately. You need to know what was so wrong with you that after three years, your boyfriend, the person you love and want to marry, would cheat on you with a bartender from your favorite bar. “Why?”
He says nothing and you lean back against the love seat, taking your hands away from his abdomen and wrapping them in your lap. It is too cold, but you don’t care. You don’t care that your hands are shaking, you don’t care that at the age of twenty-five, you’re about to be single. You don’t care about anything but the rain falling in front of you, the wind carrying it to spray lightly against your face. You have missed him. You have missed this balcony. And though you hate to admit it, you feel like you are home here. You feel like you are home when you are next to him.
Before Tom, you didn’t need this. You didn’t need to feel like you were at home when you were with a man. You are not that type of a girl. Before Tom, you were never the type of girl who would stay with a cheating bastard. You used to be the girl who believed cheating was the lowest of the low. You had sworn over and over that you would never stay and wait for it to happen again. And yet here you are, sitting next to the man who cheated for two months, and only admitted it when you confronted him. And you are terrified to leave.
“You were disappearing.”
“What?” His words don’t make sense to you, and again you’re wondering if he’s about to make some bullshit argument about your inability to pay attention to him. You had been busy with grad school at the time and your grandmother had been dying. You hadn’t been able to stroke his ego. And he was only twenty-seven. Why the hell did he need that? Why the hell did he look for that from a twenty-one year old bartender?
“You were disappearing, Mi,” he sighs. “I know your life was shit and I get that, but you made it impossible for anyone to understand or take care of you. You wouldn’t let me. You weren’t in this. And I got tired of waiting for you to get back in it.”
“That’s your excuse? Your excuse for cheating on me is that I wasn’t in this? That I was going through a hard time? Jesus, Tom, what’s going to happen when we’re married?”
“No, it’s not my excuse. There isn’t a fucking excuse for what I did,” he groans. “Damn it, Mia, you were fucking disappearing. And I asked if you were okay and your only damn answer was to ignore me. So why the hell did you check out of this? Why the hell did you run to your parents for three months?”
“We needed a break.”
“Bullshit. Fuck, Mia, for once in your life, can you be honest? Can you cut the bullshit?”
You have never lied to him. He has to know that. You have not lied to him. At least, not directly. There are things you hide from him, things you can never tell him. He knows things, of course. He knows when your father left, your mother cried for days. He knows you respect your step father and secretly want to call him Dad, but are too afraid to insult the man who was never really a father. He knows you’re afraid of the dark. He knows you’re jealous of his family, even if his father died when he was ten. He knows you’d do anything in the world for him. Or you would have. Before the Affair.
There isn’t anyway to tell him why you pushed him away. There isn’t a way to explain that while you wanted to marry him, you also wanted him to leave. There’s no way to delve into all of that. But if you want to be with him, if you really want to be with him forever, then you have to. So you look up at him, at his crystal clear blue eyes that have darkened to a light green and you whisper, “Did you miss me?”
“Of course I did, Mia.”
“No…I mean…that was the wrong thing to ask. Do you need me?”
“No,” he shakes his head and your heart drops. “I want you. I want to have you. But this is up to you, Mi. I love you, and beyond that, I’m not sure of anything else.”
“But you want to be with me?”
“Forever.”
You nod carefully, a tear moving down your cheek as you lean back into him, your hands moving under his shirt again. Both of his arms move around you and pull you onto his lap, your hands moving to his chest. You have no reason to stay. There isn’t a single reason to trust him, and everything in you is telling you to leave. Every ounce of you is telling you to walk out right now and not look back. Because he could do it again. He hurt you once before, he could hurt you again.
But then he brushes the pad of his thumb across your cheek and kisses you gently. “I’m sorry, Mia. I’ll be sorry for the rest of my life.”
You cuddle closer to him, burying yourself in his strong arms as you take a deep breath, the cheap cologne from the fair wafting into your nostrils. You love him. You don’t know why and god knows you don’t have a reason. But you love him. You’re not going to beg him not to leave you. You’re not going to beg him not to do it again. You’re not going to say a word. All you can do is wrap your arms around his neck and lay your head on his shoulder. All you can do is watch the walls the you started planning when your father left, the walls you cemented when the first boy you ever loved left you for your lab partner, the walls you finished after the Affair, come tumbling down around you. All you can do is be happy that after three months and twenty four hours, you are home.