Page 105 of When We Had Forever
“I get that,” I say. “But can we at least talk about it? Maybe not now, but later, once things aren’t so fresh?”
“I really don’t want to.” Something flashes in his eyes—a rubbed-raw wound, there and then gone. But it’s enough for me to know.
Too much. He’s feeling too much. And now, since he can’t go for the bottle, he’ll retreat to the only place he finds solace. In approximately three, two...
Michael crumples his linen napkin beside his plate. “I have a lot of work to finish. Do you need help cleaning up?”
“No. Thanks. But it’s already seven thirty. Can’t work wait?”
“I really need to get this done,” he says. “Maybe you’d feel better if you went for a run?”
Then he’s gone.
After clearing the dishes, I venture out into the dark. I run and run and run. The pound of rubber against asphalt clears my head. When I return, Michael waits at the front door.
He holds out a hand as I shuck off my squelchy shoes. “Come on. I made you a bath. With bubbles. And candles. And I got you this a while back. I’ve just been waiting for the right time.” He presses a silky black jewelry box into my hand.
I swallow the retort that springs to my tongue, because I recognize this for what it is: a peace offering. An apology that doesn’t require the discomfort of words.
I thumb open the box lid and my breath catches. Nestled inside is a delicate necklace with a gold disk rimmed by tiny diamonds.Pennyis engraved in the center.
I glance up, my eyes welling. “It’s beautiful.”
“I really do miss her,” he says.
I nod, knowing this is the most he can give right now. It’s enough. It has to be.
With a worn smile, I fasten Penny’s token around my neck and let Michael lead me upstairs. While he pulls off my wet things and drops them onto the tile, I pop open the buttons of his dress shirt.
In the bath, I climb onto him and let his slippery fingers guide my hips into a rhythm, slower than our usual, so as not to send soapsuds spilling across the floor. The whole time, I watch his closed eyes, his knitted brow. It’s like he’s speaking with his voice, too, instead of just his body.
I’m only saying I don’t want another dog because I’m so crushed, he tells me.Penny dying hurt infinitely more than I expected, and I’m sorry, but I don’t ever want to go through that pain again.
“It’s okay,” I murmur, prompting him to clutch me closer. “It’s okay. I understand, and I won’t push.”
When that dark, sucking heat finally spills through me and the tremors subside, I nestle against his chest while he runs his fingers up and down my back. The bathwater has cooled to lukewarm, but I don’t care. I just want to stay like this.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his lips in my hair.
“Me, too,” I murmur.
“Do you feel better now?”
I smile against his chest. “Always.”
And it’s true. Because by the time we go to bed and he pulls me against him, I feel as though we ended up having a conversation, after all.
AFTER
After Grayson’s confession, I don’t sleep. Or if I do, I can’t tell—the hours ebb and flow without any logic stitching them together. When I first check my phone at eleven eleven, the familiar numbers jab an angry red shock wave through me, but a moment later, the screen reads 3:12. Then hours pass, but a tap of my finger only shows 3:41.
Nothing makes sense.
Grayson and Michael. Michael and Grayson. They blur together in my head—two separate men I thought were one. And yet I can’t understand how I ever could have missed the difference. Even if I didn’t know they were identical twins.
I writhe from one sleepless position to another. The sheets twist around my legs.
God, no wonder I failed to coax Michael into opening up. For years, I tried. And tried. I never gave up on my mission of squeezing blood from a stone, because I believed I’d done it before. But the man who’d bled so much for me in the beginning, who’d stained my hands red with his honesty, was not the same one I married. In trying to change Michael, I may as well have gone to war with the ocean.
