Page 67 of My One Week Husband
But as I play, I choose to let those beliefs go.
To take the gift for what it is—a gift. And to receive it.
She closes the distance, stopping a few feet in front of me, beaming like the sun. As I play and I play and I play.
Then, when I’ve reached the end, I stop, lower the bow and the instrument, and say, “It reminds me of you.”
“So you told me.”
The stage fright I felt moments ago?
That’s nothing compared to the fear that races through me now, that threatens to pull me under, to make me want to run away.
But the music has given me strength. The music has always given me strength, only I didn’t realize it till last night.
Or maybe I finally found my own strength through her. I use it to speak my heart’s desire.
“I thought maybe if you were talking to the river, it might talk back to you. It might feel sad and sweet, melancholy but happy. That maybe the river would talk to you through music,” I say, my heart skittering.
“Perhaps it is. But I would need a translator. Someone who understands music intimately. Could you be that person?” she asks, hope in her tone, a hope that matches mine.
I smile, my nerves dissipating some. “I can. I know what all the notes mean.”
“Tell me. Tell me what the river is saying.”
I put the violin down, setting it carefully in its case, then closing it.
I meet her eyes. She’s waiting for me. It’s my turn. I’m the one who shut the door on us yesterday. I’m the one who has to kick it wide open again. “I was wrong. Dead wrong.”
She nods carefully. “About what?”
That’s so very Scarlett. Open, earnest, but making sure that I deserve her. My God, I hope I can deserve her. “I thought I was protecting us by making a decision to end the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me,” I say, opening my whole heart to her.
Her lips shift into a grin. She tries to fight it. But she seems to have no luck. “The most wonderful thing ever?”
“Yes. That’s what you are. And I didn’t give us a chance.”
“That’s true. You didn’t give us the opportunity to learn how to trust each other, to feel truly safe with each other,” she says softly, but it’s not an indictment of me. It’s simply the truth.
“I know,” I say, wishing I could go back in time and fix things. But the world only spins forward. You can’t change the past. You can only live differently in the present. That’s what I must do with her. “I didn’t give you a chance. I said we couldn’t be together because I didn’t want to hurt you,” I say, then pat my chest, owning it. “But the truth is I’m terrified of being the broken one. I’m so damn scared of letting myself be loved again. Maybe even unconditionally. I don’t think I know how to be vulnerable. If I’m vulnerable, then I can be left. I’d thought I was protecting both of us. But I was only protecting myself. And in so doing, I didn’t protect you. I only hurt you. And I’m so very sorry.”
She lifts her hand as if to touch me, but then seems to think better of it, tucking her hands into her jeans pockets. Perhaps I haven’t said enough. Or maybe she has something to say.
A boat glides along the river, and a young woman with two toddlers in tow ambles along the path. Cars and buses trundle by on the avenue.
“Daniel, you’ve been through something terrible,” she says. “And when my father sent me his photos of dinner and ice cream, everything hit me all at once. How hard it was for you to open yourself up at last. At all, really. When I told you yesterday that I loved you, I didn’t get to say my piece. And so I’m going to say it now.”
She draws a deep breath, as if for courage. She casts her gaze to the river, her source of strength. Then finally she speaks. “I love you. I just do. And I want to give this a chance. I want to give us a chance. But mostly, I want to know that, if you’re here to ask for a second chance, you’re all the way in. That you’re ready for it,” she says, laying her heart on the line. “Because know this—I will be here for you. I will be here when you’re sad, when you’re hurt, when you’re happy, when you’re vulnerable, when you’re lonely, when you’re horny, and when you’re happy. I will be here for you. As your friend, as your lover, as your woman. All I ask is that you be here in this too.”
How could I not?
