Page 137 of Love What's Left
“Don’t be afraid to talk to me about things you want or need or that hurt you. Please. I’ll never use them against you. I swear it,” she says.
It sounds too easy, but acknowledging a problem is sometimes half the battle. I won’t reject her, and I’ll do my damndest not to doubt her because she’s healing too. I can return the trust I asked for. “I don’t know what it’ll look like to be that open.”
“It’ll look like love. When you need rest or support, you lean on me, the same way I lean on you.”
“What if, one day, I put my head in your lap and cried like a baby? Would you still say that?” I quip, doing my best to turn it into a joke, though my mouth is dry.
Her brown eyes grow warm and wet. “You already did. It was why I fought so hard to come back for you. Part of me knew you were waiting.”
45
Gabriel
One Week Later
Sydney unlocks the door and steps into her old apartment. The staff maintain the place weekly, but slightly stale air wafts out through the open door, a natural consequence of remaining unoccupied for more than a year.
She never spent a single night here after our wedding.
Sydney moves farther into the living room and runs her hand across the back of the emerald-green velvet sofa that practically swallows this room whole.
How many times have I stood exactly where I am now and knocked on her door? I can see those first seven years in flashes of images in my mind: then layered over now.
Her door, decked in a Christmas wreath, swinging open. Sydney fighting a smile and me with a present behind my back. Year after year.
Her door opening and Sydney in pajamas, her cheeks flushed fever-bright and me with a container of soup in one hand and a bag from Duane Reade pharmacy in the other.
Me with Rufus in a baby sling.
Sydney accepting the motorcycle boots I passed her.
Sydney, handing me a big bowl of popcorn and dragging me inside, telling me we’d have our meeting when the movie was over because she was busy watchingHowl’s Moving Castle. She fell asleep on me for the first time with both of us sitting on the green sofa I nicknamed “The Monster,” watching what was supposed to be a kid’s movie.
But Sydney hadn’t had much of a childhood, and it was new to her. I sat with Rufus on my thigh and my arm numb where Sydney used me as a pillow. I’d breathed her in, unwilling to risk disturbing the moment by moving so much as an inch.
There were days when I was struggling and made an excuse to see her face. Nights when I was celebrating . . . and still needed to see her face.
I’ve stood in this doorway . . . it must be close to a thousand times. But after we married, this place stopped reminding me of what we’d been and became a symbol of everything we had to lose.
She never fully moved out of here. She packed some bags and a couple boxes of necessities and started sleeping at the penthouse. The apartment is a shrine to her single life, ready and waiting for her to return to it on a moment’s notice.
She won’t, but knowing that doesn’t seem to make it any easier for me to step inside. So I lean against the doorjamb, attempt to hide my tension, and watch her move through the space like she’s slipping into one of her favorite sweaters.
Sydney looks over her shoulder at me. “Would you hate if I had this furniture brought up to our place? I know it doesn’t go with your aesthetic, and we might have to get rid of some of yours to make room for mine. So I’ll understand if you’d rather I didn’t.”
My lips curve upward, a fraction of the tension inside me loosening. “The only reason the penthouse has an aesthetic is because I hired a designer to deal with it. I’d much rather have your taste all over it.”
She grins at my innuendo.
My gaze holds hers, then my smile falls away entirely. “The penthouse is your home. It’s ours. Nothing would make me happier than you moving The Monster and every single other thing you own into it.”
“Don’t just say yes to things you don’t like.”
I snort. “Do you know how many times I fantasized about bending you over the arm of that couch? The cushions are wide enough for us to spoon on. Trust me, I like it. I like all of it.”
“Then why won’t you come inside the apartment?”
I make a show of dragging my attention down her body, then back up again. “I was enjoying the view.”
