Page 142 of Reckless
The temperature in the room had dropped ten degrees.
"I started the acquisition process," I said.
I heard how that sounded only after it was already in the air.
I realized now that I should have said, I had an idea or I wanted to ask you something or even I thought maybe we could.
But I hadn’t.I had already moved.Roman had warned me.
Kelly closed the folder.
That care was worse than if she had thrown it.
"Why?"she asked.
It should have been easy to answer.
Because I love you and because you said future and I wanted to answer in the biggest truthful way I knew how or because I wanted to build something beside you.
Instead, because I was still trapped inside my own language and said, "Because I thought this was something that could matter to you."
Her mouth twisted.She laughed once."That is not an answer."
I felt the first real line of fear then.
"It is," I said.
"No."She looked at me with that awful, quiet steadiness that meant every word after would matter."It isn't."
She watched me and said, "I know you think this is choosing me.But to me it feels like you heard future and answered with ownership."
Ownership.
I had never meant it that way.
Fuck.I had made her the inspiration, not the partner.
She rested both hands on the folder and said, "I don't want to be impressed.I wanted to be chosen."
I should have understood that from the beginning.
When she stood up, I felt the panic move through me in one clean wave.
She was leaving.
She picked up her bag, looked at me one final time, and said, "I can't build a life where I'm grateful for being loved."
Then she left and I sat there for too long.
I saw it all then.
Roman's face that morning.My father's.Kelly's face in the sunroom when she said future.Kelly's face in the library when she told me she wanted sex and did not want to be handled like glass.Kelly's face in the restaurant, seeing the folder and understanding before I did what exactly I had done to us.
I loved her.
Gifts and money had always been as normal to me as water.Around me.Under me.Holding up every room I had ever moved through.
I had never once had to think about what it felt like for someone else to be drowned by it.
