by K L Hughes
After reading her book again with fresh eyes, he’d realized that Leigh wouldn’t be able to fully live without Beth, not again. Honestly, he didn’t know if she ever had, but one thing he did know was that she needed the older woman. They needed each other, and he’d do anything he could to fix what he’d helped to break, hoping that someday he’d be able to forgive himself.
****
*One month later*
Beth finished packing the last few items she’d brought with her from home. She’d been living in this hotel for entirely too long, though luckily they’d given her a good weekly rate rather than making her pay by the night. She hadn’t brought much with her. No need, really. She hadn’t wanted much, certainly nothing that reminded her of the last eighteen years she’d spent married to a man she’d never loved; a man who’d never loved her beyond her body. There was no purpose in carrying that life with her into what she had hoped would be the start of the best and most beautiful adventure that life could have ever offered her. She’d been wrong. She’d ruined it.
It had been a month since the day in the coffee shop when she’d foolishly allowed her own words to bring Leigh’s fears to screaming, itching life. Beth had spent the following first two weeks repeatedly calling the younger woman, emailing her, buzzing hopelessly at the door, waiting to be let in, waiting for an opportunity to explain, waiting to fix what she’d broken…waiting. When the third week finally came around, she finally stopped calling, stopped emailing, and stopped attempting to visit. She couldn’t push Leigh to see her or to talk to her. Leigh was afraid, and Beth certainly couldn’t blame her for that.
She still couldn’t shake the vivid memory of that day—the look on Leigh’s face, tumultuous and terrified, painful. She hadn’t realized that in a single, short rant about the characters of a book, she’d been cutting through every fragile, tender tie she’d managed to make to the beautiful brunette in the short, yet blissful week they’d spent together. How could she have been so arrogant, so foolish, to say something like that—that people never change, as if she, herself, were flawless. She knew, though, that the words she’d spoken were wrong. She had changed, even if most people never did.
As she slipped the last item into her bag, Beth picked up her laptop and took it over to the small table in the living area of the hotel suite. She sat down and pulled up Leigh’s book on her PC. She read her favorite passages again and again, trying to let the memories of the way she’d touched the younger woman and the way Leigh had touched her flood into her brain and body and give her a momentary reprieve from her constant pain. She felt the weight of ten thousand stones pushing heavily against her heart as she thought of the woman who’d owned her, heart and soul, for so many years. She’d never known anyone more beautiful, more incredible than Leigh. She had always been in complete awe of the brunette, and to have been loved by her, if even for only a short time, was the most amazing gift she could have ever been given. So, even for all her pain, she couldn’t be bitter. She could only be grateful and gracious enough to let it go, set her love free.
Beth scanned a passage from Leigh’s book that she’d read over and over since she’d gotten her first copy. It still shocked her how easily she was able to find her own emotions echoed through Leigh’s words, as if the brunette had reached in and plucked them from the blonde’s soul like wildflowers in spring. Without really realizing what she was doing, Beth clicked open her email and began a new composition. Her fingers tapped of their own accord, and within minutes, she was clicking Send. She closed the laptop, stuffed it into her bag, and headed down to the lobby. She hailed a cab and climbed into the backseat. There was no stopping the tears, so she didn’t bother to wipe them away. Instead, she simply stared through the window at a tear-blurred city that had offered her hope in the same breath that it had taken it away.
****
Leigh poured the wine in copious amounts, as if the essence within the bottle could somehow convince her heart to beat again, could bring her back to blazing, beautiful life. She knew, though, that nothing, no amount of drink or drug, could save her from this sorrow invading her very soul. It was like a cancer, spreading through every molecule, evading every attempt she made to dig it out of her, and quickly, forcibly draining her colors. She couldn’t escape it, and she feared she would never be able to. She feared that this gripping sadness would leech away every drop, every crimson current, until she became so arid and so barren that her body would simply crumble, and her life would end painfully and slowly and so achingly full of regret.
Tears formed. They rose of their own accord. They fell freely. She never bothered to wipe them away. She refused to place even a fingertip to her flushed and slippery cheeks. Every salted droplet was a confession or regret, an apology, a memory, a desire, a fear, and Leigh had learned throughout her many hardships and trials that there was nothing, nothing, in this world that had ever been or ever could be more precious, more monumental, or rarer than the full, fascinating range of raw and honest human emotion. She’d been a coward, robbing her soul of speech by commanding her body to deny her heart’s deepest, most dangerous desire, and for that, she could never forgive herself. Even with J’s encouragement, she’d been unable to muster the courage to push through her fear. So, she refused to rob herself of this moment, or of these tears.
Leigh’s body ached with the pressure of everything she was keeping inside. She recognized the feeling, the same feeling that always preceded a long, sleepless night of writing. It had always been her outlet, her truest and most precious form of expression. Though she knew that writing her feelings out would certainly not entirely exorcise her of her pain, it would alleviate some of the ache.
The brunette crawled beneath the plush covers of her bed, scooting up until she felt her back touch the cool concrete of the wall behind her, and pulled her laptop atop the blankets to rest in front of her. She took a deep, preparatory breath as she opened a new Word document, ready to pour her pain onto virtual pages. Taking a sip of the almost chocolaty rich texture and taste of her wine, Leigh reveled in the way it slowly slid down her throat, fizzling deliciously as it hit the empty pit of her stomach. She gingerly placed her fingers to the keys and began her lament.
A month has passed since I last touched your gaze with my own, since I last trailed my fingertips along your exquisite canvas, since I last brushed my timid lips along the coral lines of your perfect mouth, since I betrayed the barely beating mess within my aching, trembling chest and sent you away. How can I forgive myself? Does the universe make allowances for those of us, we, the pathetically fearful, who abandon the exuberating, intricate, and unique rhythm of our hearts for the exhausting, fleeting cadence of our feet? If a God exists, could He, would He grant clemency for these violent acts, these wicked violations of the blessed and pure innocence of love? Or is this pain, this unbearable torture of the most intimate parts of that which makes me who I am, my karmic retribution for some half-hearted attempt to protect myself?
I love you. I have always loved you. I have loved you in every breath I have ever taken, those taken before I knew you, those taken within a gasp of pleasure as our flesh connected for the first time, those taken against your lips, those taken between my tears or yours, those taken with every heartbreaking confession, every soul-shaking hello, and every crushing goodbye. I have loved you in every whisper, every song, every poem, every quiet or stunning echo of laughter, and in every strangled, tearful cry. I have loved you in every story I have written and every novel I have lived, whether heartbreaking or hilarious. I have loved you in every triumph and in every tragedy and in every hope and every fear. I have loved you my entire life, and I will continue to love you in every languid contraction of the battered muscle beneath my ribs.
You moved me. So many times, I have heard this expression. I have heard writers and lovers and artists and readers and fans and simple minds and complex hearts say these very words, claiming to have been “moved.” Do they know, though? I wonder. Do they k
now what it truly means to be moved by something or someone? Because to feel something particularly deeply is powerful, and yet it is not the same. It is far from being “moved.” I know this, because I have experienced the range of human emotion. I have experienced those powerful feelings, those that dig deeply into you, burying into your mind and inspiring thought and wonder and intrigue. For the longest time, I thought that that was what it meant to be moved. I was wrong.
When something or someone moves you, truly moves you, a part of you alters. A part of you wakes affected and afflicted by senses you had never previously experienced. A part of you that you never understood, or perhaps never even knew, suddenly sparks into existence. That one thing or place or person gets inside you, so deep inside you that you can feel it stirring in every cell. Emotions aren’t merely provoked. They become unavoidable—forcing to the surface in the most riveting manner with such urgency and dripping with passion. It changes you. It literally changes you, teaching you in the most intimate, most profound of ways. That was you. That was what you did to me, for me. You moved me.
You…moved me.
Leigh’s eyes were closed, her lids clenching tightly as tears forced their way through the soft, fleshy dams. Her fingers tapped madly against the keys, expelling all that she had harbored within, all that plagued her in waking and in dreaming. She wanted to feel empty, though she knew no amount of words would ever purge her of her ability to feel further, to write more. She was an endless, grand abyss, a bottomless pit with no hope of ever being full or of ever being empty.
A short, melodic jingle rang out from the laptop’s speakers signifying the arrival of a new email in Leigh’s already cluttered inbox. She figured it was probably one of her readers emailing her. She kept one of her personal email addresses on her author website, because she wanted her fans to know that she knew they were the truest reason she’d had any success at all, and would always do her best to communicate with them directly. So, in answer, she received several hundred, sometimes several thousand, emails a day, which was stunning at first, but after a while just became part of her overwhelming routine. Unfortunately, she was unable to respond to each and every one, but she did her best to answer as many as possible as often as possible.
Leigh minimized her writing document to pull up her email. Most of the time, she didn’t bother to check it until a designated time she set aside each week for answering fan mail, but she figured now was as good a time as any. Besides, she could use a distraction from her tormented ode to heartbreak. Not to mention the fact that the wine was starting to go to her head, her vision just a tad bit blurry at this point. Apparently, she’d been guzzling the stuff without even realizing it.
Leigh clicked to open her inbox. It was overflowing as usual, 1457 unread messages. Her eyes settled on the last received message, the one that had broken her concentration, distracted her from her heartache. She intended to write a nice, long letter to the gracious fan that had unknowingly saved her from her own self-inflicted torture, but when her eyes rested on the name, her insides began to vibrate. Her stomach shot up into her throat, and her head began to swim, or perhaps that was simply from the effects of the wine. Either way, Leigh suddenly felt like she was teetering on the edge of a cliff, waiting to be thrown forward into the dark, unyielding abyss below.
She clicked the name of the woman she’d always and would always love, and opened a very short email from the blonde. The bulk of the message was an excerpt quote from Leigh’s book, which only made her chest clench harder and tighter, until the air could no longer push into her lungs or out. She was frozen in the moment as her own words, sent from the woman they’d been written about, gripped her with every tingling, torturous, lovely ounce of force possible.
“I held onto you as long as possible. When you slipped from my grasp, I never gave up. I clung to the air that occupied all the spaces we'd shared together. The breaths you left behind filled my lungs with a hope I knew would never result in a reality, and still, I never gave up.”
Leigh read the words again and again, letting them touch her and tease her and ache in all the most precious and painful ways imaginable before finally moving on to the last two lines of the email. When she read the words, she felt herself on the edge again. Only this time, she was stepping forward, willingly falling into the abyss. This—this was her fault.
“This was my life without you, and will always be. My flight leaves at 10 PM. I’m going home. I won’t bother you anymore. –B”
“Oh God,” Leigh whispered shakily as she stared at the words on the screen a moment longer. This is what she’d wanted, right? She’d wanted to be able to let go of the older woman and move on with her life. She’d wanted to be able to stop feeling for her, stop feeling at all. This is what she’d wanted, right?
“No,” Leigh practically yelled at herself as she tossed her laptop from her lap and pushed out from under the covers of her bed. “What the hell did I do?”
Her vision went temporarily blurry as the dizziness from standing came in a wave before rolling back out again. She glanced toward the clock on the wall. It was a little after 8:30 PM already. She hurriedly threw on some clothes, grabbed her keys, and sprinted out the door, headed for the street. She had a hundred-dollar tip ready for the cab driver who could get her to the airport in half an hour.
****
Beth moved with purpose, pushing quickly through the bustling bodies moving in, out, and around the airport terminal. She wanted to hide, wanted to disappear, wanted to mix into the crowd and become nothing more than a forgettable face. The heels clicking madly behind her only made her want to run faster, despite the pleading tone of her lover’s melodic voice. She was unable to allow herself to stop moving, to turn and look back into the beautiful face of the brunette. She couldn’t bear to see those ocean eyes full of uncertainty or rejection or pain.
“Look, Leigh, I understand. You said it yourself—you loved me once, but—”
“You’re wrong,” Leigh yelled out from behind Beth, hoping she would turn around, turn around and look at her, talk to her. They were nearing the security check point. This was her last chance, her only chance, to make things right. “I was wrong!”
“What do you mean?” Beth asked, coming to an abrupt halt and slowly turning to face the brunette, tears obvious in her eyes. “Wrong about what?” She gripped the handle of her suitcase so tightly that it almost appeared to be a lifeline, and maybe in that moment, looking into the face of the only person she’d ever truly loved, it was. It was keeping her grounded, keeping her from falling so painfully apart.
“I mean it was deeper than that for me. It wasn’t just loving you once. It was more significant than that. It was discovering you. It was discovering myself. You were never simple enough to just be a first love. You had to be more than that. You…you were like the fullest, freshest breath of air I had ever taken.” Leigh stepped forward, voice cracked and tears streaming from her eyes, but she kept moving, drawing herself toward the blonde.
“When you looked at me, you saw me,” she continued. “You saw me—not the me I had tried so desperately to be, not the me that my parents wished I could have been, not the me that was never really me at all, but me. Everything that I had denied, that I had hidden, for years. When you touched me, when we embraced, that massive lie that had become my entire world just shattered. It all crumbled around me, and for the first time in my life, I could see myself, bare and raw and honest. I could see what and who I was, and when I was like that, when I was exposed and vulnerable and terrified, you just loved me. You still loved me.”
A small group of people had formed in the vicinity, playing audience to the confession, as the two women stared into each other, blue on blue, both pairs of eyes raining down every ounce of every solid, every fractured, every joyful, and every painful emotion wrestling inside them. Leigh stepped forward further still, until she and Beth stood toe to toe, face to face, so close but not yet touching. Leigh lifted a hand and laid h
er palm against her chest as she continued to pour out the beating contents beneath her flesh.
“And you said…you said that I was beautiful. The real me, the one that I had been so ashamed of for so long. You said that I was beautiful, and you made me believe that I was. Don’t you see how precious that is? You did that. Even when I tried so desperately to hate you, even through my anger and my pain, I could never stop loving you for that. You changed my life, and every single hardship was worth enduring, because it led me to this life, Beth. It led me to this place, to this success, to J. But most of all, it led me back to you.”
Leigh reached up and wiped away her tears, taking a long, deep, comforting breath before pushing herself onward. She was going to get this all out in the air. She had to. She’d made a mistake turning Beth away. She’d let her fear get in the way of her heart just as she’d done so many times before. She refused to do it again.
“And I know that I told you I wasn’t ready, and I know that I said I didn’t want this, that I wasn’t sure, that I couldn’t do this. I know I hurt you. I hurt myself, but I was afraid. I was afraid to let myself love you like before, to let you in. I’m still afraid. I’m afraid of you, of me. I’m afraid of everything, of how I feel when I’m with you, and how I feel when I’m not. I’ve never loved anyone as deeply, as completely, as I love you, as I have always loved you, and that scares the hell out of me. But I want to try. More than anything, I want to try.”
“What are you saying?” Beth asked, her voice a broken whisper. Leigh took a deep, steadying breath before slowly reaching forward, sliding a thumb across the gorgeous blonde’s soft, wet cheek, and wiping away a fresh stream of tears. Beth closed her eyes against the touch, wondering if it would be the last.
