by Maine, Miley
Yep, I’m never ever going to get a love as powerful as this. Nothing else is worth anything.
The next time she looks at me, I risk sending a cheeky wink her way. I regret it as soon as I do it because it could be a step too far, especially when her cheeks turn a vicious shade of pink. I almost expect her to yell at me for overstepping the boundary she tried to silently set up earlier... but much to my surprise she lets out a little giggle instead.
How am I supposed to keep myself in check when she is already giving me something back? Oh God, I am starting to grow crazy with happiness. It already feels like Christmas to me because I have the best gift ever...
“Finished!” Jenny yells all of a sudden, making me jump. “I’m going to get my Christmas pajamas on. Then can we watch the movie with the elves in it?”
“That’s fine with me, if it’s okay with Mommy?” Rebecca nods encouragingly. “Okay well I will clean up here and see you in a moment.”
Rebecca grabs a couple of things off the table to help me, which means we accidentally end up reaching for the same plate at the same time, and our fingers graze one another...
“Shit!” she cries out, leaping back from me. Her eyes widen in shock and she stares at me in what seems to be horror. I know that she felt it too... that surge of electricity racing through us, creating a lightning storm between our hands. She now must realize even more than before that still there is definitely something between us. There is no escaping it.
“Sorry,” I rasp gravely as I step back from the table, wanting to take the pressure off a little bit. “I didn’t mean to...”
“No, don’t worry,” Rebecca interjects, just as breathlessly as me. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t mean to...”
The atmosphere is thick with just one important question hanging there between us: where do we go from here?
* * *
While Rebecca lifts sleeping Jenny from the couch and takes her up to bed, I know that it’s time to crack out the wine. I pour us both a glass with a cheeky smile playing on my face as I do, because I really feel like things are already shifting in a positive way. The way that she was looking at me over the dinner table towards the end was reminiscent of the early days when the sexual tension was palpable all the time.
And that touch... wow, that touch was incredible. I get an intense shiver down my spine just thinking about it now. That electricity... she definitely felt it too. That lightning bolt shot to my core and made me yearn for so much more from her. I’m a little surprised that I didn’t act on it to be honest. I don’t know how I managed to pull myself away. I think if Rebecca wasn’t so determined to be sensible then it never would have happened.
“All done.” There’s a sweetness to Rebecca’s tone as she returns back down the stairs. “Jenny woke up for a moment and couldn’t remember where she was, but she drifted back off again, so all is good.”
Without saying a word, I hand her the glass which she takes willingly. I can already feel less stress in the air. This is honestly the most relaxed that we have been around one another in a very long time.
“So, she didn’t immediately want you to take her back home then?” I ask, a question mostly to fill the silence, to get some sort of conversation going.
“Oh no. She likes it here a lot... especially now that it’s a winter wonderland. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get her home.”
The magnitude of this statement hits her as soon as she’s said it. I can see the horror as it strikes her when she thinks about what it would be like to lose her daughter forever. I hope she realizes that I would never do that to her permanently. I would never be cruel enough.
“She would soon get bored of it here, once all the twinkly lights have gone,” I reassure her as much as I can. “And I don’t think she’d like it as much if you weren’t here. She likes having you around.”
There’s a softness to my voice that doesn’t go amiss. It seems to bring delicate looking tears to her eyes.
“She likes having both of us around,” she practically whispers. “It’s better when we’re all together. But that isn’t the way that it can be anymore, is it?”
She delivers that massive bomb before taking a giant swig of drink while keeping her eyes fixed on me the entire time in an attempt to work out my reaction. I honestly don’t know how to react to that one, it was a shocker. Not that she’s still feeling that way, I don’t expect a little bit of table flirting to change everything, but for her to say it so honestly. We must be turning a corner here. If she can finally let her feelings out, then we have the chance to comb through them all to see if there is anything left at the end of it.
“I know.” I nod slowly. “It should be like this all of the time. I much prefer it.”
Our eyes lock in with one another like a magnetic force has us clipped in place. We don’t stand a chance of fighting this feeling and moving apart right now, every force in the universe is working to keep us as we are, and that has to be for a reason.
Each breath I suck in is filled with a brand-new purpose, each heartbeat feels connected to hers, everything that we shared before is back again and I love it.
I feel like I need to say something. I want to use this moment to let her know how much I love her, but I need to be careful not to push her too far.
“Do you want another drink?” I rasp, hoping that’s at least an acceptable question. She nods silently and slides her glass over to me while biting down on her bottom lip in an incredibly sexy way. All I want to do is take over that nibbling to see how good I can make her feel.
Be calm, I warn myself angrily. You have days yet. Do not fuck this up.
“This is a nice wine.” Rebecca’s plump lips wrap around the glass. “I like it. It reminds me of when we were dating.”
The conversation might be fairly light, but there is such a heavy under tone that I can hardly breathe. I would love nothing more than to pick her apart so I could know what she’s thinking. I would love to know how she sees me and what she wants to come from this. I don’t think I’m quite as far away as I have been… but I’m not as close as I’d like, and it would be awesome to have some insight about where to go.
“Yes, I think I do remember. Maybe on one of our earliest dates...”
But for now, it seems like I’m going to have to be content with some small talk about wine while we navigate a way for what’s next. Mind you, discussing our early dates could be a good thing. Anything that has us remembering the early days is good. Back when I should have just told her in the first place about what mistakes I had made to see if she could still stand to love me after that...
11
Rebecca
December 23rd
This is too much like old times. Taylor and I, sitting side by side on the couch, talking so much that we aren’t even watching the terrible reality show playing on TV. I have never been able to help myself but get lost in his eyes and it seems that I feel the same now. Even if I really shouldn’t....
“I remember that!” Taylor tosses his head back and laughs loudly, an infectious sound that I can’t help but smile at. “That was so funny. I thought that we were going to get banned from that restaurant for the rest of our lives!”
“Well, we didn’t go back in for about a year, did we?” I giggle. “In the hope that they would have forgotten about us.”
This should be a lot harder and more painful than it is. Reminiscing with Taylor is surprisingly a lot of fun. As long as we avoid the bad topics then I’m sure we will be fine...
“I’m so sorry that I lost you, you know...” Oh God, just as I decide that we might be okay after all, Taylor takes on a decidedly sober and somber look as he dives right in to the subjects that we should definitely avoid. “I think about it a lot. How I wasn’t honest with you, and that was so stupid of me. I can’t believe I didn’t just say anything in the beginning.”
“Err...” Okay, it seems like we can’t avoid this now, even if I want to. Thankfully, I have
had just about enough wine to not simply run away from this. “Yes, well... I don’t know if it would have made any difference when I found out, to be honest.” I swing my legs around and plant my feet on the floor to avoid looking at him. “I mean, you hadn’t been honest about anything, had you? You didn’t even build your business up honestly.” I shrug my shoulders helplessly as all the reasons why I shouldn’t be enjoying myself with Taylor. “You’ve been doing it through drug money. Money laundering.”
“I made a mistake in the past,” he replies with a cool pointed calmness to his tone. “It has nothing to do with my business now. I have tried to explain this to you, but you don’t ever seem to hear it.”
I twist my neck to face him and narrow my eyes angrily. “How can I listen to anything you say, Taylor, when you haven’t done anything but lie to me?”
“I know.” He hangs his head low sadly. “I was wrong. But lying was the only thing I did wrong...”
“So, you aren’t a criminal then? You didn’t end up in jail? Because I’m pretty sure that’s what I read in a newspaper article.”
He huffs, sounding like irritation is rolling off his tongue, but I’m not going to let him verbally beat me into submission just because this annoys him. He’s the one who started this conversation anyway.
“I was naive, Rebecca, and I got involved with the wrong people. I didn’t know that I was going to end up as I did. I didn’t even know that I had done anything wrong until it was too late. I never had any business qualifications or anything. I just wanted to make something of myself and I was wrong...”
“There is wrong, then there’s breaking the law,” I growl back. “I have made some mistakes in my life as well, but I haven’t ever ended up in jail because of it. That isn’t something that just happens. You keep saying it like it’s normal...”
“I know it isn’t. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound like an asshole, I just want to try and finally make you see that what I did wasn’t as bad as it seems. I didn’t intentionally put myself in that place...”
“You know what they say...” I push myself backwards on the couch, needing to create some distance between myself and him. “The path to hell is paved with good intentions...”
We never really had this conversation before. Weirdly, when we got divorced, this wasn’t ever discussed in such a way. Now that I am really thinking about it, that seems strange. How did we manage to get to the point where we split up without even talking about it? It’s crazy.
“It was a big mistake; I will admit that.” His overly cool tone starts to crack. “And I paid massive consequences for it. But I learned from it and it’s made me a better person since...”
“But not someone good enough to be honest with me.”
“I didn’t want to lose you. That’s why I never said anything. It didn’t feel like the right time to drop such a heavy bomb when we were first dating, then afterwards I loved you too much and I was so scared that you would leave. I assumed that you would walk out on me if you knew about my fuck up and that would be it for us...”
I part my lips to argue with that but stop myself at the last minute. He didn’t tell me because he feared I would do exactly what I did. I walked away the moment I learned who he used to be.
Would I have done the same thing? Would I have hidden a secret from him if I thought that I would lose him? I love him so much that it did scare me to think about living without him...
No, did I love, loved... not loved. I can’t think about my feelings in a present tense. This is already complicated enough.
“I didn’t think it would matter,” he continues quietly, agony shooting out with every single word. “Because it was in the past. Nothing to do with the person I was when I met you. I didn’t think it would matter.”
“You didn’t think I would find out; you mean.” I can’t let this go, I just can’t. “You were never going to tell me, and you thought that we could just live our lives without ever discussing it.” I swing my arms around wildly and angrily. “Even when I got pregnant with your daughter. You didn’t tell me then. That was the perfect time for you to tell me before we became a family. I cannot believe that you just carried on leaving me uninformed. Do you know how humiliating it is to not know something so vital about the person that you’re married to? No, you have no idea. Because I didn’t do that to you.”
“I know, and I hate myself for it, believe me. It was such a stupid idea. I can’t believe I didn’t just say something. Like you said, there were so many chances for me to say something and I was too scared which made it seem so much worse than it was. I would do anything to change it.”
Shit, I can feel his words starting to get to me, circling through my body, making me want to believe him. But I can’t just go with that feeling, can I? No way. Not like that. That would just mean that I had been through the horror of divorce for nothing...
And I did find divorce horrifying. I might have been the one who instigated it, but it wasn’t what I wanted. It was like grief. Like I had really lost someone forever. But I still had to see him this whole time, which has made it agonizing.
“But I can’t change it.” I throw my hands in the air in frustration. “And nor can you. So, there isn’t any point in even talking about it anymore.”
“But I need you to understand...” Taylor is slowly sliding into desperation. “I want you to see that I’m not the bad guy that you think.”
“It doesn’t matter what I think anymore.” I leap up to my feet, needing to get away from him. Even sitting with him was a mistake tonight. If only he could have left things at us reminiscing and having a good time. Why did he have to bring up his criminal past and our divorce? What the hell did he think that he would achieve with it? He wants to talk about it. Well, I don’t ever want to talk about it again. What can we gain by discussing this? It’s over now. “You’ve made me hate you!”
As Taylor jumps up too, a red mist descends over me and I shove him. I don’t expect to have any real effect on him, I just want him to know how badly he’s fucked me up, how emotionally I am about this.
“I hate you!” I scream once more before shoving him again. This time he stumbles backwards towards the wall. “I hate you; I hate you; I hate you!”
As his back hits the wall with a thump, Taylor knocks the wind out of me by wrapping his arms around me. I fight against him, trying to slap and hit him to get him off me. Anything so we can have the separation again because touching him puts my head in a real spin so I can’t think straight, and this is the time that I really need to think straight.
“I hate you,” I hiss. “So much Taylor.”
As I calm down writhing in his arms, Taylor loosens his grip on me just enough to free one of his hands to wipe my tears away. I didn’t even realize that I had started crying, but now I’m even angrier. I have done everything that I can to hide how much of a shattered mess Taylor left behind when he finally signed those divorce papers, but now after just a few hours I have everything spilling out. I don’t just hate him; I hate myself as well.
“I know you hate me,” Taylor whispers against my trembling ear. “And I don’t blame you. But I will always love you and I want you to know that.”
“Always?” Fucking hell, I’m falling for his bull shit again. “Are you serious?”
“Of course, I am.” He holds onto my shoulders to fix me in place and stares determinedly into my eyes in an attempt to show me how serious he is. The problem is, it doesn’t matter how much I want to ignore his words and pretend that they don’t mean anything to me. But his eyes really are the window to his soul, and I can see the true depth of how honest his words are. I really don’t want to believe him because I have spent so much time distrusting his every word. “I could never stop loving you, Rebecca. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. The mother of my child, and the wife I never wanted to lose. I did some stupid things and I kept them from you, but I always loved you. And I always will.”
As he breaks of
f from his emotionally charged speech, I realize that I’m panting, unable to breathe. The intensity of his feelings and my own are too much for me.
“Stop it,” I beg him. “This isn’t fair. You can’t do this to me.”
I try to pull back from him, but he doesn’t seem keen to let me go. Judging by the fire in his eyes, he isn’t ever going to give me up again. The awful part is I don’t want him to, but I know that he has to. It’s a real battle between my head and my heart and I don’t know what side of me is going to win out...
Then all of a sudden, our lips collide together, answering my question for me. It seems that I’m completely saying goodbye to my sense and just going with what my body wants for me...
That can’t end well.
12
Taylor
December 24th
“Daddy!” Jenny jumps on the bed beside me causing my eyes to snap open in a hurried fashion. Not my favorite way to wake up I have to admit, prefer been allowed to wake up at my own pace, but that’s what it’s like having Jenny here. I’m pretty sure she’s been worse since the divorce because when she’s with me she wants all of my attention. Then again, all I want to do is give my attention to her but a couple of more minutes of sleep will do no harm. “Daddy wake up! It’s Christmas Eve. We need to do something fun. You promised me that I could see Santa today if he isn’t too busy.”
“Right, of course.” I rub my eyes hard. “Don’t worry, I’m up. What time is it?”
Of course, Jenny isn’t going to have the answer to that question. Five years old is much too young to be telling the time, so I check out my digital clock and I’m crushed the moment I see that isn’t even seven a.m.
“Oh, my goodness, Jenny, Santa isn’t even going to be awake yet. We better have some breakfast before we think about going anywhere.”
