by Kahlen Aymes
Both of our chests were heaving, our breaths mingling in a winter fog between us. Julia’s teeth also began to chatter, which made me realize she’d chased me out of the restaurant without a coat. Her chin trembled as I glared at her, but still, she reached for me with both arms.
“Ryan, pl… please. You kn… know that’s nuh… not true.” Her green eyes, filling with fresh tears, implored me to have mercy on us both. “You’re st… still the only one. Th… the only one who’s tuh… touched me.”
The tight knot in my gut loosened slightly as I glanced over her head at the other man, who turned away, heading the opposite direction down the block. Her fingers curled into my forearms as she shivered in front of me, her eyes pleading. She was suffering. I could feel it as if it were myself. I sucked in my breath and instantly pulled her into a tight embrace, holding her close to me.
Fuck it all! She was my wife, and no matter what, I loved her beyond how any normal man loved a woman. She owned me, and I knew it.
“I am so Goddammed mad at you right now, I can’t even fucking breathe!” When she began to clutch at my shirt and sob into my chest, I almost broke. “I’m going to yell and scream at you until I’m hoarse, I swear to God!” My arms tightened as I wrapped her inside the opening of my coat, warm against me. My lips found her temple and then the side of her face, the salt of her tears on my tongue. My own eyes blurred. “Jesus, I was so worried about you. Right now, all I wanna do is make sure you’re okay.”
Julia’s arms wrapped tightly around my waist under the jacket, her fingers fisting in the material of my shirt, and her head rested on my chest.
She clung to me, crying my name over and over, in the middle of the Paris street; the snow softly falling, the busy city noises fading into oblivion as the moment suffocated me. I wondered if she had an explanation to offer, and despite what she said, was Turner part of the reason she left me? The knot began to tighten again, the ache gnawing away at my insides.
“I thought… when you didn’t call back… that you were done with me.”
My jaw tensed, and I closed my eyes just before the words tore out through clenched teeth. “What do you think? That I could walk away from you even if I fucking wanted to?” I was furious that she’d even consider the possibility, but my heart squeezed as her little body shook with sobs in my arms. I couldn’t know if we’d be able to get through all the mistrust, but I knew we loved each other so much I wanted to rip the heart from my chest, it hurt so bad.
My hands found her shoulders, and I pushed her back gently, my eyes seeking hers. The green orbs held the same loving expression I’d seen a million times, but deep sadness also. I fought the urge to brush my knuckles across her cheek when her foggy breath and chattering teeth reminded me how cold she must be.
“Come on.” I shed my coat and wrapped it around her shoulders, leading her back to the café where we gathered up her coat, handbag, and briefcase. The waitress had it all waiting for us by the entrance.
“Merci.” I thanked the woman quietly and helped Julia on with her long, black wool coat, cashmere scarf, and matching gloves and quickly shrugged back into mine. I tried hard to ignore the soft aroma of her perfume, which had wiggled its way into the lining of my coat in the mere moments she’d worn it. There were so many memories attached to that scent, and in this moment, it hurt too much to remember.
I hailed a taxi, and after joining me inside, Julia quietly murmured an address. I didn’t ask her where we were going, and she didn’t ask me if I wanted to go with her. Despite the tearful reunion, there was a lot of shit to clean up, and the invisible wall between us was awful. I wanted to hold her and forget everything that happened, but I knew we needed to hash everything out or we’d never recover.
Part of me was afraid to crack open the wound, terrified of the possibility we couldn’t survive. Even when she couldn’t remember me, I knew I’d be in her life, at least as her friend. Now, the future was uncertain; except that I’d love her until I died… no matter if we were together or not. We were both fragile, and I wasn’t going to begin the conversation here. By New York time, it was the middle of the night and I was dead on my feet. There would be plenty of time to talk when my head was clear and sanity returned.
The fingers of one hand tried to rub away the burn in my eyes. I followed Julia into the lavish hotel wordlessly. I didn’t take note of our surroundings. I didn’t care where we were.
She dug in her purse for the key card and handed it over when we got to the door of the room. It was dark inside with the curtains pulled. Part of me hesitated, not wanting the lights on, not wanting to see the world she’d created in Paris without me.
“I just want to sleep.” My voice sounded dead and distant, even to me. “I haven’t slept in… Well, for a while.”
“Don’t you want to t ta—”
“We can talk later. I’m pissed and exhausted. It’ll be easier later.” I sensed, rather than saw, Julia nod. “I know it’s morning for you, but I need to go to bed.”
“Okay,” she agreed, dropping her coat on a sofa and preceding me into another room, which had to be the bedroom of the suite. The light she switched on was low and filtered toward me enough to allow me to drop my bag on the couch, place my coat with hers, and follow.
The suite was elegant but lacked anything that would make it Julia’s space. The low light was coming from the attached bathroom, and I could hear Julia moving around in there. When she came out, she looked ready for bed, too, which I didn’t expect given the early morning hour. I cocked an eyebrow in question.
“I’m really tired, too. All the crying wipes me out,” she offered in explanation. I didn’t question it, just took it as a blessing, because maybe with her next to me, I’d finally be able to get the deep sleep I needed. I pulled off my shirt and kicked off my Nikes one by one. I inhaled and ran a hand through my hair. Then it occurred to me. Was I supposed to sleep in here with her? Should I go to the couch in the other room?
“Are you hungry? I don’t have much food, but I have yogurt and fruit, and Pellegrino if you’re thirsty. Or, I can call room service.”
“I’m okay.” The silence was awkward. It felt foreign, and I hated it.
“Do you need anything? You don’t have much for bags,” she asked quietly.
I shook my head, not knowing what the fuck I was doing. I shrugged in defeat. “Uh, toothpaste, and I don’t have a toothbrush either.” My mind flashed to all the times in college when we’d pulled all-nighters or I’d ended up crashed at her and Ellie’s apartment after parties. She’d finally bought me my own toothbrush to have on hand.
“There’s an extra one in the right hand drawer. I have a pair of your sweats and one of your T-shirts. Do you want them?”
I looked at her, finally taking in everything about her. She was thinner than I remembered, her cheeks slightly hollow, and dark shadows lurked under her eyes. The long sleeved thermal shirt she wore hung on her and her legs were bare beneath it, save for a pair of pink fuzzy socks. My mind briefly registered they were a stocking stuffer from a few Christmases back. I wanted to hold her and take away all the bullshit, but I couldn’t let go of the fact she didn’t trust me or that I’d found her in another man’s arms thirty minutes before. Did she keep that toothbrush for him? My jaw tightened, but I mentally shook myself. She’d said no one touched her, but if she didn’t trust me, could I believe her?
“Yeah, okay,” I murmured softly. “Just the sweats.”
“Obviously toiletries are provided here. That’s where the extra tooth brush came from.” She read my thoughts, and I flushed guiltily.
She walked forward and took some navy blue sweatpants from the open suitcase that rested on the only chair in the room, and laid them on the foot of the bed near me. I didn’t ask her how or why they were with her in Paris. I didn’t ask her why her suitcases were packed. Tonight was soon enough for questions and answers I might not be able to live with. In my haste, the sleeping pills were still in the po
cket of my dirty scrubs laying in a pile on our bathroom floor in New York. Oh, well. Maybe with Julia finally in the same room, I’d be capable of sleep.
“Thanks. Where should I sleep?”
Julia’s brow creased and pain registered on her beautiful features before she quickly masked it, and turned away. I knew her so well, yet the past six weeks made me feel like a stranger. I tried to shake it off, telling myself this was us and we’d always be us, but I didn’t know where to begin. It hurt like hell. So much, it made me sick to my stomach.
“I thought…” she hesitated. “In the bed. Unless… you’re not comfortable with that.”
“No. I mean, it’s fine,” I said shortly, loudly clearing my throat, before heading into the bathroom and closing the door behind me.
When I’d finished, I turned out the light and made my way back to the bedroom. The bed was turned down and Julia lay on her side with her back to me. I could hear her breathing in the darkness. It was like a scene from a movie where the sounds are amplified obnoxiously, like the heartbeat from A Tell Tale Heart pounding harder and faster with each passing second. At least Julia was sleeping. I wondered if she’d recovered from her flu.
I hesitated a few seconds before dropping the sweats and crawling naked into bed. I was too exhausted not to get a good night’s sleep, and the sweats would make me hot. Sleep. I drew the covers up to my waist, flung a bare arm over my eyes, and I willed the welcome oblivion to come quickly. I tried to ignore the delicious scent of my wife, now within arm’s reach. She was close enough I could feel the heat radiating between our bodies; I could hear her soft intake of breath. I tried to ignore the emptiness in my arms and the soreness of my heart, and I wished to hell I’d remembered those fucking sleeping pills. You’d think that not sleeping for almost 24 hours, would have been enough.
Ryan tossed and turned next to me, and I started violently out of my fitful half-sleep when his hand flung heavily on my chest. My heart ached, and I longed to touch him. The wall between us was killing me. When he’d held me to him on the sidewalk, the big vacuum in my chest started to ease. But then, when he pushed me away and didn’t hold me in the cab, it returned, more sickeningly than before.
Even with my husband beside me, I felt isolated; cut off from the one person I needed most in the world. I still didn’t have him back. My best friend wasn’t with me. I struggled with it, because, why was he here if he hadn’t set things straight with Jane and finally understood how she made me feel? Would he fly all the way to Paris, just to fight with me? Was he here to end it? A bitter laugh bubbled up, and I held it in. Wouldn’t that be unbelievable? After I’d decided I could put up with Jane as long as I knew Ryan was mine, maybe he didn’t want me anymore. Maybe I’d pushed him too far. If I could, I’d rewind the world five plus years and just be his friend rather than not have him at all.
Tears stung at my eyes and bitterness threatened to choke me. I turned toward him in time to see him flop onto his stomach and push his pillow roughly to the floor. I put a trembling hand to my mouth to stop myself from calling out to him. I wanted his arms to cage me in and pull me to his chest. I wanted Ryan—my Ryan—to take all of this misery away. I wanted his passionate whispers and hungry kisses. I wanted to know he loved me. I needed it like I needed air.
I tried to inhale, but a sob rose up in my throat, so I turned my face into my pillow to smother it. I cried hard, my body shaking and my heart breaking, as I struggled to remain silent.
“Julia.” Ryan called softly.
I gasped at the sound of his sleepy, velvet voice and turned, my hand reaching through the darkness for his. He rolled toward me and loomed above me as our hands threaded together.
“Are we together? Is this real?”
“Yes,” I breathed, and an instant later, his mouth was hungrily latched onto mine. He kissed me like it was the first and last kiss we’d ever have. Not a minute passed and he had my shirt off, and we were skin on skin, both frantic in our efforts to get closer. My hands squeezed around his butt cheeks as I pulled his hips toward me, and he parted my legs with his knee.
We kissed again and again. Deep, aching kisses, full of passion and sorrow, want and need. But the need felt deeper than physical, even more than emotional. There was a desperateness born of uncertainty and urgency in each and every touch. Our fingers pulled at each other’s flesh and then softened to reverent caresses, hands wound in each other’s hair as we pulled each other closer still.
Neither of us uttered a word as our bodies came together in long slow thrusts, our mouths fed on the other and hands stroked and pleasured. My fingers traced the strong muscles of Ryan’s back, memorizing every single line, feeling every flex as he moved above and inside me. He was strong and tender, heartbreakingly loving and demanding in his need at the same time.
My breath rushed out and my back arched, the tension beginning to build, my body opening. I pulled my knees up to take him in deeper, my hips thrusting opposite his. He was big and wide, swollen and hard as steel. It felt incredible as my body stretched to remember his, only to contract around him. Ryan groaned against my neck, gently biting my shoulder before claiming my mouth once again. I sucked on his thrusting tongue, and my body milked his, my muscles begging him to come inside me.
When my breaths began to come in soft pants, Ryan pulled hard on one breast with his mouth, sucking and twirling his tongue around the nipple before grazing it with his teeth. His breath was hot against me, and when his hand reached between us to stroke the sensitive flesh crying out for his attention, my head fell back in helpless abandon. His name left my mouth in a breathless rush, and he took me over the edge in a powerful climax. Ryan’s thrusts slowed as I rode out my orgasm, his kisses became less demanding and tender until his movements stilled.
Even as my hips surged against him, urging him to continue and find his own release, he was motionless, still embedded deep within me but no longer kissing me. My eyes opened to find him staring down into my face, his expression pained, his brow furrowed in confusion and anger, his breathing ragged, and the low light making the light layer of perspiration on his skin glow. He’d just made such passionate love to me, but he was angry, and my heart crumbled to dust.
“How could you leave me without a Goddamn word?” he asked, sorrow dripping from his words. “Can’t you feel how much I love you?” I was still gasping, my body twitching. I reached up to touch his face with gentle fingers, aching to take the pain from his eyes, praying for his understanding. “You knew what it would do to me!” he said brokenly. “I told you in Boston last year. It would fucking kill me if you left me!”
Ryan pulled out abruptly and moved to the edge of the bed, leaving my arms empty, my body bereft, and my heart breaking for both of us. I was still quaking with the aftershocks of my climax, and the air around me felt arctic at his absence. I rolled nearer, my eyes searching for his face, needing to read his expression, but his back was to me, his head dropped into his hands, his elbows on his knees. His body shook violently with the force of his pain, and I could almost smell his tears mixed in with the scent of our sex and his cologne. His quiet sobs were left alone in the silence; sorrow flowing and thundering around me like a violent storm.
He hadn’t let himself come. This wasn’t about sex. It was about love.
Nothing had changed the love; sometimes suffocating, sometimes debilitating, sometimes so joyous and incredible, but always overwhelming and utterly amazing. The mad, mad love remained, maybe stronger and more than it had ever been. Always growing, no matter what we faced. It had always been unconditional, and nothing could ever change it. Not in this lifetime or a thousand more. No matter how much we hurt each other, the love was still strong enough to make us invincible, or kill us both.
Crawling up behind him, I wordlessly slid my arms around his waist, one hand reaching out to wrap around one of his forearms. He didn’t resist or pull from me, but his body was ridged. Tears spilled from my eyes as I tried to find a way to take away th
e pain I myself had caused. More than anything, I needed to heal the abyss between us, but I felt more helpless than I’d ever been.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” I whispered, leaning into him and resting my cheek on the hard muscles of his bare back. His sobs shook us both, and my heart broke all over again.
“I wanted to make sure you were real, and not just another fucking dream that turns into a nightmare the minute my eyes open. I wanted…” his whisper broke raggedly. “No, I needed to be close to you… but even making love can’t do it until we get this shit resolved between us.”
“Ryan, I’m sorry…” I said again in a whisper, my mouth beginning to trace circles on his skin. “So sorry. I was wrong to leave you.”
Tears dropped on the arm that I’d wrapped around him, and yet he said nothing. I kissed his back in a series of soft caresses while my fingers squeezed his arm and the other hand splayed open on his stomach moving upward. I paused when it rested over his heart. I could feel it pounding, feel his chest heaving in his anguish.
“I never should have left, but I was in so much pain. After I saw her in your arms and what she said to me…”
Ryan tensed even more. “She wasn’t in my fucking arms, Julia!”
“Okay…” I soothed. “Maybe it wasn’t what I thought, but it hurt more than anything has ever hurt me. And, after I left, I knew I’d hurt you, but I was in so much pain, I couldn’t face yours, too. I was selfish. Please…” my voice broke on what seemed like a hallow explanation, even though I’d suffered unspeakably myself. I realized no amount of suffering would justify leaving him, ever. Nothing was more important to me than being with this man. My heart thundered painfully in my chest as I waited for some sign that Ryan felt the same way. “Ryan, please forgive me,” I begged again.
He didn’t move or say a word as the precious seconds ticked by, my hands kneading the firm flesh of his chest, my forehead resting on the hard muscle of his back. Until finally, I could bear it no longer and scrambled off the bed and around in front of him, kneeling, naked, on the floor and forcing him to really see me. His features contorted in agony, and he turned his face to the side, as if he couldn’t bear to look at me. My heart exploded. I knew he loved me. Knew it like I knew my own name, but we’d hurt each other worse than we ever had.
