And Then We Fall

by Bryce Taylor

  "Yes."

  We sit on the couch, side by side in uncomfortable silence, Leigh suddenly unable to talk at all.

  "I'm sorry," she says eventually, "I find it hard."

  She swallows and looks away.

  "I'm not good at talking," she says as if I don't know this about her already.

  We are still holding hands and I change my grip so that I can press my thumb across the back of her hand, over and again until she starts to relax.

  "Why did you come to Ireland, Leigh?" I ask her eventually.

  Leigh thinks about this for a long moment.

  "Because I wanted to be happy," she says eventually. Then, "because you make me happy."

  She knows that this isn't the right answer, that there are far better answers that she could give that don't make her sound self-centred.

  Except that this is the truth and I want to tell her that she doesn't always need to tell the truth. That sometimes she just needs to use her judgement about how much truth to tell.

  But there is an awful lot of reassurance in Leigh's truths and if sometimes she doesn't always say the right thing, it is right that she says it.

  "Are you happy now?" I ask her softly and smile when her hand closes around mine and she nods, firmly.

  Leigh's hand is tightening convulsively on mine, her toes pushing into the carpet at her feet.

  I wait patiently, more patiently than I have ever been able to before, waiting for her words, schooling my face to calm.

  "I don't want to hurt you," she says miserably, "I don't want to be the one who hurts you again."

  I can see now what she was getting at. That she thinks that I made her happy before and that all she did was make me sad.

  Because I never told her how happy she made me so she never knew. Then one day I just up and left her.

  "Leigh," I tell her firmly and wait for her to look to me. Her eyes fix on mine with visible effort to stop them from flicking away.

  I look away so that she can too, because I don't like her hurting either and that I would rather she only looks at me when she doesn't have to force herself to do so.

  "I'm sorry I left you," I tell her and I look up in time to seeing her slowly turning her head back to me. "I did it for a lot of reasons and one of them was because I thought I was hurting you by staying."

  She is staring incredulously at me and is opening her mouth, to say something about it all being her fault.

  I stare her down. "It wasn't all your fault," I tell her firmly, "and it wasn't all my fault."

  "We were both, both of us, stupid and misguided," I tell her and her mouth is twisted, that she truly believes that it was all her.

  "But you need to know," I tell her, "that you made me happy."

  She is looking at me as she wants to believe me.

  "This time though," I tell her, "we are both going to make it work."

  I look at her startled face and realise that this might not even be what she wants, now it is my turn to look away.

  "If that's what you want," I mumble.

  Leigh laughs, a short laugh and I look across at her.

  She raises an eyebrow at my statement, that it should be obvious how she feels about me.

  "Use your fecking words," I remind her grumpily.

  She smiles, her radiant, beautiful smile, the one that never fails to brighten me.

  For a moment she looks terrified, then resolved.

  "I love you," she says startlingly, everything behind those words, "and you are the only person who has ever made me happy and even though I'm terrified of losing you, I'm more terrified of not telling you."

  She can say the right thing sometimes.

  "I love you," I tell her softly.

  We stare at each other for a long moment, enjoying it and I reach out with my fingertips, to brush her cheekbone and she automatically starts back before she can stop herself, the tiniest jerky head movement.

  She grits her teeth and swallows, looks at me, pain in her eyes, a determination to stay still if I want to try again.

  How could I when she needs to force herself to let me touch her?

  "Sorry," she says softly, looking down at her hands.

  "Hey," I tell her, "it's ok, it is."

  She is drawing her knees up to her chest and I know that I have never seen her this off-balance before. Uncertain and unsure what to do, unable to settle on a path forward between what she wants and what she is afraid of.

  I hold out my hand to her, leave it balanced between us and wait.

  She carefully, slowly extends her hand and places it in mine. I smile at her, relieved and she smiles back at me.

  We sit in silence for a long minute, and it isn't until there is the faintest movement in Leigh's hand and I look sideways and see that she is staring straight ahead, her eyes glassy with tears.

  I tap her knees and she reluctantly puts them down at my look and I swing my leg over her lap, wrap my arms around her shoulders tightly and it isn't until she relaxes into my body that I realise two things at exactly the same instant. That I am very lucky that Leigh didn't freak out when I did this. That I want Leigh with an ache that is consuming me, that is depriving me of my senses, of my better judgment.

  As Leigh's arms wrap gently around me and she rests her head on my shoulder all I can think of is that I want her to look at me like she did on the stairs that night, with a hunger and a desperate need. I can feel her breathing, slowly and deeply and I just want to drown in her, to never let her go and I'm melting against her.

  I bend my head to her neck and breathe her in, taking in the smell of her before I remember myself and pull back, to check she is ok with this.

  She isn't.

  Leigh's eyes are still filled with the same awful apprehension as before and I realise that I don't know at all what she wants right now.

  That she doesn't know either.

  What I do know is that being this close to her is making it worse. The she is fighting the urge to run.

  So, I reluctantly get off her, the heaviness in my groin throbbing painfully.

  "Do you want a cup of tea?" I ask her and immediately curse myself for doing so, for the kind of ridiculous question that my mother would ask in a moment on like this.

  Leigh bless her, immediately latches onto this idea as the perfect diversion.

  "I'll get us both a cup," she says, leaping to her feet and vanishing towards the kitchen.

  I can't help but smile, I can't help but love and hate that Leigh often has absolutely no clue about what is going on in my head, unable to read the signs on my face or in my voice about my mood.

  That she is too often flying blind based on the face value of my words.

  So, I follow her to the kitchen and I sit on her spotless marble bench and we talk, I talk too much because I'm nervous and we cups and cups of tea. Until the fifth one goes cold and neither of us can pretend that there is any need to drink more.

  "You could stay here," she says as I make noises about leaving.

  Only she doesn't really mean it, I can see the rest of that impulsive thought, of whether she is offering her bed or a spare bedroom and if it's her room that she is not ready for that yet, but do you put the person you love in the spare room?

  I smile because if sometimes I think that I have this life hard, I don't at all, I have no doubt at all, no conflict in my feelings for those I love and Leigh, Leigh, she is breaking apart, trying to hold the pieces together at the same time as trying to understand all these feelings inside that confuse her so much.

  So, I hug her and tell that I'm going home and whisper in her ear that I love her and try to ignore the wistful look on her face, that the more uncomplicated part of her wishes I was staying here with her.

  That I do too.

  It isn't until I'm halfway home that I realise we haven't talked at all about what we needed to.

  Chapter 25

  It's Thursday and somehow even though we have seen each other every night this wee
k, I am at the pub and I'm hoping that Leigh will be here too.

  She obviously isn't expecting me, is part way through a beer and leaning across the bar chatting to the barkeep instead of waiting at our usual table.

  She sees me coming and smiles, that smile, with those creases dimpling at the corners, unfettered happiness to see me.

  I take her by the hand, I feel that I have that right at least and order mine. John, the barman is grinning at me as he notices Leigh's hand in mine and he tells me that this one is on the house.

  I thank him and wonder briefly if he is Davie's uncle, a boy I went to school with and hated all the way from start to finish.

  I tug Leigh by the hand, take her to our booth, the one that we have occupied these long months and don't let go of her hand.

  I smile at her, our hands entwined across the table, realising that I'm ok with this. Not only can I wait for Leigh, I'm happy to. That if everything isn't just how I want it right now, well, that is life and it doesn't matter because all of this is already unexpectedly wonderful.

  She is rubbing her thumb gently across mine and we sit there in silence for a minute, neither of us willing to break the silence with the ordinary.

  "We are going to wait until we are both ready," I tell her.

  Leigh stares at me, an eyebrow raised, because it's only her who has a problem with intimacy.

  "I could change my mind," I tell her tartly and then instantly regret it, because I'm not going to change my mind and I don't want her to think I could.

  "I'm not going to change my mind, Leigh," I tell her more seriously because with Leigh you really do have to say it out loud.

  She has a half-smile on her face and I can see she is back to her original question of how this is not just me waiting for her?

  I point upward at the mistletoe hanging above us, it's in almost every corner of the pub really.

  "I don't plan on completely going without," I tell her with a smile and lean a little way across the table.

  Enough to make my request clear without forcing her to accede to it.

  She looks up at the mistletoe and then smiles at me hesitantly, leaning across the table, her head tilted slightly and we kiss. Just for a moment, the softness of her lips brushing mine, a first kiss, a thrill chasing through my body, lighting up every corner, prickles burning down my arms, her lips capturing mine with the slightest pressure.

  She can feel me smiling and she is smiling too and we both pull back, my hand still clasped to hers.

  "Perhaps waiting is overrated," Leigh tells me, a touch huskily.

  Then we are both laughing, our hands clasped together tightly still.

  We leave our half-finished beers on the table and walk out, her hand still in mine and we meander slowly back to Mam's house and it as if we are back where we were years and years ago, only this time it is perfect because there are actual, spoken feelings on both sides.

  We kiss under the willow tree at the end of the street until I push her gently up against the trunk of a willow and hold her face in my hands and I feel the muscles in her jaw tighten and her breath catches. She looks away as I pull back and I have a pain in my heart, because I can't help but hurt her.

  "Love," I whisper.

  Her blue eyes jerk back to mine, startled.

  "I can call you love," I tell her, and I can, it is my right, we have said that we love each other and if she thinks I am not going to call her by this endearment henceforth she had better think again.

  "Yeah, you can," she says emphatically, blinking rapidly and smiling soberly.

  "Oh god, Aednat," she says smiling wistfully at me, sadder now, and pressing at her eye with the heel of her hand. "What the hell are you doing with me? I thought I could will myself into being the person I want to be. I thought."

  She trails off.

  "My love," I tell her, "I adore you."

  Leigh takes in a breath, swallows, looking even more uncomfortable at my words.

  I smile.

  "I adore everything about you, just as you are. You are funny and gorgeous and you make me so happy. No matter what, you my love, are family, I'm your family and Em and Mam and Daniel, we are all your family," I tell her and it is true.

  "I've been in love with you since the day you handed me the keys to your car and showed me that I meant more to you than your things," I say and Leigh frowns slightly, not understanding what on earth I'm talking about.

  "I love that you never think I'm weak or incapable, that you think I'm special and honestly, I don't even understand why you feel that way?" I ask her.

  Leigh stares at me for a moment, coming to some conclusion, opens her mouth and shuts it again.

  Her blue eyes intent, focused on me with such concentration that the air is sucked from my lungs. She takes one step towards me, her eyes not moving an inch from mine and then one more, her hand cupping my cheek lightly, leaning in.

  Oh god.

  Her lips burning against mine, I am melting into her arms, my heart frantically trying to keep up with my body, Leigh's tongue at the edge of my lips very firmly asking for entrance. I am clinging to her shoulders, at the confidence in her body, at her need for me. Her arms wrapping around me tightly, holding me there.

  I'm groaning as her tongue touches mine, so slightly that my whole body tightens from head to toe, the skin drawn in. She moves a little, her leg pressing between mine.

  "Oh god," I moan against her mouth, my hands caressing her cheekbones.

  Leigh makes a small sound of satisfaction and I open my eyelids just enough to take her in. To see the look on her face, the concentration on her task, a quiet ache in her eyes and I freeze.

  Leigh pulls back, feeling my shift in mood.

  "Nope," I tell her.

  Leigh has the gall to look innocently unknowing.

  "Leigh," I say warningly.

  She narrows her eyes.

  "Leigh," I say, disturbingly in the exact same tone I use on Em on the rare occasions she acts like a toddler.

  Leigh flashes me a grin, raises her hands slightly.

  "Fine," she admits. "It really would be easier though."

  Sweet Jesus, it really would.

  "One month," I tell her rashly. "No sex."

  Leigh mulls this over for a moment.

  "Ten days?" she asks.

  I nod, a month is an awfully long time all things considered.

  She sighs, takes a half step back from me, preparing to leave.

  "Can I have a hug?" I ask her.

  She smiles, sweetly, takes a cautious step forward. I take the remaining step and wrap my arms around her. She stands stiffly for a moment and then sighs, relaxes into me.

  She is awfully warm and her body feels.

  Her body feels ridiculously good, lean and muscular.

  "Are you sure about the ten days?" Leigh asks huskily against my ear, tightening her arms around me.

  "I hate you," I whisper back.

  "No, you don't, you love me," she tells me smugly and I can feel an edge of a smirk against my neck.

  My heart is filled with pleasure, that Leigh who I would have never guessed to actually be capable of saying the words 'I love you', is comfortable enough to joke about it.

  I laugh and jab her lightly in the ribs.

  "Come over for dinner," I tell her and smile when she nods.

  That I really am ok with ten days or a month or longer, or however long it takes.

  That it is enough that tonight Leigh is sitting opposite me at the dining room table, that she is eating my food with relish, that Em is telling both of us about crèche, that next week they are visiting the big school for the day and that they are learning about dinosaurs at the big school and Em tells us all of the other very important things that you can only do at big school.

  We make out a little, out the front of my house that night, at Leigh's house the next morning when I check in on Mam. Some pretext every morning and night, after grocery shopping or when I finish my shift at th
e clinic or when Leigh comes over for dinner.

  Both of us going to an awful amount of effort for those stolen few minutes alone here and there.

  The part where I get to hold her hand, entwine her fingers with mine, kiss her knuckles. Where she calls me love, in a low husky voice and I melt into her arms. We kiss, just a little, just the lightest brush of our lips, nuzzling her nose with mine, our eyes connected.