by Noelle Adams
When I opened my eyes, I was aware of Gideon, so I smiled up at him, even though I wasn’t awake enough to really focus.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I guess I fell asleep.”
“I guess so.” He sounded a little strange, but I was so groggy everything would have sounded strange.
I realized my head was still in his lap. “Sorry to sleep all over you. Your legs didn’t go to sleep, did they?”
“No. Maybe a little.” His hands were on my head now, and his voice definitely sounded strange. “Here. I need to get up.” He moved my head.
I tried to help him, but my body didn’t want to move, and I kind of fumbled around. I heard him give a grunt, so I tried to get it together and sit up.
Finally, he gave me a push—not a hard one—and heaved himself to his feet with his groan.
“Sorry,” I called, as he limped across the room toward the bathroom. “I hate it when that happens. Are both your legs asleep? Maybe try to walk it off.”
He gave a grunt that must have been affirmative and closed the bathroom door.
Now, just so it’s clear, I’m neither naïve nor an idiot. But I was so closed off to certain kinds of possibilities that they never even entered my mind as conscious thoughts.
I sighed and stretch out again on the couch. I’d had a very nice nap, but Gideon had obviously not been very comfortable on the couch with me that way.
I’d have to do better and think more about him.
***
He came over to dinner again the following Friday, and he brought another bottle of wine.
This time, things went much better.
I had a good time, and he seemed to enjoy himself too, and we moved to the couch afterwards. Since we were still talking, he turned on some music instead of the television.
Eventually, he put his arm around me, and I leaned against him. The music was low, pleasant, and innocuous, and I felt agreeably relaxed from the wine.
“Can’t she have surgery for her knee, if it’s that bad?” I asked. He’d talked on the phone to his mom earlier in the day, and she was having a hard time walking with a bad knee.
“Yeah. She just keeps stalling. It’s hard enough to get her to use a cane when she walks.” He reached over and picked up one of my hands with his free one. He started to stroke the palm with his thumb, the way he’d done once before. “I don’t know how I can convince her to have surgery.”
“But if she can’t walk, she won’t have a choice, will she?”
“Well, she can choose to walk as little as possible and suffer through it when she does.”
“But knee surgeries are pretty common, aren’t they? And not particularly risky?”
“Right, but it’s not really the risk. She’s just stubborn. And she doesn’t like to not be self-sufficient.”
I chuckled and stretched my arm slightly, since his little caress was feeling so nice. He slid his fingers up from my palm to the heel of my hand. “That reminds me of someone else I know.”
“I’m not really that way.”
“Sure you aren’t,” I said dryly, tucking his arm around me more securely. “You’re not stubborn or self-sufficient at all.”
“I’m not that bad.” It sounded like he was smiling. “I’d have knee surgery if I needed it.”
He was caressing my wrist, and my breath hitched from the sensations. I’d never realized that the skin there was so sensitive, but even the slightest touch made me tingle.
“I’ll remind you of that when you’re old and gray.” I’d intended for my tone to be cleverly ironic, but it sounded strangely slow and thick instead.
“I guess you’ll still be telling me what to do then. You’ll most likely give me a little lecture about how I need the surgery.”
“That’s right. If you need a lecture, I’ll give it to you.”
He laughed again, and I could feel it through his whole body, which made me feel even nicer. I loved how he felt against me—like all the warmth and strength and life in the world was concentrated in his body.
He pushed up my sleeve and stroked slowly up to the inside of my elbow and then back down. My breath hitched at the sensations. He did it again, and I heard myself making a husky groan.
There was some little voice in the back of the mind, telling me that something was wrong, that this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. But it was too far distant for me to heed.
For the moment, things felt nice and slow and safe and good, and I didn’t feel that way very often, so I didn’t want it to end.
He lifted my hand and pressed a soft kiss into the palm, and that felt good too. When his lips brushed down to my wrist, no harder than the stroke of a feather, the sensations were so sweet that I gave another silly moan.
He spent some time kissing my hand and wrist, moving so slowly I was barely aware of how things were progressing. I just really liked how it felt, and I liked being close to him.
Then, for reason, I turned toward him more fully and looked up at his face. I’m not even sure why. I saw something on his face that was startling, terrifying, but then he lowered his face toward mine so I couldn’t see his expression anymore.
He brushed his lips across my cheekbone, the way he’d been brushing them against my palm and wrist. Just as gentle. Just as slight. It felt every bit as good, so I felt myself tilting my face up toward his touch.
He trailed his lips down until they’d found my lips, and the sensations were more intense as he brushed his mouth against mine. But they didn’t linger. Just kept trailing their way to my other cheek.
I was breathing heavily now, and my whole body was pulsing with all the pleasant sensations. When he returned to my lips and then gently took my lower lip between both of his, I gasped and reached up to clutch his shirt.
It seemed to change things. It didn’t feel so light and gentle and slow. He raised one of his hands so his fingers could stroke my face, and he murmured out, “Diana,” in a hoarse voice at the back of his throat.
The kiss still wasn’t deep. He just gently stroked and played with my lips with his. But my mind was blurred over with everything I was feeling, and it felt like my whole body was flushed.
But then I felt something sharp, deep, forcing its way through my consciousness. I hadn’t felt it in ages, but I recognized it immediately. It was a sharp pulse between my legs. A pulse of arousal.
The panic, which was never far from the edges of my mind, rose up in an instant, with the demons not far behind. Flashes of memory, of images, of scents, of feelings from that terrible night rushed through me with terrifying intensity. I pushed him away desperately, almost violently, and leapt off the couch to get away from him.
He looked like he’d been sucker-punched as he blinked and stared over at me.
“What are you doing?” I gasped, rubbing at my lips, which had felt so good just a moment before. “What are you doing?”
“Diana,” he began, shaking his head in a visible attempt to pull himself together. “It’s going to be all right. Please don’t get scared.”
“Don’t get scared? What the fuck am I supposed to do? We don’t do that. We don’t do that.”
“I know we haven’t before, but I really think—”
“No! There’s no even thinking about it.” I rubbed at my face, at my arm, everywhere he’d been kissing me. How could I have let him do that? How could I have not realized what was happening as soon as it started? “We can never do that.”
I heard him sigh as he pushed himself to his feet. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry it’s upset you this much.” His face twisted as he rubbed his hand over his mouth. “I thought...but I moved too fast. We can work this out. Let’s just talk—”
“No!” I was being loud, rude, irrational, but it felt like the demons were all around me, ready to devour me, awakened to fury by the way I’d just been feeling. “No! You need to just get out.”
“Diana, please.” He was flushed, and his hair was mussed, and he looked gorgeous and
masculine and sensual and absolutely terrifying. “It’s not as bad as you’re thinking. Can we please just—”
“No. I can’t talk about it. You just need to leave.” I felt sobs rising up in my throat, but I was too horrified to let them loose. “Please, just leave.”
“Okay.” He sounded reluctant and worried and a little bit hurt, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that now. “I’ll leave for now. But we are going to talk about this.” He glanced around and found his phone on the side table, sliding it into his pocket.
“Please, just leave,” I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut and trying to hold the pieces of myself together.
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry,” I heard him murmur. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Please don’t do anything except go to bed tonight.”
I couldn’t even understand that last part. I just stood perfectly still, hugging my arms to my stomach, until he’d walked out of the house and his car had started down the drive.
Then a sob ripped up through my throat, and I bent over as it wracked my whole body. I choked on a few more convulsive sobs until I couldn’t stand up anymore.
I ended up in a fetal position on the couch, crying until I no longer had enough energy.
It felt terrible. It felt like the world was ending. And I couldn’t even explain why.
But gradually I started to think about Gideon, and how he’d sounded when he’d left. I’d figured out what his last words had meant.
Even after everything, after the way I’d pushed him away, after the way I’d treated him, he’d still been worried about me. Afraid I might hurt myself because I was so upset.
I gurgled on a few more sobs and then reached over to grab my phone. I hit his number and waited as it rung.
“Diana,” he said, picking up on the second ring. He was obviously still driving back home. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have treated you that way.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.” My emotions were so torn that I started to cry again.
“Oh, please don’t cry. It’s really okay. I understand why it upset you so much. I just think we can work through it if we can talk about it.”
“I can’t stand for everything to fall apart. I was starting to feel a little better.”
“I know you were. But it’s not going to fall apart. I promise.”
It would fall apart. If I lost Gideon from my life, then it would fall apart. It was simply the truth of the world.
“Let’s talk about it tomorrow. I’ll come back over. Is that all right?”
It took a minute before I could force myself to answer. “Yeah.”
He let out a breath—maybe of relief. “Okay. Good. Please don’t panic about this. We’re going to get through it. I promise it’s going to be all right.”
I didn’t believe him, but the words soothed me just a little bit anyway. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know. Maybe just go to bed.”
“That’s good. I’ve got a while left to drive. We can leave the call on, if you want.”
“We don’t have to.”
“I want you to know that nothing has changed.”
It had changed. It had transformed irrevocably. But hearing the words was better than not hearing them, was better than nothing.
Since I was already curled up on the couch, I just pulled the blanket over me and lay with the phone near my ear.
After a few minutes, Gideon asked, “Are you still there?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you okay?”
“I guess. What about you?”
“I’m okay.”
I wasn’t sure either of us really meant it, but at least he was still there at the end of the call.
I couldn’t bear to think of a day when he wouldn’t be.
Seven
Gideon came back over to my place first thing the following morning.
It was early for a Saturday, but I’d been awake all night and was relieved to get moving on the conversation when he texted at seven to see if I was up yet. Maybe he want to get it over with too. Either way, a couple of hours later, he was sitting on my couch with a cup of coffee in his hand.
My head ached, and my eyes burned from brooding all night, and three cups of coffee that morning had done nothing to clear my head.
I didn’t know how to begin, so I just watched Gideon take a sip. His eyes were searching my face in the way they used to all the time, but they hadn’t done as much for the last several weeks. Wary. Like he was probing for signs of a mental collapse.
Finally, I said, “You’re the one who wanted to have this conversation.”
He let out a breath and put down his mug. “I think we need to have this conversation.”
“So start.”
I know I sounded rude, but I felt like I was already on the verge of tears. The thing is, I already knew my final word on this topic. I’d figured it all out last night. I wanted to just burst out with it and get the whole thing over with, but that wouldn’t be fair to Gideon.
He needed to say what he wanted to say too—even if I didn’t want to hear it—and then we could get to the conclusion I already knew.
He cleared his throat. He must have spent time last night thinking through how he was going to approach this too because he clearly had a careful strategy planned. I could sense it just from the precision of his words. “I know you’re scared by what happened last night, but I don’t think we should let fear make decisions for us.”
I looked down at my hands. “Sometimes it has to.”
“Temporarily, maybe. But not forever.”
“I haven’t changed my mind about what I told you last night. I can never be with you that way. I don’t even know how it happened.”
“Don’t you? It’s been coming for a while.”
“What?” My head jerked up, feeling a wave of betrayal, like he’d turned into an entirely different person. “What do you mean? So all this time, you’ve been...you’ve been plotting about how to get me in bed?”
His face tightened, like he was offended or angry. Or maybe just impatient with me. “No. You know better than that. Everything about our relationship has been real. From the very beginning.”
“But you said—”
“I said it’s been coming for a while. That’s what’s been happening to our relationship. I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time, but this thing isn’t one-sided. Last night, you wanted to kiss me too.”
My skin had felt cold and pale all morning, but now my cheeks burned with a flush. I ducked my head again. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“What are you talking about? Of course, it means something. If we both want to be together that way, then why the hell shouldn’t we be?”
“Because I don’t want to be together that way. I can’t be together with you that way. With anyone. It snuck up on me last night, but it was just a physical reaction. There’s more of me than that. And none of the rest of me wants it.”
My voice rose as I spoke, but it was out of an urgency to get my point across and not out of any desire to hurt.
I could see the words hurt him, though. I could see it in his face for just a moment before he controlled his expression and took on again the calm, reasonable demeanor he’d worn all morning. “I don’t believe you,” he said, very slowly.
My throat ached so much I could barely swallow. “I’m sorry,” I murmured, looking down at my hands again. “I’m so sorry. But it’s true.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said again, this time sounding more confident. “I believe you think it’s true, but I don’t believe it’s actually true. It’s the fear that’s making you think that’s the way it is.”
“Of course, I’m afraid. I have every reason to be afraid. This thing could destroy our entire relationship.”
“It’s not going
to destroy—”
“It could! You don’t seem to hear what I’m saying. It’s nothing personal about you. You’re the best guy in the world, but I can’t be with anyone like that. That part of my life is completely over.”
“But that’s—” He obviously rethought his initial exclamation, which would probably be to call it stupid or ridiculous. Instead, he said, “That makes no sense at all. You’re saying there’s no possibility of healing for you, but we’ve already seen that you can heal, you are healing.”
My eyes burned so I closed them for a minute. The tears I’d felt earlier were completely gone now, dried up into a barren desperation. “Yes, I can heal in some ways. But I can’t transform into a person who didn’t have this happen to her. Just the thought of sex...” I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Gideon. I can’t do it.”
“I’m not expecting us to jump into bed. We were just kissing last night, and it wasn’t going to go any farther than that.”
“But that’s where kissing leads. That’s where it would ultimately lead. And I just can’t do it.”
He let out a hoarse sigh and leaned back in the couch. “Okay. Okay. If you’re so convinced that’s your final answer, can you at least explain to me why? Why you’ll never be able to heal enough to allow sex back into your life.”
I’d known he’d ask that question. I’d tried to think of a clear, honest response to it all night, and I still had no good answer for him. “I don’t think I can.”
His expression was still carefully controlled, but his eyes were so aching I could barely look at them. “This is the thing that’s taking away what...that’s taking away something very important to me, and you’re not even going to tell me what it is? You don’t think I deserve to know why?”
“Of course, you deserve to know why!” The words burst out loudly. “Of course, you deserve to know. You deserve—” I broke off what had almost come out, hugging my arms tightly to my stomach, trying to hold in more emotion than I could possibly contain.
“I deserve what?” he asked, very softly.
I shook my head. “You do deserve to know. I’m just not sure I can put it into words.”
“Can you try?”
