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by J. R. Rogue

  She paused then; I waited for her to gather her thoughts.

  “I used to want nothing more than to have a child. I felt like I wanted to make up for everything she lacked. I became obsessed with it for quite a while. And that's all I would talk about with my ex-husband. There's nothing wrong with wanting to have a child. But I was so intently focused on it for the wrong reasons at that time in my life. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, I guess I do.”

  “God, I just want to run away sometimes.” Her words were so sad. Like she couldn't do exactly that.

  “Then do it,” I said.

  “It's not that easy. You wouldn't understand,” she said, dismissively.

  “Why wouldn't I understand? You don't have to live your life by the rules society says you have to. You have no family here. Your best friend isn't here. You just said that your business is doing badly. I really felt like that was the only thing holding you here.”

  “It always comes down to this, doesn't it?” Her voice had changed, so suddenly, and my body responded with goose bumps.

  “Down to what?” I braced myself.

  “Running,” she shot.

  His face changed when I said that last word. Running. I knew it would wound him and that was my intention. He dropped my hand and stood up. He paced for a while. My eyes followed him back and forth like one of those internet memes of a cat watching a human dangle a toy back and forth.

  “Why did you bring me here?” I asked. “What is the real reason? Is this a goodbye? A real one?”

  He halted his movement. “I never meant to come back here for good.”

  “Is that why this whole time you've been keeping me at arm’s length?”

  “Yeah.” He laughed, though there was no happiness in the sound. “Arm’s length. I've done a shitty job of it, huh?”

  In the dead of summer, on nights like this, the heat will swallow you up. I felt like I had barely anything on. No straps or sleeves on my dress. The hem hit mid-thigh. Tiny little ballet flats sat on my feet. I wasn't swallowed up by the heat. Not of the night. I was swallowed up by the heat of Reese.

  There's nothing about him that is not beautiful. The sight of him standing before me saying words that were royally pissing me off should have diminished my attraction. But it didn't. He was wearing a plain snug black t-shirt, long gray dress shorts, and bright red Vans. His long hair was tumbling down his shoulders, and he was flicking the hairband that he always kept around his wrist. It was a nervous habit. I knew that by now.

  I didn’t hide my watching of him. I just stared at him full on. I knew it was making him more nervous than he already was but I couldn’t find a reason to care.

  It would be a lie to say that during our time together since he returned I hadn't wondered when he would leave again. It just felt inevitable. Reese was like one of those beautiful caged birds. You just didn't want to see them behind bars. And once you stepped inside the city limits of our town, that's what you were. A caged bird.

  I knew I was looking at him the way he was looking at me. And I just couldn't find a way to stop it. He wanted me out of here in the way I didn't want him caged here either.

  I wanted more for him the way he wanted more for me. The amount of lies and half-truths that were between us didn't matter sometimes when I thought about that. We truly wanted more for each other, truly wanted good for each other. Whether or not that meant we were in each other's lives was irrelevant to the fact. That was a truth that really made me feel good.

  I went on autopilot then. I felt Reese’s eyes on me as I walked away from him, to the edge of the roof. I was going home, and I was going to make him follow me. I wasn’t much more than twelve feet or so away from him when I heard his movement, his hurry to catch up.

  The trip back to my house was slow and stifling. When I pulled my door open and walked inside I sighed as the air conditioning hit me in the face. I left my door open behind me, knowing Reese would be following closely.

  I heard the door close just as I made it to my living room. I turned around to face Reese, leaning against the back of the couch. He looked a little scared of me. I couldn’t say it was unwarranted.

  “Take your clothes off,” I said, clinically.

  He had been in the middle of a step forward but my words put him in rewind. His foot stopped in midair, then retreated, landing next to the one behind it. He planted both hands on his hips and stared up at the ceiling, his jaw working. “What?” he asked.

  “You heard me.” I pushed my chin out. “I want to see all of you. I want you to see all of me. If you’re going to leave me again I want to know nothing was left undone.” Sex wasn’t the answer, but I needed some part of him that I had been yet to touch.

  I hadn’t turned the lights on in my home but the night-lights in the kitchen, the hall, and the living room cast a low glow throughout my home. I never wanted to walk into a dark house so I had them everywhere.

  I expected more chatter, more resistance, more passive aggressive banter to ensue between us then, but I was wrong. Reese looked down and reached for the button of his shorts. He started working them down as he kicked his shoes off, one by one. I kept my face stone and started to chew on the inside of my cheek. How did he make pulling his socks off look sexy? This was unfair. When he pulled his t-shirt over his head, he reached his large hand behind his neck, pulling it up over and over. I loved it when guys took their shirts off that way. Then, in a move that could only be described as a kill shot, he pulled his long hair up into some sort of sloppy bun.

  He didn’t remove his boxer briefs. He just stood there in them, hands on his hips again, and stared at me. “What now?” he asked, his voice never wavering.

  I feared that if I spoke my mind, I would fall apart, so I didn’t. I reached behind my back and found the zipper of my dress. I pulled it down slowly and then reached forward, preventing the fabric from tumbling down before I was ready. “Come here,” I said. Or I think I said it. Did I say it? I must have. In front of me, Reese stepped forward.

  He wrapped his hands around each of my wrists, ran his thumbs over the backs of my hands. I wanted to feel an “I’m sorry” through his skin, some current I could ride. No, I wanted a reality where everything was black and white, cut and dry. I wanted a reality where we had found each other and it was never a mess.

  He slowly slipped his thumbs in between my fingers clamped tightly over the top of my dress. Delicately, he guided me, encouraging me to release my grip. When my dress hit the floor, I reached up to his neck with both palms, instinctively, pulling my body close to his, nothing between us but our undergarments.

  He put his mouth to mine then, and it was a salve for a burn that had been lingering too long but was nowhere near being healed. His kiss was slow and deliberate, not rushed and heated, the way one would expect when a woman was pressed close to a man in nothing but her bra and panties. His hands ascended up my back, his arms were wrapped so tightly around me, and I shivered when they made it over the clasp of my bra, never lingering.

  I needed a rush and he wouldn’t give it, so I pulled my hands from his hair where I had pulled it from his messy bun and reached behind me, my mouth never leaving his. I found the clasp of my bra and I pinched. There were no straps so it fell quickly, landing on my feet where I kicked it away. Instead of bringing my hands back to his hair, I wrapped my wrists around his frame, pulling the elastic of his boxers into my hands, pushing them down. Reese pulled his mouth from mine then, as I figured he would, and breathed out.

  Before he could stop me again, I pushed him around to the couch. Once he was standing in front of it, I pulled his boxers down and pushed on his chest, forcing him to sit. He grabbed a throw pillow and covered himself up, and then the most beautiful thing happened. He smiled and I saw him. I saw every part of him that he had tried to bury. I was face to face with every beautiful part of our past that had been lost in the lies and the hurt.

  I pulled my arms up then and laughed. One fore
arm was covering my minuscule breasts, and one palm was covering my face. I kept my hand over my face and groaned comically but the sound died in my throat when Reese’s hands found my thighs. He pulled me forward onto his lap, where the pillow no longer sat, and kissed me again and it was nothing like the last time we had been this close.

  I hoped that Kat couldn’t hear my heart desperately trying to claw its way out of my chest. Her words blindsided me. I clenched my fists and focused on the white lines in my knuckles as I waited for her to say something again, anything, anything to tell me it was some sick joke. That it didn’t happen to her. She was talking about a friend, a coworker, anyone but her. The silence stretched out around us, arms open wide, inviting the trees and fireflies to listen in to the horror.

  The tears on her pale cheeks, they were there because of me. Because I brought forth memories of what he had done to her. Actions that I had caused. I felt like a sick accomplice, unwilling and unknowing, but responsible all the same.

  Finally, I let my voice break the silence. “Did I hear that right? Please tell me, Kat, please tell me I misheard you.”

  “You didn’t,” her voice wavered. “My husband, he raped me on New Year’s night. Because he found my phone and found messages between me and another man. A man I’ve never met and I’m not sure I’ll ever meet. He made me feel things when Charles was gone, checked out, working all the damn time. It never would have happened if he was there, loving me, and touching me, and being the man I married. But maybe those are just the excuses I make to justify what I did.”

  I felt like I was going to be sick. I pushed off the ground and paced back and forth. My anger, fuck, I knew it was filling the air, and possibly crawling into her. The last thing she needed was male aggression, my red testosterone, pushing her further into herself. I hated myself. She had no idea that the man she was talking to was right in front of her. I knew she was married. I knew it before she even told me. It was obvious in her hesitation with me and her delicate words. Always sending a lol after I sent a flirting text. She was so careful, so good. She was the one who set up boundaries. No real names and no photos. Nothing to dig her deeper into guilt.

  “You know it wasn’t your fault, right?” My tone sounded harsh. I immediately backtracked, repeating, but letting them come out slower, softer. “You know it wasn’t your fault,” I paused until she looked up into my eyes, “right?”

  She nodded slowly. “At first, at first I thought it was. After it happened, he fell onto my back, sobbing. He said he couldn’t lose me to someone else. He said he loved me and would be around more. He never said he was sorry for what he did. He had been drinking, but there was no doubt he heard me tell him no. I even said please. Eventually he fell asleep. In the morning, he woke and made love to me. We didn’t make love. He made love to me. That’s the way it felt. Like he was making love to me and I was just there. The sun had barely risen. I didn’t tell him no that time. I just stayed still. When it was over, he went downstairs to start breakfast and I took a shower. I packed a bag and slipped out the front door. I already had a couch, running water, and heat and air set up above my store. I suppose there are those who would say I am brave. Because I left right away. But I did it because I was terrified and I was lucky. I was lucky I had somewhere to go.”

  “You are brave, Kat.”

  “No. I’m not. I’m an ordinary girl. I’m a cliché. I had an affair.”

  “No, you did not. Don’t say that.”

  “Why? Why not? Because I never met the guy? Because I never kissed him or fucked him?”

  Those words sounded so wrong coming from her lips. She was all things delicate, no matter how many ways I darkened her.

  “He called me last night. He was drunk and was sad and he cried in the voicemail he left. And I cried when I listened to it. Somehow, he made me feel sad for him, too. After what he did to me, I felt bad for him. It made me feel weak. My love for him made me weak. It’s like Stockholm Syndrome to a memory. You know?”

  “No, I don’t. I don’t know how you can feel bad for him.”

  She looked down at her hands at my words.

  “It doesn’t mean, I don’t mean that you’re, fuck. Don’t feel bad for the way you feel. We are slaves to emotions. Just don’t let them control you here.”

  “I would never take him back. I’m not saying that. I just wanted to say how I felt when I heard him crying to someone who I felt wouldn’t judge me. You’re not, are you?”

  “No. There is nothing you could do that would make my opinion change of you.”

  “And what is that opinion?” she asked.

  I laughed and shook my head. I had halted my pacing and was staring out at the creek. I turned on my heel and back to her eyes when I answered. “That you’re the perfect woman.”

  She blushed in response.

  Anything I could say to make her smile, I would say it. Anything to drown the guilt I was living with. “So how cheesy was that?” I asked. “On a scale of 1 to 29?”

  “1 to 29? You’re so random and just the strangest boy.”

  “You like it though.”

  The silence wrapped around us for a while. Kat stared at her feet swinging back and forth. Her hands gripped my tailgate, and she looked so small. I picked up pebbles and started skipping them across the water, creating a little light show in concert with the moon.

  If she didn’t want to talk about her ex anymore, that was fine. Whatever she wanted to say, I was there. Whatever she wanted to keep inside, I was there still. But I had to know one thing. “Do you ever see him around? Does he come by?”

  She was startled by my words, lost somewhere inside herself during the silent moment. “He came by my place a few weeks ago.”

  “The shop or the apartment?” They were the same building, sure, but I wanted to know the specifics.

  “He was outside the shop. I didn’t let him in. It was in the back parking lot, not inside. He will never step foot into my home.”

  “Good,” I said, walking toward her. It wasn’t good. It wasn’t remotely good. He didn’t need to be near her at all. I needed to do something about that.

  I didn’t know if she wanted to be touched after what happened. I settled next to her against the tailgate where she immediately reached out and slipped her finger into the belt loop of my jeans and led me to the spot between her legs. She wrapped them around me and settled her palms on my hips, then leaned forward and rested her forehead on my chest.

  I reached up and ran my fingers through her hair, touching the soft skin of her neck. “What do you want to do?” It was half spoken, half whispered.

  “Do you want to come over to my place?” she asked.

  I told her yes then with no hesitation and we loaded up into the truck. I briefly considered the insane idea to plug the aux cord hanging from my radio into my phone and turn it to the playlist full of songs I had sent her as the wrong number guy. To let that small act start to tell the truth for me, but I was a coward. I found a station playing old country and left the volume low, letting her know that anything else she needed to tell me, I was there to hear it. I couldn’t tell my truth but I would take hers.

  Kat’s place was cozier now. She had tidied things up since the first time I stepped inside. It looked a little more like something she would feel at home in.

  Once inside, Kat retreated to her bedroom and I found a seat near the front window. I spun listlessly in my stool until a picture on the fridge caught my eye. I hopped up and walked toward the photo, smiling when I saw that it was what I hoped.

  It was a picture of Kat and my sister Sera from their high school graduation, but unlike the one I saw here before, this one didn’t have a ten-year-old me in the background. I was stuck between the two girls, smiling. She found me like that, with the photo in my hand, smiling even bigger than the younger me in the photo.

  “That’s a great pic, huh?”

  Her soft voice startled me. “Yeah,” I said, reaching forward to place it back o
n the fridge, sliding the magnet back over the corner. I turned to face Kat and saw she had two throws clutched to her chest in her arms.

  “You want to go outside?” she asked, walking toward the window on the other side of her small kitchen. She passed the throws to me when I reached her side and opened the window, crawling through, and I followed.

  I loved the space she had just through her window. Half a dozen potted plants lined the side of her building. A few steps outside of her window was a large outdoor area rug. An iron and wood bench was at the front of the space. I walked over to it and sat down, watching Kat.

  She was lighting little candles at the corners of the rugs. I smelled citronella filling the air so I sniffed dramatically and she laughed.

  “The mosquitos are terrible out here,” she explained.

  “They just want a little bite of you. I don't blame them,” I joked. It was probably in bad taste to continue speaking to her the way I always did after what she told me. But some part of me thought that I shouldn't treat her differently. That she didn't want to be looked at like a broken thing, and I certainly didn't see her that way with the new knowledge she had given me, the knowledge that was sitting at the pit of my stomach like a bomb. I tried to pretend it wasn't there, hand in hand with my lies. I shook my head and looked up at her, smiling the ache away.

  I watched her before me, moving around the space. Lighting candles, touching the plants, unfolding the blankets. I think that was the moment I knew I could love her. It should have happened sooner. It would have with another guy who wasn’t an idiot like me.

  She sat down on one of the blankets she had spread out and looked straight up at the sky, then she looked at me with those eyes, the ones that burrowed into you, and that smile that was too delicate. She reached her hand out and beckoned me to her.