Embrace

by S. Layne

  “You don’t have to.”

  I’m not sure I want him to. God, this is so hard. There’s no clear map to tell me what to do. One minute I want to throw my arms around him and sink into his embrace, and the next, all I see is betrayal and lies.

  He notices and dips his chin. His fingers on the side of my neck flinch before he lets me go with a resigned sigh. “Here’s your father’s lunch.”

  He hands it to me, making sure our fingers brush against each other’s, and I gasp from the small brush of contact with him.

  Once the bag is in my hand, I have to fight the urge to apologize. I’m leading him on one moment and pushing him away the next. And yet he hasn’t said anything to me about it, just smiled and seemed to understand.

  I hate that he does.

  His acceptance reminds me of why I’ve always thought he was an incredible man.

  “James,” I tell him, an apology on the tip of my tongue, but he shakes his head.

  Pointing behind him, he shrugs and takes a step away. “I’ll be in the waiting room. Take as much time as you need with her.”

  And I don’t know why, but when he turns and I watch him walk away, my eyes burn with tears all over again—but this time, for a very different reason.

  I stare down the hallway for several long moments after James has gone. It isn’t until I receive several side-eye looks from nurses passing by that I finally turn toward my mom’s room and enter.

  The door is silent as I push it open, but I see my father immediately sit up in his chair right next to my mom’s side of the bed.

  “Hey, Dad,” I say, fully aware I’m avoiding looking at my mom. My chin trembles slightly and I hold up his bag of lunch. “James brought you lunch.”

  He grins and stands from his chair. “Perfect. I think I’ll take this out into the waiting room and leave you ladies alone.”

  I hand the bag to my dad, receive his kiss on the cheek, and stare at the chair he has vacated while I hear him tell my mom he’ll be back in a few minutes and the door quietly latches behind him.

  Inhaling a strengthening breath, I still feel shaky when my mother’s voice cuts through the quiet.

  “Hello, Laurie.”

  I turn to face her, and instantly I wish I could find a magic power to steel myself from emotions. I’m overwhelmed immediately as I take in the tubes and the gown and her pale skin. Her dry, scratchy throat doesn’t help a single bit and I lean over her, cautious of the wires, to kiss her cheek.

  She smells like antiseptic instead of her perfume. “Hey, Mom.”

  She reaches out and squeezes my hand, her dry lips pulling into a thin smile.

  “How are you?” I ask, returning her squeeze. Her hand is cold and I cover her hand with my other one, rubbing to warm it up.

  “I’ll be just fine, although I want to go home.”

  “You had a heart attack yesterday,” I remind her, smiling. I knew she’d hate being here.

  She huffs as if it’s all just a silly annoyance, and I pull up my dad’s empty seat so I can sit next to her.

  “Well, yes. But I’d heal better in my own bed.” Her face pinches up as she waves her hand in the air. “It’s not like these doctors can do anything now, anyway. I could get better sleep at home, what with all these nurses coming in all night long, poking and prodding me.”

  “Yes,” I say, giving her my most understanding expression. “Because making sure you stay alive is a complete nuisance.”

  “There’s no need to be sarcastic, Laurie. It doesn’t suit you.”

  Just like my typical poor posture. With the reminder that she’s probably watching for anything she can use to begin criticizing me, my shoulders roll back and I sit with a straight spine.

  Hours of sitting and walking with a hardcover book on my head flash in my mind and I bite back a smile.

  My mom could have died and I’m worried about her critiquing my posture.

  I squeeze her hand and bring it to my lips, giving her a kiss, knowing she’s not big on overt displays of affection. “I’m glad you’re going to be okay. I was really worried.”

  “Enough about me,” she says, patting my hand with her other one. I take note of the IV sticking from her veins, how frail her hands suddenly seem when she’s always been so strong, but I’m distracted from more emotions when she casually says, “Tell me how you and James are doing.”

  I look at her only to see a satisfied glint in her eye.

  And I wonder—for just a moment—if she faked a heart attack to get us back together. But my mother couldn’t be that manipulative….

  Could she?

  I frown, feeling the line between my eyes deepen, and shake off the errant thought.

  My mom is strong, assertive, and classy.

  But she’s not a bitch.

  With a resigned sigh, I lean back in the chair, removing my hands from her bedside, and let them drop listlessly into my lap. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  Her laugh fills the room. She must be the only woman on the cardiac recovery floor who can laugh, but she does and she makes it seem effortless and free—two things my mom is not.

  A brow arches as I examine her. For lucidity, perhaps? Maybe the drugs are making her crazy.

  “Mom?”

  She waves me off. “I don’t mean to laugh, but what you just said is completely absurd.” Her laugh dies on her tongue and her eyes at the same time. When she focuses on me, turning her head toward mine, her expression sobers.

  “I don’t want to talk about James.”

  She shrugs. “Well, I’m the one who just had a heart attack, and I want to.”

  I gape at her. “Are you…are you pulling a heart attack card on me to discuss my failing marriage?”

  “It’s only failing if you allow it to.”

  “Mom,” I say, and lean forward. “James had an affair. He made the choice.”

  She’s silent for several moments before she waves me toward her. I move closer because I can’t resist. My mom rarely shows emotion, and her wanting me near her pulls at the heartstrings of the little girl inside me who always wanted her mother’s approval.

  Her hand covers mine and then squeezes tight.

  “Sometimes,” she says and inhales a deep breath. The monitors beep in the background, counting the seconds while I see her lips twist until she finds her words. “Sometimes, the strength of a woman comes from deciding to fight for what you want, regardless of the obstacles.”

  Tears spill down my cheeks as I process her words. With a choked voice, I tell her, “He cheated on me with Becky…of all people.”

  “I know,” she says, and blinks. It confirms the fact James has talked to my parents about our problems, and yet I don’t know if I’m angry with him for telling them now. He’s admitting his mistakes and his faults.

  The transparency is good…right?

  If only I knew for sure what it meant.

  “He told me the day I told him about the gala,” my mom says, and her eyes are fixed on me. Sad eyes. Tired eyes.

  She needs to sleep, but she seems more vulnerable—softer—than I’m used to, and I don’t want to let this moment go.

  “What do you know about staying and fighting?” I ask her, certain I don’t want to know—more certain that I need to.

  My father’s words from yesterday whisper at the edges of my memory.

  “I know that if you stay and do it correctly, he’ll never make the same mistake twice.”

  I try to rack my brain for times when my parents’ marriage seemed anything less than idyllic and come up short. She was always smiling. Always helpful. Always the perfect Stepford wife.

  Her wicked-sounding admission baffles me.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Her smile turns knowing and she raises her eyebrows. “I’m not sure discussing past indiscretions is what’s best for us, but I want you to know that sometimes it takes a stronger woman to stay and fight than it does to walk away and always wonder.”
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br />   She yawns and her eyes grow heavy.

  “Mom?” I ask. Nerves tickle my spine as I watch my mom, seeming so vulnerable and yet…so not, at the same time.

  She waves her hand, another yawn. “I’m tired.”

  Me, too. I’m exhausted from stress and worry.

  With her eyes closed, she turns her head toward me and her lips lift into a small smile. Her voice is dreamy, almost euphoric, which could be from the drugs coursing through her system. “He’s a good man, Laurie. He always was.”

  As she finally drifts off to sleep, I wonder if she’s thinking about James…or my father.

  We stayed at the hospital all day long. The entire time I hoped for more time with my mom, but I wasn’t able to get time alone with her like I wanted.

  Time to ask her more questions.

  Time to ask her how I can ensure that James will never cheat on me again.

  Where did she find the strength to stay like she implied?

  I sat in the waiting room for most of the day, wanting that time alone with my mom that I couldn’t have in between nurses and doctors and my dad who refused to leave…I couldn’t help but wonder how she did it.

  Staying doesn’t seem strong.

  It seems weak, as if I fear I can’t live without the one person who’s always been there for me.

  It seems strong to insist I can live on my own, by my rules, with no one to care for or need.

  And yet I can’t deny the pull I still feel toward James.

  I couldn’t help but relax into him throughout the afternoon, when he would take breaks from his computer, come sit next to me, wrap his arm around my shoulder, and pull me to his chest.

  I don’t know if I’m leading him on or giving him something he needs.

  We haven’t talked much. We don’t speak at all on the way home, and by the time he’s pulled into my parents’ driveway and we enter the kitchen, I make a beeline straight toward my parents’ liquor cabinet.

  “I need a drink,” I mutter more to myself than James, but I know he’s followed me.

  His quiet steps are behind me and then his chest is heating my back when he stands behind me at the liquor cabinet.

  “Let me,” he says, and his quiet, deep voice sends a chill to the back of my neck. Without giving me a chance to say anything, he reaches above me and opens a cupboard, quietly pulling out a bottle of wine, glasses, and my father’s favorite whiskey. “I need a drink, too.”

  His breath is so close to me, I can smell his familiar hint of mint that he gets from constantly sucking on tiny little green Tic-Tacs. Warmth slides down my neck as his breath and his body tease and tempt my skin.

  What I wouldn’t do to forget everything right now.

  I close my eyes and my fingers reach out to the edge of the counter, wrapping around the chilled wood. Wanting to forget is what got me into half my mess in the first place.

  “Here,” James says, and my eyes open slowly. I didn’t feel or hear him move, but he’s standing off to my side, a raised glass of red wine in between us.

  “Thanks,” I say, taking the offered glass and bringing it to my lips. I watch as he pours his own glass of whiskey, but no other words form in my mind.

  I have no idea what to say to this man, who my body still wants but who hurt my heart.

  As if he understands, James looks at me, and his eyes slowly graze down my body. I don’t know what he’s looking for. I feel covered in a layer of germs and filth from being at the hospital. I don’t have makeup on and my hair is falling out of the ponytail I’ve secured and re-secured several times today.

  But I can’t help but watch as his dark eyes peruse my body in a way that’s so completely familiar. I’ve seen James look at me like he wants me in a lustful way…and in a completely teasing way with a humorous waggle of his eyebrows.

  This time, it’s different. Slower, as if he isn’t sure he wants to look at me, or timid because he’s afraid of what I’ll say.

  I don’t say anything, though, and by the time his eyes rake back up my body and meet my gaze, my lips part as something passes between us.

  That familiar heat. That familiar desire that I always used to feel when he was this close to me.

  I love him.

  I hate him.

  I no longer know if I hate myself more, though, either.

  “Let’s go sit,” James says, not giving me an opportunity to argue with him. He takes my hand and pulls me until I’m settled up against his chest and his hand drops to my hip.

  He squeezes, and I feel his fingertip dip into the sensitive skin above my hipbone. I feel his touch everywhere as the warmth from his hand slides across my abdomen, down to my core and then my knees, making them slightly wobbly as he leads me toward the living room.

  “Thanks again for today, for being here.”

  I don’t know how many times I’ve thanked him over the last few days.

  He seats us on the couch so we’re facing each other. My knee brushes against his and I fight the urge to brush him away.

  I’m not even sure I want to.

  Not tonight.

  “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

  A heavy weight—apologies unsaid, unspoken pleas for forgiveness—hovers between us like always, but I push it back.

  I’m so tired of the stress, of the anger.

  For one night I want to not think about it.

  “Pick a movie,” I tell James, forcing a smile onto my face, and I toss him the remote. “Something loud and scary.”

  He pauses for a moment before he nods with a small smile. Turning toward the television in my parents’ living room, he throws his arm around my shoulder and pulls me toward him.

  I stiffen under his embrace. At the hospital was one thing, but here it’s different. It feels too comforting, too normal.

  “Relax,” he says, and I do when his hand leaves my shoulder. But then he drops it over my lap, squeezing my hip.

  I know what he’s doing. He’s teasing me with his touches and his smiles.

  A part of me wants to argue.

  But the part that remembers the way I fantasized about him in the shower heats from his simple touch on my hip.

  “Horror movie?” he asks, not facing me. His thumb begins making slow circles just inside my hipbone and I can barely speak.

  “Sure.” My voice has thickened and I catch a slight twitch on James’s lips, telling me he knows.

  Of course he does.

  This is his game.

  This is how he’s always slowly driven me to distraction, so that by the time he takes me I’m wet for him, needing him and wanting him, and it’s only moments until I’m screaming his name.

  Almost in the same way I did in the shower this morning.

  I shift under his weight and his light touches. His palm presses into my hip, stilling me.

  “Watch the movie,” he mutters, and I finally realize he’s found something on television.

  It’s a horrendous movie made with cameras that look like the actors are holding them. You hardly notice anything really scary as the people run through the woods screaming, but it still sends shivers down my spine every time I watch it. It has since I first saw it in college.

  “I hate this movie.” My lips pull into a smile as I reach for my wine glass.

  His hand squeezes my hip and I know without looking at him that he’s rolling his eyes. “You love this movie.”

  It’s true. It’s so horrible it’s awesome, and I love the fact that even though I’ve seen it a dozen times, I still jump at the scary parts and hide my eyes at others.

  “Face it,” he says, and his lips are by my ear, making me jump. My eyes widen and I turn slightly to face him, but I’m stopped by his lips brushing against my cheek. “I know you, Laurie.”

  I know he does. And I open my mouth to say something, to argue or concede I don’t know, when his teeth graze the sensitive flesh of my ear and he bites down.

  The sharp sting sends a jolt of des
ire straight to my clit and my entire body sizzles.

  It confuses me how he can do this to me.

  “James,” I say, but it’s breathy and needy and I don’t hate the sound as much as I should.

  He ignores me, and as he lets go of my ear, his nose brushes my jaw. “Like right now, I know that you’re already turned on because of that one simple nibble.”

  He’s right. I don’t tell him. His thumb presses against the skin of my lower abs and I tense.

  “And I know that if I were to move my hand, I would find you wet.”

  I squirm under him, my breath coming in quick, quiet pants. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because I love you, and I miss you, and I miss you beneath me and all around me.” His lips scrape my jaw, but I’m frozen. Why am I not moving away?

  This is the wrong thing. The wrong time.

  But as James’s hand leaves my hip and rises to cup my jaw, he turns me to face him and our lips brush against each other…I no longer care.

  “Let me do this for you tonight, honey.”

  My eyes burn and I blink away tears.

  “I can’t,” I say, but my hips are already arching closer to him. My lower stomach is pulsing with need and my skin is itching to be touched.

  It’s taken a few brushes of his skin and teeth on me and I’m desperate for him to finish this, but the small niggling of my conscience warns me that this can only end badly.

  “Don’t think I’m being completely selfless.” He leans forward and his teeth are back on my ear, nibbling and tasting. “I want to be inside you, and to feel you again. It’s been too damn long since I’ve had your hands all over me that I want it.”

  “It’s not fair to you,” I whisper. I don’t want to hurt him.

  “Let me do this for you.” He pulls back, both of his hands cupping my cheeks. His eyes sear into mine with intensity that only ignites my already needy body. “No expectations other than this, I promise.”

  I swallow a thick lump but find myself nodding. It’s what I needed to hear, that I’m not leading him on by letting him do this to me.

  But as his lips hit mine and I open for him...I can’t figure out why knowing tonight comes without expectations hurts so much.