The Beginning of Always

by Sophia Mae Todd

I nodded, my wrists pressed tightly against my eyes. I had taken five pregnancy tests, had convinced Renee to buy them for me in the next town over.

  “I’m sure,” I choked out.

  “Breathe, baby, breathe. It’s alright, it’s all going to be alright.”

  I shook my head. “No—no, it isn’t. You’re doing so well at school and you’re supposed to be going to New York for that internship next summer and—”

  “Don’t talk about that. Just … calm down. It’s okay, I’m here.”

  The question haunting me all week blurted from my lips.

  “You’re not mad?”

  Alistair was genuinely confused at my question. “Mad? Why would I be mad? Florence, this isn’t your fault, it’s not because of you. I’m here, I’m here with you.”

  Potent relief flooded me. He wasn’t angry. I could breathe easier, could just catch my breath. But the other question, one even more important, chased from beyond my lips before I could stop it, also seeking reprieve.

  “Do you want it?” I asked in a rush.

  Alistair hesitated, his grip on my shoulder tightening.

  “I’m not sure what to say. Let’s not make any rash decisions now. What do you want?”

  “I don’t know either,” I said desperately. I didn’t know, even as I’d sat on this information for an entire week, allowing the fear and shame to fester and eat away at my sanity, I still couldn’t make a decision. I needed to get the conversation out, to hear the words outside my own brain.

  Alistair hesitated, then said slowly, “You know there are …”

  I shuddered, shaking my head fiercely.

  “I can’t have an abortion, even if I wanted to. My dad is the only doctor in town.”

  “I can drive you to Chicago or Detroit.”

  At his sentence, tears began anew and my breaths came out short and hard. Alistair quickly gripped my shoulders and shook his head. “Look, let’s not make a decision. It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about that if you don’t want to.”

  “Can—” I choked out. “Can you just hold me?”

  Alistair’s expression softened and he slid his palms across my back. He gathered me into his arms and the two of us sunk into the deep cushions of the couch. He brushed my head off my face, wiping away my tears with the back of his fingers.

  “Let’s just chill out right now. We’ll figure things out tomorrow.”

  I nodded, now numb but at least that was a downgrade from my full-blown panic.

  Alistair said softly, “If you wanted to keep it, you’d make a great mom, I know it.”

  I curled up tightly, drawing my knees to my chest. “No. No, I won’t. I can’t be a mom to anyone. I don’t have a mom anymore, I never did. I don’t know the first thing about taking care of someone.”

  “Don’t think like that.” Alistair pressed his lips on the top of my head. “We’ll figure something out. Don’t worry, babe, I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you.”

  Some of the trepidation leaked from my bones. The fear of his rejection, of his abandonment, ebbed.

  “I’m with you forever, always,” Alistair said.

  My body trembled. The dread was still there, still present and pressing up against my sanity. All the concerns I’d held just thirty minutes ago hadn’t evaporated with his arrival, but his soft acceptance of all this soothed me. And I was grateful for it.

  I leaned down to rest myself against his shoulder.

  “You promise?”

  “Of course.”

  “Always?”

  “Always.” Alistair hugged me tightly. “No matter what.”

  Chapter 24

  Florence Reynolds, twenty-nine years old

  I woke up.

  One moment I was dreaming, the next I wasn’t.

  I knew he was here. He made no sound, but as I slowly slid off the bed to stand, we both became acutely aware of each other’s presence.

  Alistair sat in the shadows with his back propped up against the open doorway into my room. His arms rested against his knees and in the faint light, I could make out something clutched in his fist. Something long, covered in beads …

  Alistair didn’t glance my way, his attention downwards to the ground. Silence stretched with only the sound of pounding waves coming from beyond my open balcony door. The rustling of the curtains in the wind scratched together.

  Then I broke it.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I said it as a statement, not a question. I knew the answer.

  Alistair finally turned his gaze to me, tilting his face towards the light. It illuminated only half of his face so the other half was cast in shadows.

  I wrapped my arms around myself to shield my bare skin from him.

  Silence.

  When Alistair spoke, his voice was soft. “Do you ever think about how our lives would be different? If it all hadn’t happened the way it did?”

  I chewed my bottom lip and I slid a step backwards, but there was nowhere to go. We never talked about it, we never spoke about it. Could he feel the dream? Did he sense the harsh memory of it?

  “She would have been ten by now, we—”

  “I know.” My tone was hard. My eyes glared, my expression fierce, “I know how old she would have been. Stop.”

  Alistair paused. He made a tight fist with the item in his hand and then, bracing himself against the floor, stood up. I took a step back as he moved towards me, his heavy footsteps barely making a sound. Like last night, he was bare, save for his underwear. The memory of the past twenty-four hours flooded my senses and all of a sudden, all I could remember was the hard press of his chest against mine, that squeezing sensation in my heart, the hopeless pull of his fingers in my hair.

  Feeling out of breath and under an assault of emotions, I put up my hands and said, “Stop, stop. We can’t talk about this. We need to stop this.”

  He stopped. Stopped walking, stopped talking. We were about ten feet away from each other. And we watched each other; I was wary, while Alistair’s expression was something … something incomprehensible.

  I pleaded, needing an out from this conversation, this moment. “I’m weak around you. Don’t … just don’t.”

  Alistair’s expression gentled, but he didn’t back down. He sighed and tossed his head backwards, running the back of both fists through his hair. I tried not to stare at the way his muscles bunched and contorted underneath his skin, his wide chest and broad shoulders making a mess of my cravings.

  My breaths came out thick and harsh, my entire body hot and every part of my nerves and heart screaming in conflict with each other.

  Wanted him.

  Needed him.

  Couldn’t live without him.

  Cursed with the memory of him.

  Alistair slumped his shoulders slightly and dropped his arms. “I would have married you. I wanted to. Despite what you th—”

  I cut in, afraid of him finishing his sentence. “Why does it matter? What happened happened. Nothing changes it.” My voice dipped low, thin and defeated. “You’re the one that left me. You’re the one who left.”

  Alistair suddenly closed the distance between us and before I could retreat any further, his hands reached up and cupped my cheeks. I faintly noted the clatter of whatever he was holding in his hand falling to the dull hardwood.

  I didn’t look down, only stared into his eyes as they roved over my face.

  Our breathing flowed together, as if in unison. I needed to ask him to let go, to back away, to stop everything. But I knew whatever was happening couldn’t stop until the inevitable conclusion—we would break apart, ruining one another, or we’d break into each other, together.

  Alistair’s gaze softened and in a low voice he said, “It matters. You matter …” Alistair’s voice dipped an octave and in a strangled tone, he said, “You are all that matters.”

  In desperate denial, I said, “Why are you doing this? Please stop.”

  “I need to say
this. I have this feeling … that once we leave, once we go back, whatever opportunity we could ever have would be gone. I’ll just lose you again. You’ll leave me. You’ll disappear.”

  I blinked up at Alistair’s expression. For the first time since we’d reconnected, I could see beneath the veneer of Blair and into that deep-seated part of him that was truly vulnerable, truly needy, utterly starved.

  That part of him that no one knew better than I did.

  That boy dropped off on a dusty farm road with promises that were never fulfilled.

  Alistair then said something I’m sure no one had heard him utter for a very long time.

  “Please …”

  I knew what he needed. I still wasn’t sure if it was me or just the escape from the now, but I’d be fooling myself into believing we didn’t need each other, or that he didn’t need me any longer.

  We’d always need each other. Every moment. It was something I’d been lying to myself about, that life wasn’t a constant heartache of loss not sharing it with him. He knew his coldness and lonely despair were because of his success, not in spite of all the joy fame and riches could have brought.

  I knew without asking he’d give it all up to rewind time. To go back to before I’d lost our daughter, to see that through, to share those years with one another.

  To share our always, as we’d both promised.

  So much time had been lost. So much sadness had been wasted. His eyes told me of his regrets, his needs.

  Tears, so long denied in his company, finally pushed past their barriers and my vision became blurry.

  As the first trickled down my left cheek, Alistair gently ran his thumb across to catch it.

  “Why are you crying?”

  I shook my head slightly and tried to pull away. In response, Alistair pushed me further into him.

  “Because I don’t know how else to respond to this. Because I haven’t cried over you for years, but I felt you for every minute of every day. I’m crying because this feels like goodbye, that we’re doomed.”

  I tried again to push him away. “I’m crying because I’m scared. I’m so scared, everything hurts.”

  Then Alistair closed that insignificant distance and kissed me. It was a soft kiss, nothing like the one yesterday with its sharp edge and demanding touch. Tonight, it was … sweet. Gentle, almost. As if he didn’t want to scare me, as if he wanted to say everything.

  Alistair’s lips barely caressed mine; his skin glided over mine and his breath squeezed in between that space to mix within me. White noise, that tuning out of the world, began to buzz in between my ears, and soon, all I could register was Alistair’s heady exhale and the sound the fabric at the back of my top made as his fingers wound around it.

  The pounding of my heart picked up when I hesitantly raised my hands and placed them gingerly on his bare shoulders. The touch of his skin under mine charged underneath my fingertips. I parted my lips further and ran the tip of my tongue along his top lip. His tongue greeted mine halfway and I pushed harder into him, deepening our connection. Alistair’s fingers dug into the small of my back and clutched me closer. I wound my arms up to link along his neck and spread my splayed fingers into his thick, wild hair.

  Alistair turned and walked us slowly to back against the wall. The cold, hard surface hit my shoulder and I braced myself on it as he used the resistance to push his hips against mine. His hard desire ground into the space between my thighs, the thin scraps of fabric separating us doing nothing. He slowly pushed against me, withdrew, and pushed again, that friction immediately flooding my body with sensations.

  I was already damp and when Alistair’s hands traveled south along the curves of my body and rested on the side of my hips, my body responded to every burning inch, every slow slide of his skin. His nails dug into my flesh, and he linked his thumbs underneath the waistband of my shorts. Bracing and stilling my hips, he thrust harder and I gave a moan of desire against his lips.

  I was going wild, the pit of my stomach seizing up with need …

  My low moan broke the spell. Alistair suddenly stilled and then, taking a shallow breath, pulled his body slightly away. I opened my eyes and his deep enigmatic ones stared back at me. He looked like a man starved, yet with the bare vestiges of willpower holding him back from gorging himself on a wild feast. And his look did make it seem as if a feast was displayed before him and he wanted to throw himself into it without abandon, but held back.

  He licked his lips and parted them slightly to say something, but I immediately forced his head towards mine and I kissed him hard. His erection strained with this action, his hips involuntarily grinding deeper.

  “Don’t speak,” I implored breathlessly. “Don’t say anything. I don’t want to think …”

  I wanted to feel.

  Alistair’s touch became desperate, his fingers raking all over my skin, tugging back at my hair. His lips were forceful, harsh, all semblance of gentle gone. We clutched at each other, drowning. He pushed me roughly against the wall with one hand and, using the other, pulled my underwear off. I shimmied my hips to help him wind it down my legs and as it passed my ankles, I quickly flicked it to the side with a sharp snap of my foot.

  His hands slid upwards from my legs and chased my camisole up over the curve of my waist. I raised my arms up as Alistair yanked the flimsy fabric off, and with that I was completely nude.

  Alistair kissed me all over, his lips and tongue tracing a pathway from my neck down to the curve of my collarbone as I tugged his underwear off, letting it fall to the floor. I gripped his erection and he growled, a sound broken with a groan as I slid my fingers upwards before letting go to link arms around his neck.

  I gasped when he kissed me right at the base of my neck, running his palms over my breasts.

  Everything was so sensitive; it was all too much. I scratched my fingernails across the wide breadth of his back, the desperation of needing him flooding me more and more.

  Who held me now was no longer the boy I once knew. Alistair’s shoulders, although broad before, had grown out even more and become defined. His entire body had filled out, hardened, from his narrowing hips with deep Adonis lines to the straining muscle of his thighs.

  In my haze, I wondered what he thought of me. Just like him, I’d grown too. My hips were rounder and fuller, my breasts having gone up a solid cup size in my early twenties. I didn’t have that lanky teenage look anymore.

  I was a woman.

  And he was a man.

  We’d shared so much history as youths, I knew his body almost as well as I did my own. When we grew, we explored, shared our curious hormonal needs, the slight changes over our teenage years, filling out in certain areas, growing muscle. The frantic searching with our eyes, our hands, our mouths over every inch.

  But I had left him while we were still young, still growing.

  Alistair pushed me backwards, and with a gentle motion of his hand at the small of my back and his knee on the edge of the mattress, we fell without a sound onto the bed. The sheets slid across my exposed skin and the sensation of that and Alistair’s knee in between my thighs almost brought me to the edge.

  That wave of emotion crashed over me once more and I was lost. I no longer knew, nor did I care, whether we were in the throes of passion, grief, nostalgia, need, want, loss. Perhaps all of everything, that the simple physical act of us clinging to each other couldn’t be simplified into one singular neat categorization or phrase.

  I wound my arms around Alistair’s neck tighter to bring us closer together. He broke our kiss apart, catching his breath, pulling away to sweep his gaze over me. We were both breathing as if starved for air, the sensation of desperation overcoming every ounce of my body.

  Alistair moved his hands down to grip the side of my hips. I arched my back slightly, the anticipation seizing my body.

  “Florence …,” he whispered. His fingers slid from my hip bones to rest just at the juncture. He smoothed his rough fingers up and down t
he inside of my thighs, and I involuntarily thrust up, growing slicker and wetter with each shuddering breath of a second, every moment he didn’t touch me right where I needed him the most. His eyes never left mine, not when he gently traced a thumb down my folds, or when I moaned in response, or when he dug his grip into my soft flesh and pulled my legs apart.

  I lay there splayed before him, desperate.

  His eyes dipped down, to that hot private part of me he had once known so well. I gasped softly as he traced a single finger up and down my part, circling softly at the top when it came in contact with my clit. He played with me, softly, slowly, never penetrating me or rushing his actions, taking me just barely to the edge of madness.

  Soon I was writhing under his grasp, his free hand tightening against the soft skin of my thigh as the other didn’t break his rhythm.

  “Say it,” he murmured, just barely grazing his thumb against my clit.

  My hips bucked up against my will, need more, wanting more. “Please,” I panted. “Please. Please.” My hands fisted the sheets, my body desperate for release, lust coiling up inside me with no outlet.

  “So wet …”

  Alistair seized my hips roughly and pulled me towards him, my legs spreading to grip about his waist. He fell, leaning over, bracing himself up by his elbows.

  His palms cupped my face, his thumbs gently stroking my cheeks. He tugged on the edge of my lips, tracing the curve of them.

  Alistair tilted his face down to graze his lips against mine, then lightly, all over.

  “Last chance. Tell me you don’t love me, tell me to leave. Say stop and we’ll stop,” he murmured between kisses. “Torture me, kill me, wreck me, I’m yours. I’ve always been yours.”

  I rested my palms against his hallowed cheeks and our gazes met. There was such a potent fire raging in his eyes that it was difficult to maintain contact. But I connected, I watched, I allowed my barriers to fall apart and shatter all those walls between us.

  I brushed my fingers across his temple, slowly. Tenderly. The act was so familiar and so intimate. So natural.

  The shadows and indentations shrouded his face in mystery.