by S. L. Naeole
Except one thing.
“Take me home,” I whispered.
Robert didn’t need to search my thoughts to know what I meant. He didn’t need to hear me say why. He knew why. It was his wish, too.
I know that when Dad came rushing back into the room, following the nurses who had been alerted by the alarms of machines that could no longer detect life attached to them, he would find the room empty. He would see the blood that had spilled from my arm, and he would see the glass on the bed, and the sutures that dotted the sheets, and he would worry. But then he’d know that I was safe.
Probably safer than I had ever been in my entire life.
THE PROMISE
“I’ve missed this,” I sighed. My fingers weaved into a welcoming hand that stretched across cool sheets, and I brought that hand to my lips, kissing the strong fingers as they curled over mine.
“I’ve missed you.”
I felt the gentle nuzzle against my ear, and the puff of breath against my cheek, and felt the hot prick of tears that threatened to announce my happiness before I could.
The sun was setting in front of us, filling Robert’s room with shades of unmatched golds and oranges, slashes of color that were as warm and almost congratulatory in some sense; it felt like the confirmation that the dark moments that we’d shared were seeing their end, just as this day was.
We had found each other when our lives were ripe for change. We had fallen apart when our differences became too much. We had reunited only to find that love cannot thrive on deceit, and then the poison of doubt and mistrust had almost broken us completely, but we had overcome it, all of it, because what we had was far more valuable than love. Much, much more, and as it nestled between us, it was enough. At least for now.
Robert’s hand moved down to my hip, and then to my abdomen when he felt the rumble there. “Are you hungry?”
My head jerked to the side. “I’m too happy to be hungry.”
I could feel the smile on his lips, and I smiled, too—a full, rich smile that stretched across my face and claimed without uncertainty that I was happy. With him, I felt whole. With him, everything was as it should be and I marveled at how it was even possible that I had managed to exist without him beside me.
“I was a walking ghost without you near me,” Robert confessed to my thoughts. “Every thought I had was of you, and every step I took was a hollow, meaningless one when it wasn’t made towards you. Every moment I was away from you was hell for me. Every moment I knew that you were doubting me was agony; I was torn. I wanted to be with you, Grace. I wanted to be wherever you were—I didn’t want to be away from you.”
My body twisted in his arms until I was facing him, our bodies lying side-by-side, our eyes level with each other. “I know that now. I should’ve always known it. It was stupid of me not to, and selfish of me to expect you to put everything aside just because I can’t deal with you not being with me. I acted like a spoiled, selfish brat.”
“It wasn’t selfish, Grace. There is nothing selfish about wanting to be loved.”
“But there is everything selfish in not stopping to think about anyone or anything else because of that love. I hurt you—I accused you of things that were horrible, and I…I don’t know how you can even look at me without hating me.”
Robert’s fingers brushed away a stray tear from the corner of my eye before it solidified as he took in my woebegone expression. “I can’t look at you without feeling the need to touch you, hold you, kiss you. I can’t look into your eyes and not want to undo all of the wrongs I’ve done to you. I want to spend forever making up to you the past hurts, and I want to spend forever proving to you that I have never stopped wanting you, loving you, no matter what you did, or thought…or felt.”
“But why?” I blubbered. “I accused you of wanting to be with someone else, of not wanting me, and then like the hypocrite I am, I go right around and kiss someone else. How can you not hate me for that? Or at least be angry with me for it?”
The smooth pad of his thumb pressed over my lips, silencing me as he sighed wearily. “I do feel angry. I cannot deny that I would have rather you never kissed another person except me, but I also understand why you did it. You are a human being, with human desires that I cannot understand. If you need to feel that affection from someone else because I’ve neglected to provide it, I cannot hold that against you. I was the one who gave you little reason to believe that I wanted you—even after saying I did.
“When you left me that night, after I had once again refused to act upon my need for you, all I wanted to do was beg you to return, to come back to me and make to you all the promises a man can make to a woman he loves. But I couldn’t because I felt ashamed. I followed you back to your father’s home, I watched to make sure you were safe, but after that I couldn’t even look at you because to do so would force me to admit that I did not deserve you.
“And with every day that went by without you, every torturous moment, my need for you grew. It grew and expanded and became the only thing I could think of. I was starved for your thoughts, for your smell, your touch. And yet, I refused to succumb to my needs because I couldn’t give all of myself to you—not when so much was going on elsewhere.
“It’s as though a fountain of black hatred had sprung up and was tainting everyone who came across its poison. I refused to allow the situation to grow out of my control, but it became too much for me. I didn’t want to seek the help of those whose sole purpose it was to stop the madness with their own darkness, but I had no choice. I was overwhelmed, and I realized too late that by allowing them in that I had only added to the chaos. I felt that I couldn’t return to you—not tainted as I was with my foul decisions.
“In your eyes, I was the healer; I was the one who saved lives. And now, I was doing more than taking them—I was destroying them. How could I return to you with that on my hands?”
He closed his eyes, and I could sense the tension in him, the struggle he had with himself over his decisions, but I knew that this wasn’t his fault. He didn’t do anything wrong—not in my eyes, at least.
Silver rings flashed as his lids lifted, and they softened as he touched the side of my face, tracing the bow of my lips as his own moved to continue. “You are far more forgiving and understanding than I deserve. You have the countenance of a human, but the soul of an angel far more divine than any of us could ever hope to be.
“It is how I knew when I saw your thoughts, Grace, that you did not initiate it. I know that you would never have. Whatever you felt while it was happening, the one thing you never felt was gladness for it. You might have enjoyed the kiss, but you didn’t feel any desire for more. Even in the darkest of places, even in the hopelessness of your shattered faith in me, I knew that you felt only for me.”
The blood in my veins began to slow, thickening as I looked into the quicksilver of his eyes and acknowledged that there would be no one else that I could love as much, no one else that I would desire. No one could do with one look what Robert could. Even silent, motionless, he was the key to my senses. He could turn the quiet into a thunderstorm, or the hurricane into the calm. He could make the ice burn, and the fire freeze. He could make the sweetest of emotions seem bitter in comparison to what he made me feel with just that one, scorching gaze.
His pupils dilated, growing wider and nearly swallowing the liquid mercury of his irises as he read my thoughts, and saw in them everything that I felt, everything I knew. When he closed the gap between us, his lips finding mine, it was a cataclysmic thing.
I could hear the cracks of my past forming, and feel the beginning of weightlessness as piece by piece they fell away, leaving behind a new shell, one that was stronger, more resilient, fortified by what I saw in his eyes. My arms wound around him, and his around me, our bodies separated by only clothes and air and time.
And in one glorious burst of heat, I was consumed by the silky splendor of him. He had lost his form, dissipating into the fog that smelled sweet
ly of both heaven and hell, but his presence was still just as substantial as the tickle of that black mist, replacing arms that held me, and hands that caressed me, instead curled around me, over and over until I was sure I would become lost in it.
And even though I couldn’t see his eyes or his mouth, couldn’t feel his skin, his thoughts were with me. And it were those thoughts, thoughts that caused blushes to burn my skin, that caused my breath to catch in my throat as I fought to keep up with my racing heart, that took me to another place; a place where there were no rules, where there were no laws that prevented us from being together.
It was here that I could lose myself in feeling. It was here that I could embrace the fire that always burned inside of me whenever Robert was in my thoughts, and let it completely engulf me. The tantalizing slide of cool mist against the prickly heat of my skin was tormenting just as it was satisfying, the push and pull of it against my human sensitivity unnaturally fulfilling.
Wisps and curls of dark fog danced a ballet with my limbs as I rolled over and over, tangling myself in the sheets and nearly losing my battle with balance on the bed, having almost fallen off twice when I finally lost control over my senses and simply allowed them to feel.
The touch of a hand could be just as light, just as gentle, but it couldn’t evoke the feeling of a thousand fingertips the way the simple graze of mist could. Every nerve I possessed, and maybe a million I didn’t, seemed to light up at each glancing touch. My body rose and fell against my will, drawn to every spiraling tug of smoke that already knew what would bring me the most pleasure.
I inhaled deeply, taking in what I could, however I could, and allowed the seeking mist to find what it was looking for, what it hunted. And then the part of me that wasn’t human, that part of me that was something else entirely seemed to ignite deep within me, having been found by the only one who could, and in too short a time I was gasping for breath, consumed by sensation and satisfaction and…incompletion.
But I was too spent to pay any attention to that part, because this was completion.
I was panting, beads of sweat gathering to slide off of my skin, when the mist began to solidify once more around me, replacing smooth, soft cotton with hard muscle. Robert was once more beside me, his chest rising and falling in a frantic dance for breath that he did not need…and yet did. And I danced with him, my own need for breath false somehow, because he was my oxygen. He was my blood. He was my life.
“You,” he said between breaths, “are my soul.”
I curled up against him, my head resting against his chest, sighing at the silence that greeted me. How odd, I thought to myself, that such a mundane thing, something so many of us took for granted, could elicit both fear and comfort. For me, it was nothing but all encompassing comfort. The absence of a heartbeat was a reminder of what Robert had sacrificed for me—it was a testament to his love. I chided myself for ever forgetting that.
It is entirely my fault for not being here to remind you.
I cocked a lone eyebrow up, his voice in my head the first time in so long that it brought a rush of tears to my eyes. “Do it again,” I pleaded.
Do what?
“That,” I cried.
This?
“Yes.”
Why?
I looked at him, puzzled by why he would need a reason. When the blank slate of his eyes told me that he did, I smiled. “Because when you do, I know that it’s coming straight from your heart. There’s no space, no time for it to get lost in the distance between your lips and my cynical ears. Because when it’s in my head, it touches every part of me, and reaches the parts that I swore would never feel anything ever again. Every word that you speak into my thoughts is a promise to me, one that I know now you will never break.”
The bed jolted, and I felt myself rolling over onto my back, Robert appearing above me, his hands cradling my face, his body resting lightly atop of mine, floating just enough to keep his weight from crushing me. I wrapped my arms and legs around him and brought him down, smiling when I sunk even deeper into the mattress.
Grace, my heart, my love—I promise to never leave your side again. I promise to give to you all of me, to love you completely, fully, wholly.
His words made me feel weightless, boneless, even with him atop of me, and I sighed in contentment. Robert, there will never be another moment of doubt for me. I will never again question your love for me.
He smiled, his perfect mouth lifting in revelry of the promise that I had made to him, knowing that it was one that I would never break.
He lowered his head to mine, our lips joining in a kiss that sealed our promises to each other, branded them, and when he lifted away, I didn’t hold on for fear that he was leaving me again. Instead, I waited for him to smile, to look down on me and smirk as his gaze traveled to the top of my head and back down again.
“What?” I asked, seeing the glint of amusement in eyes.
“You,” he replied, a light laugh touching his lips. “You look thoroughly disheveled.”
I squirmed beneath him and leapt off of the bed.
”Isn’t that my job?” I heard him call out after me as I ran into the bathroom to see for myself.
My cheeks were flushed a vibrant pink, and my hair was tousled in a way that told stories that no one would believe. My lips were swollen, kissed beyond contentment, and my eyes glittered, so full of happiness that I could barely contain the sparkling joy as they fell out in tear after tear, smashing into the sink. This wasn’t disheveled.
“You’re right,” Robert whispered as he came up behind me, his arms slinking around my abdomen, pulling me against him, my head resting against the hard surface of his chest. “This is loved.”
“And sweaty,” I remarked as I saw the sheen on my face. There was also dried blood crusting at my hairline, and dirt clung to my hair, horrifying me. “God, you must have had your eyes closed the entire time you were…ugh, I feel gross” I mumbled, my embarrassment changing the rosy hue on my skin to something much, much redder. “Is the bed a mess? I bet it’s a mess,” I lamented, moving to look for myself.
“It’s not a mess, and no, my eyes were not closed. I don’t care if you smell like sunshine or if you’re covered head to toe in peat moss—you are beautiful and you’re mine, no matter what you look like or what you’re wearing.”
I looked down and realized that I was still wearing the hospital gown, and another wave of embarrassment hit me. “I can’t believe we did…that while I was dirty and bloody and wearing this stupid gown. I need to take a shower and I need to get out of this.”
Robert nodded and removed his arms from my waist. “I’ll go and get you a change of clothes.”
He walked away, and as I looked at him, his back facing me through the doorway while he rummaged through my clothes in the drawers, I removed my gown. I stepped into the shower and turned the water on, the blasting stream of hot water massaging muscles that I had not realized were tense, acting like a lubricant on them and easing the tension away, inch by inch, gallon by gallon. The bathroom soon filled with steam, fogging up my vision, leaving me to fumble around for the shampoo bottle.
My hands touched cold tile, and then found the niche where the bottle lay. Only it was empty.
“Robert? Did you use all of the shampoo while I was away?” I asked, knowing that he’d probably answer me silently to maintain my sense of modesty. “Is there a spare bottle under the sink?”
“I have it right here,” his voice said from behind me.
“Oh!” I gasped, unable to turn around. “Y-you’re in here.”
“Yes. Yes I am,” he replied, his voice just as shaky.
“Are y-you…are you naked?”
A soft chuckle left him. “Does one ever shower with all of their clothes on?” He was so close, his breath brushed across my shoulder, and I would have bet my life it was hotter than the water that flowed out from the showerheads built into the shower wall.
“Stay still,” he said b
efore I felt his fingers begin to massage my scalp, filling my hair with luxurious lather, the familiar scent of my shampoo now taking on a whole new meaning to me. Over the past few weeks, I had contemplated changing my shampoo, but now…
“Don’t you dare,” Robert threatened, his fingers skimming my shoulders as he gathered up loose strands. “This is the first scent of yours that I can remember. It is you—and I like you just the way you are.”
“O-okay,” I agreed, closing my eyes and allowing his ministrations.
“Step forward,” he said softly, and I walked into the wall of water as it rinsed off the soap from my head. When I was certain that my hair was free of foam, I stepped back, and found his hands ready this time with a washcloth and soap. I tried to turn around, but he was ready for that, too. He stopped me, holding me immobile just as soon as the thought had left me.
“Grace…I’m trying to take this as slowly as possible. If you look at me, I might not be able to stop. Please…please stay still.”
The quivering in his voice matched the one in my chest as he began to wash me. The last person to wash me had been my dad, and that was a world and a lifetime ago. This moment was…it was everything. I held my body still, just as Robert had requested, and with every soapy glide that removed from me the evidence of last night’s tragedy, it left behind a memory that gave me another reason to never want this night to end.
“Step forward,” he commanded once more, and I obeyed; only this time, I was not alone. He followed, his arms bringing mine to cross over my chest, and he held me, close to him, but not close enough—not for me. The water that splashed around us, I realized, was meant to distract us, to remind us where we were, what we were doing. We had this moment, but we were not to lose ourselves in it—we could not lose control. Not yet.
As with all good things, so too did this have to end. Robert’s hold on me loosened, and I made my complaint known when he left me completely. I turned off the now cool water, the steam already thinning around me, and was soon swallowed up in the soft embrace of thick towel. Quickly, vigorously, I was dried and dressed, though not in my staple of boxers and a tank top.
