choice for what?” I ask her. When she doesn’t answer me, when another tear drops to the floor, I put my hands on her shoulders and shake her slightly. “No choice for what?”
“I need to fix this, Pascal,” she whispers, finally looking up at me through wet lashes.
“Fix what?”
She clamps her mouth together for a moment, staring at me with such hopefulness that I feel my heart crack, just a little, and then she reaches up and kisses me.
I kiss her back, tasting her tears, wanting to take away whatever pain she’s feeling. I want to be that one for her, the one to make her nightmares end. I know she has them—we’ve slept together enough times that I’ve seen her thrashing all night, crying out, and when she’s not having a nightmare, she’s sitting up in bed, staring at the wall in the dark for what seems like hours.
She talks about wanting to fix things, and I get it, I really fucking do, because all I want is to be able to fix her.
“I have to go,” she says when she pulls away.
“Where are you going?” I ask, grabbing hold of her hand.
“I need to try again with my mother,” she says.
“Will you ever tell me what this is about?”
“I’d like to,” she says, giving my hand a squeeze while another tear falls from her eyes. A noncommittal answer but I let it go for now.
Then she stands on her tiptoes, reaching up again to kiss me on the mouth.
“I love you, Pascal,” she says quietly. “Always believe that.” Then she quickly drops away and hurries out of the room.
I stand there, stunned.
Her words feel like a slap in the face, but there’s no pain in them, only pleasure, only this searing, warming convergence around my heart.
She loves me.
For some stupid, ill-advised reason, she loves me.
I’ve always thought of myself as a man too wicked to love and too wicked to be loved, and yet she loves me.
I don’t even know how to deal with that. I don’t even know how I feel. All I know is that I do feel; I feel more than I ever have before in my whole entire life.
It took thirty-one years to hear it.
I wonder how much longer it will take for me to believe it.
I don’t know how long I stand there in the study, staring at the empty space where she once was. Eventually I have to move, to process, to make sense.
I’m going to need her to open up to me in every way possible.
If she truly loves me, there are to be no secrets between us, not even little ones.
I head out of the study and grab my keys. I exit the house and get into my car and drive off, fast. I need to feel the rush of air, the thrill of speed, something to make sense of what I’m grappling with.
But as fast as I go on the narrow country roads, I can’t escape what she told me.
She loves me.
I can’t outrun that truth.
She loves me.
I don’t know how long I drive for, but suddenly I have to pull over into a farmer’s lane, thrusting the car in park and putting my head on the steering wheel, trying to breathe.
She loves me.
I need to let that feeling—that it’s real, that I deserve it—into my heart, even just a fraction. I need to be able to accept it, or what we have is never going to work.
I need to figure out how I feel about her, and I need to tell her with the same conviction that she told me.
But how do I know if I love her? How do I know what love is? All that I’ve seen of love has been the mask over the lies. Love is a pretty cover-up. Love is what a father denies his son. Love is what a mother gives, but only when you’re good enough. Love is what you tell your wife, knowing she’s playing exactly into your plan. Love is a game, and it’s up to you to stay on top, playing everyone until you’re the only winner.
I have no idea how much time has passed out there on the side of the road until I notice storm clouds rolling in from the north and the sky growing darker. I glance at my watch and see that it’s already six p.m. I should go back for dinner soon, though I don’t have an appetite at all. Besides, it’s Sunday,