The Moment of Letting Go - J. A. Redmerski Page 0,100

at his side. I sense he knows now that I’m here, but he has yet to turn and face me.

“Why didn’t you tell me,” I say softly, “about your brother’s death?” Tears begin to well up in my eyes, already taking on his pain, but I choke them back.

“Because these two weeks were supposed to be for you,” he says in a quiet voice, still with his back to me. Thunder rumbles amid the gray, cloud-covered sky outside. “I wanted it to be special.”

With my heart steadily breaking and filling up with guilt, I step into the room and approach him, trying to hold down my tears.

“But, Luke … it was special. Everything about being here with you has been … It’s been more than I ever imagined it could be.”

“It wouldn’t have been if I’d laid my problems in your lap, Sienna. I didn’t want that. I just wanted you to have a good time. And because—”

He stops.

He still hasn’t turned around, and as I draw closer I hear tears in his voice—faint, but I hear them as clearly as I hear my own—and they cut off what he had wanted to say.

I lay my hands on his shoulders from behind, carefully at first, not sure if he’s in the frame of mind for such comforts, and when he doesn’t reject me, I lay my palms flat against his skin, moving them down the length of his arms, before wrapping them around his waist from behind and resting the side of my face against his warm back.

Then suddenly, as if human touch has triggered a side of him he’s been keeping down for such a long time, Luke falls to the floor, sitting on his bottom with his knees bent, and he lets the tears roll right out of him. His strong hands grip mine around his waist as I go down with him. One fierce sob rattles uncontrollably through his body, and that’s all it takes to make my own tears rush from my eyes, causing my vision to blur. I hold him as tight as I can from behind, wanting to wrap him up within my arms and hold him here forever, but his strength is more palpable than mine, his hands gripping the tops of my fingers, pressing my arms against his hard body with so much force.

He turns around to see me, his hands touching the sides of my face, and I don’t care that I might become a canvas too. I never want him to move them away. He looks deeply into my eyes, his filled with moisture and emotion, my cheeks warm beneath his hands. “I didn’t want you to go, Sienna,” he says and another repressed sob fights its way through his chest. His hands tighten on my cheeks as he holds my fixed gaze. “I wanted to tell you the truth, to make you understand, but—”

I lean toward him, my knees pressed into the hardwood floor beneath me, and I kiss his sweet, trembling lips softly. “I’m here now, Luke.” I kiss him again, and his eyes search my lips when I pull away. “I came back because I want to be here. With you. I don’t care about what happened last night, or about what you didn’t get to explain. I’m here and I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

His warm, forceful lips fall on mine and he kisses me passionately with worship and elation, his hands, wet with paint, gripping the sides of my face with fierce protectiveness. I feel the wetness of his tears on my cheeks, mingling with my own, the intensity of his hands and his mouth and his heart encompassing me.

He breaks the kiss, and we’re both breathless when he says, “I wanted to tell you about Landon. I wanted to tell you a lot of things, but I knew you had to go home and none of it would’ve mattered.”

I touch his lips with two of my fingers. “You can tell me whenever you’re ready. I’m here to listen, and I’m not going anywhere. There’s nothing you can say to scare me away. I still have four days left of my vacation and I want to spend them with you.”

“I want you to stay.”

“Then I’m staying.”

“What about after that?”

“We’ll figure it out.”

He gazes into my eyes, searching for something, longing for it, and I look back up at him, wordlessly giving him whatever he wants. His lips press against mine and he kisses me