The Secret of You and Me - Melissa Lenhardt Page 0,54
what I’d said. I managed to sneak out the night before Nora left for boot camp. I apologized over and over, but she just looked at me like I was a monster. Which I guess I was. I mean, what kind of friend does that?”
“You were young and scared. With shitty parents.”
“She’s back.”
Todd sat forward. “Nora? Since when?”
“Friday. Her father died. She hadn’t spoken to him since she left, eighteen years ago.”
“And?”
“We’ve made up.”
“That’s great.”
I rested my face in my hands.
“I’m still in love with her.”
“That’s your big revelation? I don’t think so.”
“It’s the truth. I want Nora so much I feel physically ill.”
“You just said want, not love.”
“I do love her.”
“What do you think about more, the everyday life you would have with her, or fucking her?”
“Todd!”
“You need to say it, Sophie.”
“Say what?”
He sat back and crossed his arms and let the quietness settle between us.
I sighed. “You know what led me to AA?”
“The DUI?”
“The night before, I had a one-night stand with a woman named Erica. I don’t even know if it was her real name. I didn’t give her mine.” I twisted a thin paper napkin into a long strand. “She’s the only other woman I’ve been with. Telling myself it was just Nora got me through a lot of dark times. Of course, they would always come back because it was a fucking lie.”
I untwisted the napkin, laid it out flat. “I was stone-cold sober when the woman picked me up. I was on my first glass of wine at the hotel bar. I’d seen her at the convention. Across the room. There was something about her that drew me. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. I didn’t dare go up to her.
“She came and sat next to me, ordered a drink. When the bartender left, she turned to me and lifted her wineglass. To beautiful strangers.”
“Damn, that’s a good line.”
“Yeah. She had a gorgeous, soft Southern accent, like Melanie from Gone with the Wind, but authentic. She wore a wedding ring that was borderline gaudy, and her clothes, the style, the quality, reeked of old money. We talked for a bit, flirted, really. Every question, every answer, was loaded with innuendo. By this time, my entire body was humming with energy. I was worried I was reading something into this that wasn’t there when I turned to her and saw this naked expression of... No one has ever looked at me like that. Not even Nora. I don’t know how much cash I gave that bartender. Probably sixty or eighty dollars for two glasses of wine. At the door to my room, I turned to ask her if she was punking me, but there was that look again. She told me to hurry up.”
I was tearing the napkin now, remembering what happened in that hotel room, how it changed my life for the better and worse. We weren’t gentle; we practically devoured each other and shed our clothes as quickly as possible. When I felt her body against mine, her soft skin, her breasts... Even now the thought of her made me burn.
I cleared my throat and continued. “She stayed all night. We parted as strangers. Hard to believe, considering...but we were both uncomfortable. When I opened the door for her to leave, she closed it and kissed me again.”
It had been a long and slow kiss, full of regret. Sadness. She stroked my face, said, Thank you, my beautiful stranger, and left.
“Reality didn’t hit me until I pulled up to the gate at the parking garage and thought about the life that I was driving back to. The idea of sharing the same bed with Charlie revolted me. I couldn’t bear the idea of going home, so I went to the nearest bar. That’s how I ended up with the DUI. I couldn’t deny to myself who I was any longer, but I couldn’t leave my life either. Leave Logan.”
“What else?”
“What do you mean, what else?”
“The same reason you have to admit you’re an alcoholic out loud. You deny it, you backslide.”
“Backslide into heterosexuality? I don’t think so.”
“Look, Sophie, sure, I get the subtext. If you want to move forward, you have to say it aloud. You know that. It’s why you called me.”
“But, once I admit it, it’s real.”
“The hard part is over.”
I laughed. “No, it’s not.” I rubbed my hands on the table, inhaled deeply and blurted it out. “I’m gay, I’m still in love with Nora, and I don’t