The Secret of You and Me - Melissa Lenhardt Page 0,82
do what I want, which is to be with you, if only for a couple of weeks. I don’t care. I need you, Nora. I can’t eat or sleep. I haven’t gotten shit done at work because I spend all day staring at the only photo I have of you. I mean, isn’t the bedroom where this was always going? I know I’m not as experienced as you, but those were the signals you were sending. You just told me you’ve always loved me. What am I missing?”
“I’ve dreamed of this, you know. Even when I hated you, I wanted this. I’ve compared every woman I’ve been with to you, and no one has stacked up. So, no. You didn’t read the signals wrong. Of course I want you.”
She moved toward me. “Shut up and show me.”
We were in each other’s arms again, kissing frantically, our hands moving across each other’s bodies. Tilting my head up to allow her full, sensual lips to travel up and down my neck, to my ear, and to my lips. My mind started wondering what I would do to her first, what I would teach her...
I held her face in my hands. “I know how the program works, Soph. Us being together is against the rules. I’ve already caused you to backslide, I don’t want to be the cause again.”
She inhaled slowly. “If this ends badly, you mean.”
“Yes.”
She nodded. “I appreciate that, more than you know. But, the chances are the same if I can’t have you now, or if I lose you later. Besides, my drinking is my problem, my choice. Let me worry about it.”
Sophie tried to kiss me again. I moved my head away. “I couldn’t sleep last night, fantasizing about today. Anticipating. Dreaming. Remembering. Then, I thought of the after. It took me years to get over you, Sophie. But, in all the daydreams about it, the one thing I always imagined it as was a beginning, not the beginning of the end. You say you’re fine with a one-night stand, but you could never be that for me. You’re the love of my fucking life.”
She stepped back. “What are you saying? You love me so much you don’t want to make love to me?”
“I am not going to open myself up to being hurt again. I’m not going back to that shell of a woman.”
The desire in her eyes was dimming, being replaced with indignation, and a little bit of anger. “Oh, but it’s okay for me to?”
“You’ve got a lot of fucking baggage, Sophie. You’ve been living a lie for eighteen years. I haven’t, and I’m completely comfortable with myself, and my life.”
“And you have Alima to skitter back to when this is over.”
“Skitter?”
Sophie huffed. “And you wonder why I said ‘you won’ that first day. Fine. Do you want to fight? Let’s fight. There is nothing safe about me being here. If any of this came out it would torpedo my life, ruin my relationship with my daughter. I still came because I love you more than my miserable, small fucking life, I guess. We talk a good game, say we love each other, but what if when we get into it, we realize we aren’t who we once were together? Or you decide you’d rather have Charlie than me? Or Alima. Then what do I have? A bunch of broken relationships and life alone in a small town.”
“Charlie? Why would I want Charlie?” I said.
“Because you’re bisexual.”
“Alima told you.”
“Yeah. Why didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t sure you would understand.”
“You’re right. I don’t. Charlie might as well be a fence post for all the desire I feel for him. I want you, and only you.”
“And I want only you. The fact that I’m attracted to men, too, has nothing to do with it.”
“How can I be sure?”
“The same way anyone is sure of their partner’s loyalty: trust.”
“Why should I trust you? You don’t trust me. Yeah, Alima told me that, too. And she told me you hate Lynchfield and me.”
“Sophie...”
“I’m the trustworthy one, Nora. Christ, I’ve stayed with a man I don’t love for nearly two decades because of his loyalty to me, and because of my love of my daughter. I stayed, faced the town, faced my mistakes. You’re the one who ran and didn’t come back. I came here this morning knowing you’re going to leave again, to break my heart again. And why? Because I want to be with the woman I love, the only person