“I need you,” he says. His voice is pleading, and he kisses me more urgently, until I start to kiss him back.
His hands move underneath my thighs, and he lifts me effortlessly. I feel him slide inside me. I gasp as he enters. My fingers dig into his back as my body adjusts around him. He goes deeper inside me, each movement reminding me of how much my body craves him, each thrust reminding me that he knows its every crevice. My body has given into him, but my heart hasn’t; it’s bruised and in hiding. While still inside me, he takes my hand and intertwines his fingers with mine.
“Without you, I’m nothing,” he whispers in my ear.
I try to believe the unsteadiness of his voice is due to his body recovering from what it’s done. But with just those four words, my heart shows itself and gives in to him. I’m still scared, so scared. The heaviness on my chest is gone, and I believe he’s not cheating on me, but I realize if he’s not, we have a problem—one much bigger than I ever thought. Because if Cal loves me as much as he makes believe he does, whatever is slowly peeling away at our relationship, we may not be able to fix.
March 9th, 2013
You’re the reason I fight to be here…
I open my eyes, trying to get away from the words that have been relentlessly playing in my head. I can’t escape from his echoing voice. I keep trying to make his face disappear, but every time I close my eyes, I see him.
The words seem to hold more meaning than I ever imagined, but now they’re worthless. Something made him stop fighting. Or even if he did, at this point, it’s pretty moot.
I sit up on my lumpy bed in the Ritter Inn’s lovely room—not really.
I let out a sigh as I hold my head. Sleeping has been practically useless. When it’s not his voice, it’s the Scotts’ words following me around. Scenes of Cal and me in the past haunt my thoughts every second, or even worse, my first meeting with “Chris.”
It’s been two days since I found out the so-called “truth,” whether or not I believe it. It is implausible, but makes so much sense, connecting so many dots that have been scattered about in my brain for years—all of Cal’s sudden disappearances, his void connection with family, with everyone except the Crestfields—but to believe that he isn’t real, that he’s a forged personality… I’ll never believe that. I can’t.
I try to forget the look on the Scotts’ faces; they carried a quiet honesty and a sincerity—even Mr. Scott. His bitterness was too genuine to be an act. Mrs. Scott’s tears were too real, her eyes so full of sorrow when she spoke. If this is all a scheme, they should both win an Oscar.
I look over at the side table where my phone is vibrating once again. It’s Hillary this time. She, Angela, and Raven have all called numerous times, but I haven’t been up to the task of talking to them. I can’t face being unable to answer questions that I don’t have answers for myself. This entire thing seems as if I’m in a nightmare, just waiting to be woken up, as if everything is playing backward in my head.
I grab the remote beside me and turn on the television in the hope that it will take my mind off of my complex thoughts. I think of Caylen. This is the longest I’ve been away from her. I miss her so much. I know Raven is taking great care of her. She would die before she let anything happen to her, but I still miss her.
I feel guilty for my lack of communication back home, but I’m just not ready to talk to anyone right now, but I realize how hypocritical it is for me being mad at Cal for something so similar.
I can’t begin to think of what this means if it’s all true. Whenever I do, I feel as if I’ll throw up or pass out. I don’t know anything about this Chris person, and he knows absolutely nothing about me. He’s in love with another woman, or he’s engaged to another woman. I can only imagine how his parents will explain me to him.
I think back to Mr. Scott’s words about the possibility that Chris won’t be able to handle the truth, the chance that it’ll make things worse. But what does that mean? Would Cal come back?
I’ve seen movies about split personalities, story arcs in the soap operas Raven watched when I was younger, but facing it in reality is something completely different.
A knock at the door interrupts my thoughts. It’s probably housekeeping, which means Ms. Ritter is making sure I haven’t trashed her room. I lazily get up from my bed and open the door.
“I don’t need…” I start to say, but I freeze when I see the person looking back at me.
“Hi,” he says softly, his eyes as wide as mine.
My heart crawls up into my throat. Here—he’s here, standing in front of me. I try to move my eyes from his, but they’re locked there. I search for the intensity in his eyes that I haven’t seen in years, but there’s only uncertainty.
My hands are starting to shake, my body taking on directions of its own. I can feel my emotions swell from the bottom of my stomach, ready to overflow if I don’t gain some sort of control over them. I can’t blow up here; I can’t boil over. I have to use this time, if not for me, for Caylen. I have to see if this is him, if he’s playing me, if everything is a lie, or even worse—if it’s the truth.
Right now he has the upper hand, the element of surprise. I have to use this. I have to think… I jump out of my thoughts at the knocking on the door once again. I realize I unconsciously closed the door in his face. I can do this. I can do this.
“I’m sorry for coming like this. I-I just thought… I can come back later when you’re ready,” the timid voice says before his footsteps lead away from the door.
“No!” I quickly open the door and step out halfway to see him.
He turns around and slowly approaches me. With each step he takes, I feel my chest tighten, making it harder for me to breathe. My eyes avoid his now, inadvertently landing on his chest since that’s where I am height-wise.
“My parents said you were coming over tomorrow, but… I thought we… I wanted to talk to you alone if it’s okay.” He stumbles over his words.
I glance up and see that his eyes stare over my head; we seem to be using the same tactics. I try to respond, but nothing comes out, so I step back and gesture for him to come in. I take a deep breath as he passes me, and I steal a quick glance at him before I shut the door.
I reassure myself again that I can do this. I walk over to the sofa, trying to decide if I’d rather sit or stand, but my eyes still gravitate to him. I can’t believe it’s been almost two years since I’ve seen him, not including that disaster the other day. As much as I don’t want to look at him, I can’t help it at the same time.
I fold my arms across my chest and wait for him to say something. After all, he’s the one who came here. Our eyes meet, and the look in his scares me. They seem so familiar, yet foreign. He looks at me as if I’m a stranger.
Whenever Cal looked at me, even when I was upset with him or he was upset, there was always something that held me, something so intense that I hated it when I was angry and became enraptured with it when I wasn’t. But as I look into Chris’s eyes, I see confusion, something solemn and apologetic, and it terrifies me because Cal has never been any of those things. He never took anything back, and he rarely apologized.