I stopped abruptly in the hallway, two doors down from my apartment.
He didn’t slam into the back of me, though he’d been close behind. He had good reflexes.
Then again, that I was kind of the point, I supposed.
I didn’t turn to face him and he didn’t utter anything about my abrupt stop.
“I can’t tonight,” I whispered to the hallway in front of me and the ghost of a man and his love behind me. “I know you’re going to have something to say, something to accuse me of, something to shout at me about, but just not tonight, okay?” I sucked in a breath. “I just...” I trailed off. “I just can’t.”
Silence hung heavy in the hall but heavy was what I was used to now, my light, carefree life a thing of the past, and when I thought about it, a thing of fiction.
Pressure at my elbow turned me around.
I jerked at the contact.
My ghost was touching me.
Willingly touching me. And not to drag me around to face him and then let me go like my skin was fire. No, it was a gentle probing for me to turn, and when I did so, he kept his hand there and his eyes were on mine.
I sucked in another strangled breath.
They weren’t empty, or cold or cruel.
It was like the utter hopelessness in my voice had somehow chipped away at something I’d considered immovable.
He didn’t say anything.
He didn’t need to.
“Everyone expects me to be Polly all the time,” I whispered. “To be happy, to be cheerful, to see the world through rose-tinted glasses. And I am. And I do. As long as I’m not looking in a mirror. I’ve created this image for myself that gives me no room to be the opposite of Polly. Like I am now. The nothing. The blow-up doll version of me that’s deflated, flat, sad and up close, not at all living up to what was promised. I’m just so tired.” My voice hitched then cracked.
A tear trailed down my cheek.
“I’m so fucking tired, Heath, and I know if I sleep for a year I won’t be rested. And I ran away for a year because I thought if I was somewhere where I don’t have to ‘be Polly’ for everyone around me, maybe I’d be able to find some rest.”
Another tear trailed down my cheek.
“But I didn’t realize that the person I had been killing myself being Polly for was me,” I whispered. “I can’t fall apart because that’s not what Polly does. And if I’m not her, I’m no one.”
That’s when another tear fell.
And other.
And my body started to shake with sobs so powerful I wondered if they’d shatter my teeth.
I wanted to run, to not let Heath see me in this way. Not expose all my fragile and broken pieces for him to grind away to dust with his indifference.
But he didn’t.
He yanked me into his arms without hesitation, without any of that chill that had been present for what seemed like forever.
He smelled the same.
I clutched the fabric of his tee and his arms cocooned me in his warmth.
I sobbed harder.
He kissed my head.
“You don’t have to be Polly with me,” he whispered against my hair.
“I know,” I choked out. “And that’s the worst part.”
He didn’t say anything as my sorrow wouldn’t let me communicate beyond strangled and uneven breaths.
He just held me.
For what felt like a lifetime.
He had every right to walk away from my tears, to leave me to marinate in my mistakes that had affected him. But he put all of that aside to hold me when I was breaking down because he knew that I needed it.
In my sorrow, we found a pocket of simplicity that we’d never have outside of it.
And for that reason, I hoped my tears, my pain, my sobs, wouldn’t stop.
But nothing lasted forever.
Not the bad.
Not the good.
Or anything in between.
“Do you want to, can you, will you...come inside?” I asked, lifting my head from where I had soaked his tee with my tears.
His hands tightened around me.
His eyes were still hard.
Cold.
I braced myself for the no. For him to let me go, to step back and to adopt the persona that was becoming so horribly familiar.
But he didn’t.
“Yeah, I fucking want to,” he said, voice rough.
And he did.
We didn’t speak when I unlocked the door.
Not when I led us through the living room, dumping my purse on my sofa.
Not when we entered my bedroom.
I didn’t turn on the lights. Because that would make it impossible to avoid the look in Heath’s eyes. The truth. Reality.
“Can we live in a fantasy, just for tonight?” I whispered. “I know we need reality tomorrow. And the next day. That it makes it impossible for a fantasy to last longer than tonight. I just...” I trailed off. “I just really need it.”
I paused.
“I just really need you.”
There it was.
Me speaking the truth that I’d been stuffing down for years. Me exposing that raw nerve that he’d been prodding at, damaging.
He could crush it now.
I wouldn’t blame it.
But he didn’t.
There was a lump of his boots hitting the floor. A squeak of the springs on my bed.
“Get into bed, Sunshine,” Heath ordered quietly.
I didn’t hesitate. Didn’t wait for him to change his mind.
I climbed into bed. Into his arms.
Into the fantasy.
And in the morning, he was gone, replaced by reality.
“You don’t have to walk me up to my door,” I said, fiddling with my keys.
I had come prepared with them out of my purse the entire walk and elevator ride with Heath at his prescribed distance.
The distance that betrayed nothing of the night before.
Like it never happened.
Like it wasn’t even real.
Maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe I wasn’t.
No way did I want to prolong this feeling. But even in pain, I wanted to be around him. It wasn’t for me that I wanted to speed up our separation. It was for him. Because I knew how much he didn’t want to be here, near me. How miserable it made him.
The last thing I wanted in this world was for Heath to be miserable.
Especially when my mere presence was the reason for it.
“Yes, I do,” he said. “It’s—”
“Your job,” I finished for him. “Yeah and let’s talk about that.” I stopped at my door, facing him. “Because this is getting beyond a joke. Your job is to protect people that are in danger. I’m not in danger. Craig saw me by chance, he was drunk. And he reacted. It was not part of some grand plan. Some threat to my life. It certainly doesn’t warrant this.” I waved my hands between us. “And even if it did, it does not require you to do it. I’m assuming Keltan has other men in the office who don’t have...your distaste for me.”
Something moved behind his eyes. “Why? You asking for another man so you can find your next husband?”
I flinched. There was no hiding the reaction to a blow that obvious. That painful. It was a punch that he didn’t pull, didn’t care to mind my feelings for. He wasn’t holding back.
I’d been punched in the face by a man I’d thought I loved. And it hurt. Both the physical act and the emotional knowledge that he could do that to me.