I was pacing.
I did that in moments of extreme loss, I was noticing. I’d done it when faced with losing Lucy. Now I was doing it preparing to lose Heath. The last part of myself.
He moved, watching me, and he stopped in front of me.
I stopped pacing and held my hand up as a barrier to stop him from coming closer.
In the past, he might’ve ignored that, yanked me into his arms anyway. Not that we’d had enough time together for me to form such opinions, but it seemed a very Heath thing to do.
But he didn’t.
“Sunshine,” he murmured.
I flinched at the word. At the meaning behind it. Every time he said it was torture. But there was enough comfort in the pain that forced me to handle it.
“You remember how you said I light up a room?” I asked. “When we first met?”
“Yeah, babe, I remember,” he replied, body tight.
“I don’t mean to sound narcissistic, but I kind of knew I did that,” I said, looking down because I couldn’t meet his eyes. “Not because I think of myself as being overly brighter than anyone else, but because everyone else mutes themselves, who they truly are because they think that’s what they’re meant to do. They need to blend in. Not stand out. And I know I stood out. Because to me, blending in was a little death. It was a disservice to the meaning of life. I like to think I made things brighter because I made people realize that they could be who they were around me. Made it okay for them to let their light out.” I peeked up at Heath. “I know it’s stupid—”
“It’s not fuckin’ stupid,” he ground out.
I swallowed the power of his words. The passion in them. I didn’t let it stop me. “Well, I used to be a little proud of that,” I continued. “Most of my life I didn’t have it together. I didn’t really have a lot to contribute, I didn’t have a skill like Lucy has for writing and Rosie has for...chaos. I never let the fact I didn’t have a ‘thing’ get to me because I kind of thought of that as my thing.”
I sucked in a ragged breath against the power of Heath’s stare, knowing if I met it again, I’d crumble. So I kept talking.
“But now, I don’t have it anymore. I don’t light up a room. I suck all the light out when I enter. Like the people who love me most are afraid to be happy around me. I can see it in their eyes, that forced brightness. They’re ashamed to truly be joyous about their lives because how can they possibly be with poor, broken Polly around?”
Heath had gone still, absolutely still with my words, but I had to keep going. For his sake and mine.
“It’s because they love me so much, I know that,” I whispered. “But it’s because I love them so much that it kills me a little inside to be around them.” I said them when I meant him.
I finally got the courage to meet his eyes. “To be faced with just how draining I am, it’s exhausting. My light’s gone out, Heath. And I don’t know who I am now. Don’t know what I am now.” I sucked in another breath. “I can’t even begin to figure out who I am now when I’m wondering what we are.”
“There is no wondering about what we are,” he said. “We just are. After fucking everything. We are.”
I struggled against his words. “That’s not an answer,” I whispered. “After everything, that’s not an answer.”
His eyes didn’t leave mine. “Yeah, babe, it is. After everything, it’s the only fucking answer.”
Something that should’ve made my heart soar, would’ve in any other circumstance, suddenly made my blood boil. Anger, intense and unfamiliar surged through me.
I narrowed my eyes, finding it much easier to meet his stare that way.
“So what, now I’m the damsel again, now I need protecting, fixing, that’s what brought you back?” I hissed, the words cruel and unfair. “That’s what makes you think that we can work on this now that I’m hopeless and weak and you can be strong and heroic?”
Heath didn’t react to my anger, my venom. Not in the way I expected him to. With that cold and ruthless exterior that had been absent for this last month. The exterior I was trying to call forward to make this easier, somehow.
But this was not meant to be easier.
So Heath’s eyes softened at my ugly accusations.
“No, babe, it’s the exact opposite of that,” he said, voice equally soft, gentle. “What happened did not make you a damsel. And it sure as fuck didn’t make me strong.” He moved as if to step forward, he saw my entire body stiffen so he held himself back with a tight jaw.
His eyes ran over me with reverence. “It made you into something I don’t understand,” he continued. “Turned you into a survivor. But not like most people. Because those who survive, lose parts of themselves, big parts, important parts. Those who survive lose a little of what makes them human. And you haven’t lost an ounce of it. Your kindness. Your generosity. It should’ve made you hate the world. Hate everyone. When you’re showing everyone just the same amount of love that you have before. More, if that’s possible.”
I wanted to scream. Actually scream in the face of his words. I ached for cruelty because it was bearable. But he was giving me this.
“You hated me,” I whispered, desperate to probe that out of him. “Just because I got kidnapped and whatever manly testosterone-fueled emotions were sparked from that, doesn’t change that, Heath. You’re not obligated to stand by and protect me. To coddle me or watch and make sure I don’t go off the deep end.” I paused. “Again. Lucy has already lectured me about joining cults or folk bands. I’ll be okay. You don’t have to do this.”
“Didn’t hate you,” he murmured, eyes and voice still frustratingly and beautifully gentle.
I raised my brow.
“Was angry with you,” he said. “I was furious with you. Fuck, I wanted to hate you.” He ran his hand through his hair. “But I couldn’t. Hate you. I could never. Not for as long as I walk this earth. Nothing you say here, while you’re trying to push me away is gonna make me do that, Polly. Say what you need to. But it’s not moving me from my spot. From this spot.”
My vision became blurry and stark all at the same time. Heath’s energy swallowed up all that anger that had been so visceral before.
“I realized I never thanked you,” I said finally, wrenching my eyes up to meet his.
“For what?”
“For finding me. Saving me,” I whispered.
His eyes hardened. “You’re not thanking me for shit. Especially when I was too fucking late.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. Because he was right. It was too late.
“It’s not your fault,” I said finally.
“Not yours either,” he said fiercely. “I know you’re toying with the past. With yourself. Trying to lay some kind of blame where it doesn’t belong. So I’ll say this now and I’ll say it every day, every moment until you believe it.”
His fingers lightly grasped my chin to move it upward so my eyes could drown in his gaze.
“This was not your fault,” he declared, throwing each word into the air with force.