by T. Rudacille
Part II: “Where Thou Art, That is Home.”
Brynna
“I should... be lying... you down... on this bed...”
Adam's words were thrown from him because his body was protesting so vehemently against the act of speaking. Every word forced his body to curl up in pain. The water I had found had merely prolonged his condition; I had been so sure that he had been cured completely, and now, I could see that I was wrong. If he had allowed me to give him more, he would have been cured completely.
The return of his ailment brought a new rage to the wound that was causing it, and because he knew that we were alone, he allowed himself a few gasps of pain. He was turned on his side towards me, and I knelt beside him, keeping my watch diligently, moving my hand up his arm, over his shoulder, and down his back repeatedly.
The pain stole his breath and provoked urging voices in his mind to speak words of forfeit. He wanted very much to let go, but every time he closed his eyes, I said his name, and he awoke.
“Stay with me,” I whispered, “And maybe someday you will be laying me down.”
His hand came up suddenly towards my face, and I flinched just barely. I do not know why I was expecting a physical blow after what I had said, but I could assume that it was because I was openly flouting the warning he had given me earlier. In fact, I was openly defying the instruction, as well. I was telling him that there was still a chance for him in my little world, and that was a fact that was unshakeable.
“Please... do not... be afraid... Could never... hurt you, Bryn—”
A soft moan of pain finally fell from him, and his trembling hand moved from my face down to the wound in his stomach. The doctors arrived just in time.
I jumped up and turned to face them, launching into my explanation without pretense or introduction. When I reached the part about the sacred water, I spoke to the Pangaean doctor. He nodded stoically, but said nothing.
“Does it have side-effects?” Dr. Terry asked him.
“No,” He answered, “She just did not give him enough.”
“Well, I am very sorry, but your devout leader informed me that it was too sacred to drink in plentiful amounts!”
“I meant no offense, Ms. Olivier.” He told me cavalierly, “I will take over from here, if you would like to get some rest.”
“Brynna...” Dr. Terry said somewhat breathlessly, “Brynna, look at you!”
The exhaustion was finally beginning to sink in; every muscle was starting to ache in protest at the fact that I was still standing. My broken bones were finally getting their revenge on me for not keeping the strain off of them. My cuts, burns, and bruises stung, scorched, and throbbed. The pain was already causing me to sweat, and my breaths were coming in only slightly but were being expelled in heavy gusts. Because of that, and because of my exhaustion, I was becoming very dizzy. I knew that soon, I would be incapable of ignoring the terrible pain. I could no longer ignore the harsh physical ramifications of carrying Adam for so long. Now that my mission was complete, the pain receptors in my brain were no longer deaf to the shrieking alarms my body had been sending; adrenaline was no longer filling their recesses with unbreakable blockages, and now, they were receiving the signals every part of me had been sending for days. No longer was I immune to the pain of Adam’s weight, the thorn-covered vine, or the Reaper’s violent, bone-shattering assault. Losing that immunity immediately brought tears to my eyes.
“Ms. Olivier?” The Pangaean doctor said gently, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“Brynn?” Dr. Terry, who was a man in his early sixties and also one whom I had trusted completely from the day I had met him, grasped my arm, and I jerked out of my daze. Terribly, I startled, and when his hands came up to grasp my face so he could look at me, I looked at him, realized that he was not a danger to me, but still calmed only slightly.
“Yes,” I said, though I barely knew to what I was answering positively.
“You need to let me take a look at you.” He pressed the back of his hand to my forehead and then to my cheek. “Do you want me to call for James, sweetheart?”
“No.” I answered, “I am a little dizzy, and my muscles are starting to hurt, but that is normal, I think. And...”
“Your bones are broken. You have cuts that need stitches. And you have burns that need to be cleaned and wrapped. Nicole! Can you call James, please?”
“No. Dr. Terry, it's alright.” I told him, but he was already leading me into another room. “I just need to get some sleep...”
“No, ma'am.” He said, “You're not leaving here until you let me clean you up.”
“Bennie is going to get James.” Nicole informed him, “Here we go, baby.” Nicole took my arm and helped me walk along.
Though it was difficult, I refrained from telling them that James would not be coming, as he and I were no longer what Maura would have called “an item.” Instead of explaining that humiliating tale of woe, partially because I was so tired and in so much pain, I let them lead me towards the door. Before I left, though, my eyes came to rest on Adam’s, and even though he was lost somewhere in a mental realm with only his pain, there was such deep warmth that came over his gaze when it met mine. A smile seemed to tug at his mouth, but not one that was gloating, or threatening, or worst of all, knowing; it was just a recognition of all that we had survived together and a further reiteration of his appreciation. It was a look of fondness, and one of reassurance that I did not have to say anything kind or warm to him in front of the doctors, who would surely then gather that there was something more to our relationship than the typical antagonism and annoyance.
I returned that smile when the doctors were preparing the medication that they would be giving him. After that, I nodded, but in response to what, I didn't know, and then, I let Nicole and Dr. Terry lead me from the room.
Through the open windows of the infirmary, I could feel the cold forest night, but there was something heavy in the air that I could not define. A familiar female voice was coming through my mind's defenses in crackling breakages, similar to the disjointed sounds one hears when a radio is being tuned. Knowing that it was my mother or Maura struggling to speak, and knowing that the only other option in the silence was use my power to look forward and discern any hints about what was to come, I allowed the frequency to steady.
More with him in that moment than in so long with James.
Maura's words gutted me. They were worse than a physical kick to the stomach followed by a karate chop to the jugular. My legs locked up, and my breath hitched in my throat.
“Almost there, sweetheart.” Nicole told me gently. “Just a few more steps here.”
I was in shock, not just at Maura's disembodied voice's support of Adam, whom she had feared and hated in life simply because of the side she had chosen and the lies she had been told, but at the fact that she was right, perhaps not in terms of the degree of comparison (meaning likening the connection I had just felt with Adam when we looked at one another with the connection I had been painstakingly building with James for a year) but definitely in terms of validity. That moment had been a strange one, certainly, because the potent stream of both of our souls had touched, as ridiculous as that sounds to you. In our world, things like that happen, and to people like me, it is obvious.
It is too much right now, Maura. I can't, I thought back gently, so as not to offend her. It is just too much.
She fell silent, and I wondered if she was irritated at my shushing her.
Dr. Terry and Nicole laid me down on an examination table. Nicole propped the back of it up so I was sitting just as James came into the room.
“Hey. What's going... Holy shit.” He looked between Nicole and Dr. Terry, as though they could explain to him how I had gotten each individual injury. Then, he looked at me. “Brynn...” I flinched when he took my hand but luckily, Dr. Terry and Nicole didn't see.
“What happened to you, baby?” James asked me gently. Very cautiously, he reached out to re
st his hand on my face. Perhaps it was because I was tired and in great pain, or perhaps it was because I craved physical contact with him after all the fear I had suffered in the woods, but I did not turn my head away. Because I had not protested the touch of his hand, or the slow, gentle stroking of his thumb across my bruised and dirt-covered cheek, or the sadness and concern that were so woefully alight in his eyes, he leaned in and kissed my forehead once, holding his lips there for a long time before kissing me twice again.
I did protest then.
“Do not kiss me. I am still angry with you. I let them call you because I did not want to be here alone, and…”
And Adam is otherwise preoccupied with his very severe injuries. I could have said it, but it would have slaughtered him. It would have slaughtered us, too; our relationship never would have recovered. I was unsure of whether we could reconcile, but at least I was not sure that we could not. And truly, I was happy to see him, despite my great anger at him.
“I know. I know you're still mad.”
I was unzipping my hoodie and untying the remnants of my shirt, maneuvering the fabric carefully again to keep myself covered. Dr. Terry started dabbing huge dollops of antibacterial cream onto the bites left by the Reaper and the cuts left by the vine. James stopped talking, because seeing my maimed body had shocked him into silence. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against mine, and I felt the tears coming but couldn't stop them. I was whispering that I was sorry over and over again, and I didn't know why; immediately, I felt guilty for looking so badly that he had been startled by the sight of me. All of that shame that I had repressed following that man attacking me took hold, and I was covering my face with the hand that was not holding onto my shirt, letting the tears run down over it.
I never cried, especially not in front of other people. But I was so tired. I was in so much pain. When James pulled me to him, I sobbed into his chest, dropping my hands away from my face and shirt so I could hold onto him.
“James...” I cried.
“I'm right here.” He whispered.
“Can you turn onto your back for me, Brynn?” Dr. Terry asked, and James helped maneuver me around so Dr. Terry could apply even more antibacterial cream onto my cuts, but not before he had put my shirt back where I could hold it over my breasts. He knew how sensitive I was about those things.
“Alright.” Dr. Terry said gently, “Now let me see your wrist.”
“God, your ribs, baby...” James whispered, and reflexively, he reached out, as though he were going to touch them. I flinched so badly that both he and Dr. Terry startled.
“I’m not going to touch them.” He was looking at me, and he was not hiding his shock at the sight of me. “I didn't see you as well in the dark; I was just so relieved that you were alive. What happened to you?”
I shook my head, not wanting to relive the whole harrowing tale again.
“It is nothing. It was nothing. I will not talk about it. We ran into some Old Spirits, but it is fine because they’re dead now, and I am fine. I am fine, and I will not discuss it… Just some Old Spirits, James… And a Reaper. That is all. Honestly. That is all it was. They are all dead now. The Old Spirits as well as the Reaper. It is fine.”
James let go of me and stood up abruptly. He now knew that it was other people who had hurt me. People, who could feel pain, on whom he could inflict pain for what they had done to me. His jaw was clenched, and his eyes were blazing, burning with rage… His mind was shouting until its ghostly voice was hoarse that he would hunt them down, he would follow their scents, which he could smell strongly on me, until he found them…
“James!” I cried out.
Suddenly I realized that I could not bear any of it if he left. Once again, my mind reminded me how terribly I needed him.
“Sit down.” Dr. Terry ordered him, and after a minute, he did, but I could see that his jaw was still clenched and his eyes were still burning. “Get yourself under control and sit with her.”
“Please don't tell anyone. Please... I can't stand it. I don't want anyone to know...”
“Of course not, baby.” James kissed my forehead tenderly again. I looked at him, and after placing his hands on my damp, flushed cheeks, he wiped my tears away with his thumbs and kissed me. “You're okay now. You're home. No one is going to hurt you now. Okay?”
I nodded and nestled my head against his.
“I love you.” I whispered, “I didn't think I would be able to tell you that again. I am so angry with you, but I love you so much, too.”
He smiled slightly and looked away from me, a sure sign that he was fighting tears.
“I want to make this work, baby.” He told me after his eyes had met mine again, “I know that right now, you're furious at me, and you have every right to be. I know that, and if I were in your shoes, I'd be furious, too.” He told me softly, delicately, as though he knew, even though I had randomly admitted my love for him, that the situation was still precarious, and he was correct in that assumption. “But I love you, and I want to be with you. I've never...” He stopped, and closed his eyes for just a second. Compulsively, his hand came up to swipe at his eyes and to run backwards over his hair.
“I don't want to say this, because of how it makes me sound.” He told me softly, “But I have never been more afraid ever in my life than I was these past couple of days.”
“And how does that make you sound?” I asked him as Dr. Terry began wrapping my bruised and cut wrist in what felt like very firm Ace-Bandage. I looked and saw that it was a green wrapping similar to a vine, clearly made from natural items in the forest.
“It makes me sound weak, and I know how much you love that by now.” He said, “Hey...”
My expression showed the fear that I felt completely irrationally. Seeing the vine had reminded me of the one that had whipped me, and the one that had been used to bind Adam and me to the tree. I could almost see the forest around us, almost smell the evil in the air that had preceded the Shadows' approach. If my hands had not immediately latched onto James the moment I felt myself slipping away, I would have gotten lost in those terrible memories.
“I don't like that.”
I watched James's and Dr. Terry as they both looked down at my bruised wrist that Dr. Terry was very gently wrapping. They understood why I was so skittish about my wrists being wrapped.
“I want to go home.” I told them, and James kissed my forehead twice.
“You're safe, baby. You're home with us, and you're safe now. I’m going to take you home as soon as Dr. Terry is done…”
“And I’m almost there, sweetheart.” Dr. Terry assured me.
“Just a few more minutes, and we’re going to go home.”
“I want to go. I just want to go. Please, James…”
At first, I wondered if I was referring to the house we had lived in. Obviously I was well aware that it had burnt to the ground and could not possibly be salvaged given our slowly dwindling time of intermission between battles and our complete lack of supplies. When I realized those things, I wondered if I was referring to my home on Earth. Not my parents' house, but my apartment. And even more obviously, I could remember that Earth no longer existed. Moreover, the thought of returning to a time that had not only passed but been so utterly destroyed sent terrible shivers of disconcerting, sickening nostalgia through me. Memories of past times and visions of what could have been rolled together in a muddled, panic-inducing stir. My power was gaining power, and in my weakened state, I simply could not deal with it, so in my typical response to overwhelming power-related stimuli, traumatic memories, and tormenting what-ifs, I began to ramble.
“We had to hide. And I knew that even though we were well hidden, they could have found us. And they were going to take us back to Tyre... and I knew what he would do... I saw what he would do... And I saw what they did to Maura!” I looked up at James, my eyes wide, “It was quick, and I managed to shut it off before it got too bad, but I saw it. She was so stubborn,
and Paul thought that I was like her, but worse, so it would be better for them, but worse for me, or something... I don't remember his exact words. But that's where I would have ended up. If I hadn't made them want to kill me, I would have ended up with him. And Adam would have been dead, and I would have been dead eventually, too, and you would have taken care of Penny, but she would have always grieved for me. But you would have taken care of her, and you...” I started to cry harder at this particular remembrance, “And even though you knew that I would have wanted her to forget me so she would not have grieved forever, you couldn't let her forget me. You couldn't forget me. And you were so sad, James.”
I could see his teeth clenching again as his eyes met mine for just a second; after seeing my tears falling, he had to look away. Respectfully, Dr. Terry looked away from him, and when two tears fell from his eyes, I hurriedly wiped them away. Almost compulsively, he cleared his throat for several seconds, looking like he wanted to stand up and begin to pace in his final effort to control himself, but because I needed him there, holding my hand tightly and kissing me gently, he stayed.
“Of course I would have taken care of Penny!” He managed to tell me softly but firmly. “I would have taken care of Violet, too. And no matter what, I never would have forgotten you. I don't think I could even... I couldn't even... get someone else... Be with someone else, I mean...” He stopped, squeezing his eyes shut for a second and shaking his head slightly. “Was I?”
“No. And that made me sad, James. If that happened to me, I would want you to find...”
“I won't talk about this.” He told me firmly, “I won't even begin to plan for that. I mean, Christ, we got all the way here, and after everything, I'm supposed to think about that? About what I would do if...” He looked away from me again and shook his head. “I'm sorry, baby. I'm not angry. I'm just... For the past three days, I thought...”
“I know.” I told him.
“And I never got a chance to put it right. I thought that you had died thinking everything was a lie…”
I nodded and closed my eyes, my fingers squeezing the bridge of my nose hard.
“Everything is so loud, James. And I can't sort it out. I can't quiet it down or push it away. It's getting stronger, and I don't know if I can stop it.” I broke down into quiet, hysterical sobs, my bruised, swollen face buried in my cut up hands. Stick-thin from days of malnourishment and pale-white from dehydration, stress, and exhaustion, when I began trembling, I know I must have looked like a frightened baby bird seconds from death. Knowing that my inner vulnerability was shown outwardly only made me cry harder. Everything was falling apart, even my facade I had worked so hard to create and uphold always.
“James...” Dr. Terry said, and he beckoned for him to lean forward so he could whisper in his ear.
“I do not want drugs!” I snapped at them both because I had heard Dr. Terry's thoughts.
“Brynna...” Dr. Terry grasped my hands. “You have been through a very traumatic experience, and we can wrap you up in bandages and give you medicine to stop the infections, but you're upset, and you're going to have a hard time sleeping because of that, and sleep is what your body needs more than anything else.”
“I don't need drugs. I can deal with this. They didn't do what they said they were going to do, and I've experienced what he was going to do before, and I survived it, and I do not want to be drugged, and unaware, and if I'm drugged, I'm away from Penny and Violet again. I can be right there with them, but I won't be there. And I've been away from them for too long. I just want to go home.”
I cried harder still when I realized once again that I had no idea where home even was.
“Can we just take something home with us?” James, God or Gods bless him, spoke up for me. “If she needs it once we're home, I'll give it to her.”
“That sounds fine. Alright, these wraps need to stay on her wrist, ankle, and around her middle for three days. You know that we heal from broken bones a lot more quickly here, and those wraps speed the healing along even more. Ice on her face will bring the swelling down, and this salve needs to be applied to her bites and cuts twice a day. I want you to take these home...” He handed five pure white leaves to James. “Only one at a time. They'll calm her down and also relieve the pain.”
“And they will also turn me into a brainless void, so I will not be taking them!” I snapped at them.
“Alright, donkey, we hear you.” James told me, but he still took the leaves from Dr. Terry. Carefully, James sat me up, and before we left, I hugged Dr. Terry and thanked him, not only for tending to my injuries but also for putting up with my “donkey-ish” tendencies.
“Oh, I'm used to your stubbornness by now.” He told me lightly with a smile, “If you need me, call me. I'll be there, day or night. You got it?”
I nodded, and we left.
James and I walked home in silence. At first, he insisted that I let him carry me, but when I protested that, and started to hobble along without him, he stopped and settled for walking me along by putting his arm around my neck and guiding me.
Violet and Penny were close, as I could tell by the familiar smell of our parents' home and of my apartment on Earth that sometimes hung around them. Our house on Pangaea was built far from the infirmary, and I dreaded the long walk back in the morning, when I would go to check on Adam. By the moon's light and position, I could gather that it was about ten PM. On Earth, I had never gone to bed before midnight, but as soon as I saw my new house there in the village and found my new bed, I would fall into it and give no thought to the will of my body to remain awake well into the night.
Violet and Alice were asleep on the couches. James and I went inside, and he eased me down into a chair so he could get the fire going again and cover them both up with a blanket.
“Wait.” I said, and I walked forward, trying to find the room in which Penny was sleeping. I was not going to wake Alice, Penny, or Violet to inform them that I had arrived, even though I wanted so desperately to hold Penny close and tell her how much I had missed her. I wanted to hear her stories about the journey and whatever else was on her mind. Instead of that, though, I had to be satisfied with just watching her for a moment as she slept peacefully, completely unaware that I was finally home. In her mind, I saw that she was not worried, because she knew in all certainty that I would come back to her even when the saddened looks of others told her that I would not. With another smile, I closed her door, and let James guide me further down the hallway to the room that I gathered was mine.
Never before had the wondrously comfortable animal-skin beds been more heavenly. My slight weight pressed in on the plush softness after James laid me down. The blanket and the stuffing between the two pieces of animal skin adjusted to the contours of my body to give it the support it so desperately needed. My hands moved slowly over the silky smoothness of the fur-blanket, and when that was not enough anymore, I sat up, trying to shed my shirt just to feel that wonderful softness on even more bare skin.
“I just want to take it off.” I told James, when he went to help me. Effortlessly, he lifted me so that no strain was put on my broken ribs and maneuvered my tank top over my head.
“Do you want to take your pants off?” He asked.
“Yes.”
He turned me onto my back, and I began to try to struggle out of my jeans.
“I'll do it, baby. Just relax. Lie down and relax.”
The surrender of my strength was enough to bring tears into my eyes again, but I did not shed them. Too many unwanted tears had fallen over the previous days, and I was ashamed and disgusted to know that. Starting immediately, I would return to my emotionally dull state. I would begin to feel nothing again, because that was a skill I had been honing to perfection for so long; it could not be trounced now after so much effort had gone into it.
Life protested that new decision instantly.
“I am very mad at you. I told you everything about me. I held nothing back from you, and n
ot only did you lie to me, but you lied to me about something involving me. Everything that has happened between us has been a part of that huge lie, James.” Tears were falling from my eyes again.
“I know how it seems, baby.”
“It is not how it seems.
“Turn over onto your stomach.”
“No, I am not going to...”
Though the movement was swift, it was also so gentle; he flipped my body over and placed me delicately down on my stomach.
“What are you... Oh, my God or Gods...” My protest cut off because his hands began to expertly massage the knots in my shoulders, back, and neck. A soft chuckle escaped him, reminding me of Adam, whom I just could not afford to think about in that moment.
“I am very angry at you.” I told him, “I am only letting you stay because...”
“Because of my epic massaging skills. I know.”
“Yes.” I said begrudgingly before silence ensued between us. Silence that I broke with a question whose answer would only worsen my foul mood, I knew.
“Skills that were gathered where, dare I ask?”
“I dated a masseuse two years ago.”
“Is there anyone you haven't dated?”
“Many people. There are billions of people... Well, there were...”
“Just be quiet.”
“I answered your question.”
He did not say that in snippy defense, and I began to wonder if perhaps he was simply playing on my own anger in order to discredit it. Perhaps he was discreetly mocking me; I would not have put it past him to do so, but whether he would do it in an effort to cheer me up or to anger me further, I did not know. I had rejected him, after all, and rejection breeds animosity, which would lead to untimely mocking. I could not picture him using that moment with me to further our problems along, especially when I had, completely against my will, shown how very fragile my emotional state was. Even if the feelings were not readily evident then, he was well aware, just by knowing me intimately (and I emphasize the emotional aspect of that intimacy here) that I was in no mood for his games, and that my grief for Maura, my fear that I could not shake, my power wreaking havoc on my mind that was bouncing between the present and the panic-inducing immediate past, and my physical exhaustion were becoming too much to bear.
Instead of attempting to answer all of those mental questions regarding his intentions, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to become drunk on the feeling of his hands kneading into my muscles expertly. Slowly, the knots were beginning to loosen and the frayed pieces were beginning to magnetize back together to form one whole, functional mass. The relief was indescribable, and you are well aware how uncommon speechlessness is for me.
“They sent some clothes up for us. Apparently, that's one of their biggest trades here, according to Don, at least. They make clothes and send them around to the other tribes. I didn't even know there were tribes, let alone different ones from Adam’s, or different ones from these people.” He was silent, but I knew that he was not awaiting a response from me, as I knew that he was well aware that I was in no condition to give one. As that silence magnified, the tears began to fall from my eyes at a rate that was most unenviable, considering my aversion to showing emotion, even to him. The suddenness with which they had appeared was quite disturbing, but the rate at which they fell was downright alarming. My heart gave an almighty start, and I turned over abruptly and sat up.
“Baby...” He started to say.
“Don't.” I whispered, with no effort or force behind the words because even my heart was not convinced that I truly wished to say what would surely come next. “I want you to leave.”
Somehow, my trembling body, with every limb and muscle feeling like they were jumbled together in chaotic, agonizing disarray, managed to pull itself forward so I was standing. When his eyes moved from my face down to my feet, there was not even a single trace of lust there, and I was not perturbed by that at all; despite my anger at him, I knew that he had no interest in making love when I was in such a state, or when there was such bad blood between us. When he had observed me that way, he was simply assessing the physical damage done to me. He was wondering (and worrying) internally how he would convince me that I needed to return to the infirmary and stay there overnight, or perhaps longer.
“There's nothing they can do.” I whispered weakly, “There is nothing you can do, either. So just go back to wherever you are staying, and do not bother me again. I told you that what you did is unforgivable, and I meant it, James. Now, go.”
We stared at each other, the roaring inferno that was usually alive in my eyes during those moments of heated contention turned down to a barely crackling spark. That silence magnified throughout the relatively sizable room we were in until I wanted nothing more than to crouch down with my hands over my ears, wailing like a small child. It never failed to surprise me how often in those moments I wanted to have a tantrum not unlike one a child would have when her way is not gotten.
Of course, in response to my own need for an outburst of petulant, immature vitriol, I saw nothing in him but the most aggravating patience and understanding, both of which were very new for him. Behind that, there was the deepest apology, so heartfelt and sincere, and an explanation that went far beyond what I could understand at that point in time, given how stubbornly I was holding onto my scorned sense of betrayal.
When he saw that I was practically squirming in discomfort at the awkwardness of the encounter, he moved over so he was sitting on the edge of the bed in front of where I was standing. His beautiful brown eyes looked down as he grasped my hands; he only looked at me after his lips were pressed to one of them.
“I know it doesn't mean much to you now, sweetheart. I know you're furious, and I told you, I would be, too, if you had kept something like this from me. It's terrible, I know it is. I can't believe that I agreed to it, and there's nothing I can say about that decision now besides the fact that I was so stupid, and that it was cruel and unforgivable. I know it is. Now, even though I have been preparing a speech for three days, I couldn't plan one out that fit everything together and said everything that I want to say to you. So, I'm just going to have to wing it. I need you to understand, if you take nothing else from this, that I love you more than anything else in this world or the last one, and that I know, more surely than I have ever known anything, that you're the only person I am supposed to be with. We're a weird pairing, and if you had told me where we would be now a year ago, I would have suggested that you check yourself into that rehab clinic that was right by your house...”
I couldn't fight the small smile that formed on my lips.
“...but here we are.” He was smiling slightly, too, when he kissed my hand again. “I love you, baby. That's the thing that I need you to take from this: I love you so much, and during this year, you've driven me absolutely nuts, like... wanting-to-pull-my-hair-out-nuts….”
Now, a soft laugh escaped me.
“...but you've also made me so happy; being here with you, with Penny, with Violet... It's been the best time of my life. It's been the most stable time, weirdly enough. The world ended, and we moved around like a tribe of cave-people for an entire year, and yet it was the most stable time of my life. There's only one reason why that makes any sense at all, and that's you. You've driven me insane, but you've made me the happiest man on Earth and Pangaea, so how does that work?”
“I don't know.” I answered honestly, and he raised his eyebrows at me in jocular surprise. “Shut up.”
The smile faded from my lips as I leaned forward to kiss his. For a long moment, we stayed like that, both with our eyes closed, and me with my hands on his face. When I pulled away from him, my tired eyes gazed so despondently into his, and he knew that his plea for my understanding had failed. His pride did not roar to life as a last defense to ease his pain; instead, he nodded slightly and kissed the palms of both of my hands.
“That's it?” He asked me, so softly that I barely heard h
im.
With misery that was almost too obvious, I nodded. The shrug I gave him was a gesture that was so cold, and yet the pain in my eyes was incapable of being ignored, by him or me. I might have been shrugging off whatever it was that we had together by choosing to care more about the lies he had told than the love we had shared, but he knew that I was acting almost completely against my will; he knew that I was beholden to voices of dead loved ones, and not just Maura, but the cold-hearted person I had been for so long. That hardened bitch still controlled me in so many ways, even then.
“Okay,” He whispered gently, and he nodded again, “Okay, Brynn.” When he stood up, he rested his hands on either side of my neck and pressed his lips to my forehead. “I love you so, so much,” He whispered, “And I'll be here for you whenever you need me. I swear that to you, Brynna. Just remember that, okay?”
I nodded, and muttered something under my breath; the words left me, and I barely noticed.
“What, baby?”
I shook my head now, feeling those resilient, forceful tears charging forward to the edges of my eyes again. When they began to leak out, and that feeling of such venomous self-loathing clawed every inch of my inner being until it was shredded to bloody scraps, I turned away abruptly and began to limp pathetically towards the bathroom. Even though nausea rolled my stomach in sickeningly quick and harried circles the moment the sound escaped me, I pressed my back against the closed door of the bathroom and let out one breathy, trembling sob. I had seen women in movies slide down the wall in a teary fit of grief and remorse, or as a result of an overly dramatic show of any emotion, for that matter, and yet as I covered my mouth with one of my hands, my legs slowly began to give out beneath my weight, and my back slid down the polished wood of the door behind me. A tremendous, rasping breath and another cry left me after I heard the door close at the front of the house.
I could not fathom the pain of losing Maura, whose face was the earliest memory I had. Despite all that had occurred between us and despite all that she had done to make me hate her, I had loved her. I was worried to the point of vicious panic about Adam, whom only three days earlier I had loathed. There was no escaping the fact that I had some tiny sliver of romantic feelings for him, and what we had done technically constituted as cheating on James, whom I had just sent away, despite every last part of me screaming desperate, furious pleas for me to let him stay.
“Take care of yourself.” I ordered myself fiercely, in a tone of forceful condescension usually reserved only for the most pitiful people I encountered. “Get over it, and start taking care of yourself again.”
Why had I let myself love him? Why hadn't I sent him away like I had wanted to? Why hadn’t he run away? Now, here I was, sobbing on the floor in a broken heap, suffering from a combination of physical and emotional pain; it sounds dramatic to say it that way, but that is the way it was.
You're confusing romantic love for weakness, and I should have told you so many times that there is no connection between the two.
My mother was speaking to me in the voice of that woman we had saved; I knew it was that woman's voice even though I had never heard her speak. I could see her talking to me, and it was her voice, and yet I knew that her essence was my mother's. As I have stated previously, I could not remember much about my mother, and it had only been a year at this point. But trauma can only be trumped by the mind's willingness to forget; faulty memory is not so much a fault, but rather, it is a blessing, a last defense against pain that even we advanced creatures simply cannot pacify.
To put it simply, I couldn't face what I had done to her, so I blocked her out. As I have stated before, I think that unconscious yet very willing forgetting of her became contagious, and so many others, including my siblings, could not remember her, either. After all I had done to her, after I had abandoned her and allowed her to die alone, I very cruelly erased her from the memories of all who had known her. If ever I die, I hope she shuns me in death the way she did in life; I hope she hates me for that.
And yet, she was speaking to me through another in a valiant attempt to make her voice and message heard. There was no resentment in her tone nor was her message one meant to weaken me further. In fact, I could hear that she was trying to comfort me.
You love him, and you need him. That isn't weakness, Brynna. That is the greatest strength.
“You are wrong!” I snapped at her, “You are wrong about this the same way you were wrong about everything else.”
I did not question why I could hear her voice, nor did I assume that I was losing my mind. My power was one of comprehension and perception, and I was perceiving her spirit despite how far it was from me.
You won't believe me. You won't believe what I say. But I should have told you that. Maura was wrong; she was afraid for herself and for you. You love him, and you need him. Now go after him.
Everything was erased. By my own will and by hers, I was jumping up, grabbing the silk bathrobe that hung behind the door most conveniently, and running out of the bathroom. Without stopping to put on shoes, I ran out onto the porch, into the night that was so cold, it snatched my breath. Swirling clouds formed and dissolved in front of me with each of my breaths as I looked all around, struggling to pinpoint where exactly he had gone. I wanted to run but I could not, so I started to hobble down the stairs, watching the steps as my feet landed on each one, praying that I did not trip and injure myself further, as I would not be able to find him then.
“Come on. Come on.” I was urging myself softly. If I just encouraged my body to move and as long as I moved slowly, I would be able to stay on my feet.
Those strong arms of his had scooped me up before I had even realized that he had returned. When he had realized that I was forcing myself to go after him, he had returned to me in a frenzied blur. As he carried me up the stairs, I kissed him over and over again, still crying, but now even more hysterically.
“Please don't go.” I begged, “Please stay with me. James, please don't leave me. I thought I wanted you to, but I don’t. I love you, James. I’m sorry. Please stay. Don’t go. I love you so much, and I need you.”
“I love you, too.” He told me. Once we were inside, and he had laid me down on our bed, he kissed me softly, his lips held to and moving against mine gently and slowly. Then, he hovered over top of me with his forehead pressed to my chest, and I wrapped my arms around him, holding him to me tightly. For a long time, we said nothing, as there was nothing else that we could say. He had apologized, I had accepted through professing my love for him, and that was all that was needed. When he looked up at me, I covered my face, as I was still hiccupping with each new cry that took me, and tears were still streaming freely down my already dirtied cheeks.
“Don't.” He whispered softly, “It's okay.”
“It is not okay.” I whispered back somewhat fiercely as he pulled my hand away. When I went to sit up again, he had to put his arm underneath of my head and pull me up to him, as my muscles had finally thrown up their hands and decided to engage in a simultaneous sit-in after protesting my continued movement for so long. When he cradled me in his arms and carried me to the bathroom, my sobs continued to fall from me despite how valiantly I was fighting them. When he sat me down on the sink so he could turn the bath on, I covered my face again.
“It is so cold.” I whispered to him.
“What, sweetheart?”
I had to uncover my face for him to hear me. When I spoke again, though, my eyes stayed downcast to the floor, and once the words had left my mouth, I immediately covered my face again.
“Brynna...” He grasped my wrists gently and pulled my hands away. “It's just me, baby.” He wiped my tears away and then rubbed my arms slowly to warm me. “I love you, and I know that you've been through absolute hell. I can't imagine what it was like for you out there with him. You said that you ran into your dad and Paul, and that they hurt you. But what about Adam? Did he hurt you?”
That was when I remembered
that I was keeping a secret of my own. My heart gave an uncomfortably sudden jolt forward that nearly sent me crashing into him. My eyes must have widened because inside of him, I felt an implosion of sickening belief that he had been hiding since the moment he had found me; though he did not know how, exactly, he knew that Adam had hurt me.
Of course, you and I both know that is not true. I was a willing participant in mine and Adam's tryst, and even as James and I resolved our differences, I did not regret what had occurred between us. Adam was not the monster I had so long believed him to be, and what we had faced and overcome out in the woods had brought us closer. The violent emotional ascents and crashes, were they physical, would have been enough to snap the necks of mountain oxen, let alone human beings, on the very first sudden rise. As I carried him on my shoulders, through my own pain, I became invested in healing his, and through risking my own life, I began to pray that his would be spared. Our fates had been one out there in that darkness-infested forest; around every turn, we had encountered deadly human enemies or worse, the ones who were not of this world and who had been born from the same darkness that had been surrounding us.
Now, I could have taken the most stereotypical path available, and in this case, stereotypes were actually represented in real time by actual people who constantly chose to embody them; they were not just metaphors, is what I am trying to say. Not to put too fine a figure on it, but nine out of ten people would have taken the road of lies and excuses; in this particular case, after they and their boyfriend of one year had painstakingly resolved their huge, seemingly unforgivable differences, they would have purported that the man they had been with for three days had attacked them, or coerced them with his silver tongue and maybe even with his grasp on the power of harnessing emotions.
Alright, on Earth, no one would actually say that. But you understand.
I was the one person out of ten who would not be lying for the sake of myself, my boyfriend, or the man I had saved.
“He did not hurt me. I need you to accept that now.”
My tone was lifeless, and my tears, now scarce, were not heard in that tone at all. To avoid being seen as disingenuous or too ashamed, I made sure to fix my eyes on him. When my mother used to tell my father that she had been with John again, she had always kept her eyes on anything else but his. When he had told her that he had slept with everyone from women in high-end strip clubs to fans of his to interns to his press secretary, he had always looked her dead in eye. When he came home after creeping into Maura's house in the middle of the night, though, he couldn't look in my mother's direction, let alone in her eyes.
Banging on the door in the middle of the night… I shook my head back and forth and forced the blurriness in my eyes to clear so I could look at James again.
James's voice, though urgent because of his intense need to know what had occurred out in the woods with Adam, was far off in the distance, in a time and space that I had left only briefly. Despite the urgency, there was still a gentle concern; he knew that I had traversed off to some dark emotional space as a result of what had happened. When I looked back at him, the tears rushed back into my eyes. I grasped his hand that was rested on my face and shook my head slightly.
“God, after everything, I am just like them.”
My stomach turned over in another almost painful fit of nausea that nearly sent me hurtling towards the toilet. I had been referring to my parents, and just like them, I could not look James in the eye for another second. All I wanted was to be able to walk away, but my need to explain to him how it had happened kept me firmly rooted to the spot where I was sitting, and plus, my body was no longer supporting my mind's stubborn will to remain on my feet.
“You slept with him, didn't you?”
Nothing. Not a hint of any of the varying degrees of anger. Something told me not to trust that absence, and as my instincts were spot-on quite often, I chose to proceed with my tale with great caution.
“We slept together every night. It was very cold, and there was no other way to survive. Plus, he was dying, and I was checking his pulse to make sure...”
“Brynna!”
His voice gave a slight jump, and my body jerked upwards with it. When he realized that he had startled me (though in reality, he had actually scared me), he reached out, placed his hand on my face again, and stroked my cheek with his thumb as he apologized hurriedly yet sincerely.
“We came very close to it. I had just saved his life, and we were fighting, and then, I don't know why, but we were lying on the ground, and we were going to...” I stopped, and rerouted my mental course quickly, “It did not happen. He asked me if I was sure, and I said that I was not, and after that, he couldn't do it.”
“How noble of him.” He said venomously, “How noble of you, too, to stop it.”
Though his words stung, I remained calm. Though I wanted to defend myself against his anger by stating that I had ended our relationship and that my anger towards him had fed the fire of my feelings for Adam, I knew that he would have cold retorts to both of those points that would only make me want to fight even more.
“What? You don't have anything to say?” He demanded suddenly, “That's new for you. You must know that you really fucked up, Brynna.”
“I am too tired to have this fight with you, but I wanted you to know. If there is one thing that I am not, it's a coward, and I was not going to keep secrets from you because I was afraid of how you were going to react. The last thing I wanted was for you to believe that he hurt me...”
Now, he did raise his voice.
“Of course, because you two are so close now!”
“Be quiet!” I snapped at him, “Penny and Violet are asleep!”
“It was always there. It wasn't just him looking at you that way; I could see you looking at him. This might come as news to you, dear, but I'm quite a bit older than you, and I've been around the block a few times. So I know what those little looks and all that animosity towards him meant. Christ, you pulled the same act with me!”
“Are you out of your mind?!” I asked, more in shock than in anger, “I hated him, James, and you know that!”
“Yeah, well, hate and love aren't so different, are they?”
The anger was bubbling to life inside of me. The rage was not far behind it.
“Do not attempt to give me the most clichéd philosophical lesson there is, or to use that same lesson to explain away what I did. You have no idea what we experienced out there, or you would not question why we got closer. The natural elements were not the worst part of it, and need I remind you that you and I were not together!?”
“Maybe we weren't, but...”
“But what?! I was furious with you for what you did...”
“What he made me do! But you forgot all about that, right? I'm really, really curious about this, baby, so please, be honest...”
“Like I would lie for your sake or for my own...” I muttered furiously.
“Why did he get let off the hook so easily? Why am I in the shit-house...”
“It's the doghouse.” I corrected him, “Do not make it vulgar because you are angry. What are you, eight?!”
“Just shut up and answer the question!”
My eyes widened, and I couldn't fight the derisive smile that wanted to form, nor did I cover it with my hand once it had.
“Well, which is it?” I asked him.
“What?!”
“Should I shut up, or should I answer the question?”
That did it. He punched the wall, and the plaster imploded easily under the force of the blow.
“Don't you pull this shit with me! Answer the goddamn question, or I am going to walk out of here!”
“I did not let him off the...”
“Jesus Christ, Brynna!” He interrupted me.
“I don't quite see what he has to do with it...”
“Are you joking right now? Are you kidding me?! You're joking when I'm this pissed off?!”
“Not so fun, is it, James?”
“For Christ's sake! I didn't even look at another woman while you were gone! All I did was worry about you, and then, I came looking for you, even though you had told me we were over! And what were you doing? You were throwing yourself at him, basically saying 'screw you!' to all of us who were thinking that you were dead!”
“James, I was not saying that! Circumstances beyond...”
“If you say that what you did was the result of circumstances beyond your control, I am going to walk out of here and never come back, Brynna.” He warned me breathlessly. “You had a choice! This wasn't your uncle raping you, so don't even try to play that card with me!”
He was expecting the slap before it came, so he caught my wrist. I know that it must seem so childish of me, my tendency to use physical force in my attempts to make my feelings known, but would you not have hit him, too, if he had said something so terrible?
“Yeah. I knew that was coming.” He hissed at me, “It always does, when I hit a nerve.”
“Get out!” I shouted, and the tears began again. “I never should have come after you!”
“No! I'm not leaving! Do you want to know why?”
I started to answer, but he cut me off.
“Rhetorical question! I'm not leaving because for three days, I thought you were dead! And it ate at me constantly, Brynna! I couldn't begin to think how we were going to carry on without you. I couldn't even begin to plan how I was going to live without you! I am furious at you; I can barely look at you! But that doesn't mean that I don't still love you or that I don't want to be with you! There are technicalities to this, and they're the only reason why I'm not storming out that door right now without looking back.”
“Like what, James?!”
“Like the fact that you were out there with him alone, facing things together, surviving the odds together. Like the fact that you had ended things with me. But God, Brynna, I didn't expect you to move on so fast!”
There was a bitter, resentful edge to his sarcasm; he was wielding that verbal abnormality as a weapon instead of as a tool for jesting.
“James...”
“Don't.” He diverted his gaze from mine for no other reason than that looking at me was too angering for him. “Just get in the bath, and call me when you're done. I'll take care of you tonight, but you might be on your own for a couple of days after that.”
“I would prefer it if you did not bother at all. You are either here, or you are not. Make your choice now.”
“It doesn't work like that, Brynna!” He shouted at me. “You must really have been pissed at me. You knew that if it was him or Don, it would be different than if it was anyone else.”
“Because everything is about you, isn't it? All my choices are either to please or displease you.” I let that sink in for a minute; I watched as he stumbled over his words, searching for a response that would sting me most painfully. When he finally settled on one, I interrupted him before he could speak a single syllable.
“I have made your decision for you. Leave.”
“I'm not leaving!”
“Why?!” I demanded, and I threw myself forward so I was standing again.
My legs wobbled at first and then collapsed before I had a chance to sit down again. The pressure that ran from the back of my head to the bottom of my back was agonizing, worse than if I were lying flat on my stomach and a decent-sized boulder rolled over top of me. The muscles in my shoulders tore to the left and right, and the bones felt like they had finally snapped in two. Every vertebrae in my spine rattled from the force of the thundering steps that pain was taking down them. A cry escaped me and was stifled, thankfully, by his shirt; he had caught me before even my knees could hit the ground.
“Oh, my God...” I whispered, and the terror I felt so strongly was evident in my words. “James, what is wrong with me?”
“Shh...” He had to drain the tub and run the water again, as it had grown cold during our argument. “Shit, the water heater went out. I have to go get it started again.”
Letting go with him was easy, despite our argument. Going along with the plans he had in his head was all I could do; I let him lift me up, carry me into the bedroom, lay me down on the bed, and cover me up. When he suggested gently that I rest for a few minutes, I nodded but never closed my eyes, as I knew that sleep would seize me immediately.
When he came back, he went into the bathroom and started the water again, and I could feel the coldness of the night outside still clinging to him as he made his way through the room. The water came on noisily, and when he came back out, I watched him kneel in front of the fireplace at the end of the room. With violent downward slashes, he ground the thin piece of wood against the thick piece of bark from the flare-tree; we did not have a tree like that on Earth, whose bark took only something rubbing against it to ignite into a wildfire. In small quantities, it was useful for starting fires in a grate the way James was. In large quantities, it meant catastrophe, or salvation, as Adam and I had proven.
After the fire was lit, he returned to the bed and laid down beside me without getting under the blanket. His eyes fell on me only after I had turned on my side to face away from him. Warm heaviness in my eyes snatched away my ability to remain angry and alert. Realization of my physically and emotionally deteriorated state stole his ability to remain angry, at least; his alertness never faltered. After several long minutes, he crawled closer to me until his front was pressed against my back. When he kissed my head, I reached back cautiously to rest my hand over top of the one of his that he had laid on my arm.
“I love you very much, and that's why I'm angry.” He told me softly, “If I didn't love you, I wouldn't care; trust me, I know that from experience. I love you, and I'm...”
I turned over onto my back so I could look up at him. Finally, he was able to look at me without scowling.
“What?” I pressed him gently.
“It makes me... envious.”
“Envious? Why on Ear... Why on Pangaea would you be envious?”
“Is that even a question?” He asked me, “Brynna, how could I not be envious? Even though you hated him, he always wanted you. When he wanted me to hand you over to him, I knew, just from listening to him, that he was... enamored with you.”
Now James had said it, too. My father had used the word entranced. No matter the word choice, the message was the same: Adam wanted more from me than just unbridled access to my power. I had seen it in the way he acted and known it by the things he said, but I had denied it. Now, I knew for sure, as so many others had said the same.
“And now I'm afraid that since he knows a part of you feels the same way...”
“It does n...”
His kiss stopped me from continuing. The lie was never spoken out loud, for which I was thankful, as he did not deserve to be lied to, and if I did lie, I was doing exactly what I was so angry at him for doing.
“It's okay. He has a way of getting what he wants, and that's not any fault of yours. I would gladly fight him for you. But I'm afraid that he won't stop until you go to him, even if that's against your will.”
“He would never do that to me, James. I know that it is easier to paint him as the villain and me as the victim, but he would not hurt me. I believe that wholeheartedly. And I knew what I was doing. He didn’t coerce me. He didn’t trick me. I wanted to do it. He would never force me into anything against my will, James. Not now.”
There was something—perhaps it was pity, or perhaps it was disbelief, or perhaps it was both—in his eyes that told me I was wrong, at least in his view. A part of him wanted to make me see his point of view on the subject, but then, he also did not want to upset me.
“I never should have said that about your uncle. I'm sorry.” He told me, and I knew that he meant it genuinely. Still, his reminder of what he had said stuck a pin in my heart all over again.
“I forgive you, but I will warn you now that you should never use that as a weapon
against me again. I will only tolerate that being used as leverage in an argument once, and I should not even tolerate it once.”
“I know. I've got to start watching myself. I've got to start trying to calm myself down when we fight. I don't...” He stopped, and closed his eyes for a second as the memory of his wife's body flooded to the forefront of his mind. “I am so afraid that I'm going to hurt you, Brynna.”
I pulled him closer to me so I could kiss him.
“Just because you say vile things when you are angry does not mean that you are going to physically harm me, James. I have said some terrible things, haven't I? Those people to whom I said them are still alive.”
“I lost control with her, Brynna. And sometimes, you make me so angry. I'm sorry; I don't mean to say that, and don't get defensive, but you do. When we fight, I just get so mad. But that's proof that I genuinely care, right? But then, it's not, because I didn't care about my wife...”
“But you care about me? You love me?”
“Of course I do. Is that not obvious?” He asked, with a very slight, almost self-conscious laugh.
“It is.”
“I know that I love you, and you know that. But what if...” He paused, and I grasped his hand.
“What, honey?”
“What if that isn't enough to stop me? She and I were married for a while; ten years, almost. I didn't love her, but I did at one time. And I pushed her, Brynna. And she fell, and she died. I killed her.”
“It was an accident.”
“And what if that same accident happens to you?!” He whispered furiously.
“It will not! If there were even a slight possibility of that happening, if I thought you were a danger to me, do you really think that I, with my grim life experiences, would choose to stay around you?”
“No, but...”
“Would I let you around Penny and Violet? You get angry, I get angry. Your anger got out of control with your wife, and a terrible accident happened, and she died. I was angry with my mother and left her behind, and she died, too. We both killed people we loved once, just in different ways. But James, how many times have we fought? Besides the time with the Peace Fruit, you have never led me to believe that I was in danger of being physically harmed by you. You have never taken the Peace Fruit since, so we have not had a problem. God, I am used to raised voices resulting instantly in raised hands. You have never made me think that you were going to hit me, or push me, or anything of the sort. Besides, I would more than likely know that you were going to do it before you did it, anyway.”
“Maybe. I hope.” He looked at me and gently, I touched his face. “You would leave me, wouldn't you? You would pack up Penny and Violet, and you'd go if you thought I was a danger to you?”
“That is by far the stupidest question you have ever asked.” I told him, “But I will answer it anyway, because the answer is slightly more complicated than a simple yes or no. I would leave you, and I would be glad that my life and their lives were not in danger, but it would break my heart to do it. Is that an adequate answer?”
He kissed me and nodded.
“Yeah. Come on.” He carried me back into the bathroom and sat me on the sink again. As he untied the front of the robe, I leaned forward to rest my head against his shoulder. He turned his head so he could kiss mine as his hands continued to delicately take off the rest of my clothes.
“Come in with me.” I said softly. “I want you to stay with me, James.”
“I'm right here, baby.”
Carefully, he lifted me up and set me down in the water before shedding his own clothes. I was stunned to see that three days out in the wilderness had caused him to thin out substantially; though his muscles were still there, he seemed more fragile, almost sickly, even. Although I knew that they had traveled a great distance with an insufficient supply of food for everyone, I could not help but be surprised by how he looked.
“I'll be fine, baby. It's you I'm worried about.”
“You are always worried about me.”
I sat forward so he could sit behind me. When I leaned back against him, he encased me in his embrace, and I grasped his arms that were clasped so tightly around me. After a minute, he took the sweet-smelling soap and began to run it down my front. After that, he leaned me forward so my body was rested on one of his arms, and I closed my eyes as he ran the soap down my back.
“Oh, man, baby...”
“What?” My eyes snapped open, and I jerked upwards, alarmed.
“Nothing.” He assured me quickly, “You're really starting to bruise, that's all. And these cuts... Baby... can I ask what it was?”
I hesitated for a moment, unsure whether I wanted him to know, despite how very little difference it made.
“It was a piece of vine. Do not worry about me; I am alright. It is just pain. There is nothing seriously wrong.”
“Brynna, you can't stand up.”
“I will be fine tomorrow.”
“You need to go back to the infirmary and stay so they can evaluate you again.”
“I am just tired.” My throat had tightened and the tears were falling again. After an unsteady gasp, a soft sob escaped me. “I just need to go to sleep.”
“Alright. Shh... Baby, I'm sorry. I know how you are about that...”
“I'm sorry. I know you are just trying to do what is best for me. But they'll ask me to take off my shirt, and I can't do that, James. I don't want anyone but you to see me. It can't be anyone but you.”
“I know.” He pulled my head back delicately so it was against his shoulder, and then he turned it so he could press his lips to mine. “I know, baby. We'll see how you feel tomorrow, okay?”
I nodded, and closed my eyes again when I felt his hands slide between my back and his torso. The way he massaged my shoulders was perfect; he used enough pressure to work the pain out, but not enough to cause me any more. Everything, even the night, slowed down, and with the help of his hands and that hot bath water, my body that I had so abused for the previous days knew that it could finally let go completely, and my mind could finally relax because it knew that there was no place on Earth, Pangaea, or any other planet out there where I was safer than there with him.
He woke me up only long enough for him to get out of the tub and lift me out. As he dressed me, I lulled peacefully in between wakefulness and sleep. When he had climbed into bed and gotten under the covers beside me, and his arms were around me, and I was warmed from the heat of his strong body pressed against mine, I finally dropped away completely.