This Point Forward

by Katrina Abbott

  “It’s crazy.”

  Probably. “You’re already standing at my door. You may as well tell me.”

  He took a breath and looked...scared. And young. So young, as he stood there in the hallway, unsure and vulnerable, making me want to fold him into my arms and hold him tight.

  Finally he spoke, his soft voice totally at odds with the muscular, tattooed man in front of me. “I...I didn’t want to be alone tonight. And I thought maybe you wouldn’t, either.”

  A lump appeared in my throat, making speech suddenly impossible, so I just nodded and stepped back into my room, holding the door open for him.

  He didn’t move.

  “Come in,” I said gently, worried he was about to take off if I spooked him.

  “Want to come out to the cottage? It’s probably more comfortable.”

  I barked out a laugh. “Right. I’m going to come hang out with you in the dean’s cottage. No, sorry, that’s not going to happen. If you want to hang out, it’s here.”

  He looked reluctant, but after a moment, he scrubbed his palm over his head and walked through my open door.

  “You know this is so against the rules, though, right?” I said, closing the door behind him.

  He nodded. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

  “Deal.”

  I pointed toward Brook...Chelly’s bed. “You can sit there, if you want.” I sat on my own bed and scooted back so I was leaning against the wall, facing him.

  He sat at the edge of the bed, his elbows on his knees, looking uncomfortable. He was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved Henley that was pushed up his forearms. He looked down at his clasped hands. “So what were you doing?” he asked.

  “Honestly? Getting ready for bed.”

  He cursed. “Sorry, I’m keeping you up.”

  I shook my head. “I told you, I don’t sleep. Going to bed and sleeping are not the same thing around here.” I yawned, my argument losing any shred of credibility.

  Danny laughed.

  “Shut up,” I said, but I laughed, too.

  “Why don’t you get in bed,” he said. “If you fall asleep, I’ll sneak out.”

  I couldn’t imagine a world where I could fall asleep with this guy on the bed across from me, but I nodded and got up, taking my flannel shorts and a tank with me into the bathroom. I changed in record time and returned out into the room and turned off the light. I glanced over at him struck by the thought that he was even better looking in the dark, the moonlight coming in through the window casting shadows over the angles on his face.

  “Get in,” he said, his voice sounding deeper than it had only a few minutes ago.

  I sat on my bed and slid my legs under the covers, facing him. It was dark, but I could see one side of him in the beam of moonlight. It was the side without the tattoo, beautiful it its angles and perfect features, but only one half of the whole.

  “What?” he said quietly, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “Why are you staring at me?”

  “Believe me, I’ve spent a lot of time in this room not sleeping and staring at everything in it. You’re the one thing that’s new.”

  He exhaled through his nose. “I shouldn’t be here.”

  “But here you are.” I said. “What would your girlfriend say if she knew?”

  He cocked his head, the moonlight illuminating more of his face until I could see the tattoo. “What girlfriend?”

  My heart did a little jump. “When I first saw you...at the drug store. You were buying...”

  “Potato chips?”

  I couldn’t even say it. Ugh. “No...”

  “Condoms?”

  I nodded against the pillow, but it was dark and I didn’t know if he could see, so I said yes.

  “Those were for one of the kids at the center. The public nurse hadn’t been in and the supply was empty. Some of those kids, if they don’t have condoms, will just go do it without. I’d rather they be safe, even if it means I have to buy them stuff. I...I don’t have a girlfriend. I’ve never...I’ve never had one.” He laughed nervously. “I don’t know why I just told you that.”

  You know how in the Grinch where his heart grows a bunch of sizes? That’s what mine felt like in that moment. Unable to stop myself, I got out of bed and stepped toward him. And even though his entire body seemed to go rigid in awkward anticipation, I put my arms around his neck and hugged him.

  “Wha...?” he said, but I shushed in his ear, pulling him tighter because I realized in that moment whatever had happened to him or that he’d done that made him think of himself as a criminal didn’t matter. It was in the past and what mattered now was that he was a good, caring person.

  After a few long moments that were probably just seconds, he exhaled and his body finally loosened, his arms coming around me. It was the most intimate hug I’d ever shared with another human being, feeling like our hearts were beating together, fusing into one. Here, in the dark of my dorm room, it was heady, intense and incredibly terrifying.

  I pulled back and looked at him. His face was blank, void of emotion and I almost wanted to cry because I felt like I’d lost him, but then I looked into his eyes and saw raw emotion there, like a maritime storm, crashing against rocks. “You okay?” I asked in a whisper.

  He nodded. “You should get back into bed,” he said, looking away from me. “I should go.”

  No! Every molecule in my body wanted to protest. “Please stay,” I said simply, hoping it was enough.

  He looked conflicted for a second, but then nodded. “For a bit. But you need to get back into bed.”

  “You’re awfully bossy,” I said to break the tension.

  “Not bossy,” he said, his eyes intense. But when I thought he was going to say more, he just nodded toward my bed.

  I got in and lay down again, still facing him. We looked at each other through the darkness and maybe it was the quietness of the room or the dark making it almost impossible to read his expression, or that it was Christmas, but I felt like I could tell him just about anything. “I have a confession,” I said.

  “What?”

  “That day in the gym? I’d just come to burn off steam because I was mad at someone. I really had no intention of working out.”

  “Who were you mad at?”

  I thought about Rob and his betrayal. How I still didn’t quite know if I should be mad at Brooklyn. But my anger had dulled and with Danny here with me now, it felt distant, inconsequential. Something to worry about another day. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Did someone hurt you?” he asked, his voice soft but at the same time almost a growl.

  Rob’s anguished face as he’d tried to explain appeared in my head. “Yes. But I think maybe he didn’t mean to.”

  “Sometimes we hurt people we care about without meaning to,” Danny said, so quietly I almost didn’t hear him.

  I let that sink in for a moment and then said, “I know. Anyway, I’d never done weights before that day.”

  “I figured,” he said and I could hear the smile in his voice.

  “I was sore for two and a half days. I couldn’t even get out of bed at first.”

  He chuckled, one of the sexiest sounds I’d ever heard.

  “Shut up,” I said, but I was laughing, too.

  “Well then, I have a confession of my own,” he said after a long moment.

  My heart hiccupped as I thought about his past. The one that I still didn’t know about. “What’s that?”

  “When I was on the treadmill that day?”

  I exhaled, trying not to be disappointed. “Yeah?”

  “I was cooling down. I’d already worked out.”

  “Wait...what? So...”

  “I did a whole second workout.”

  I thought of him running on the treadmill and then doing all those weights, the epitome of a manly man, lifting barbells and squats and stuff. “Why?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? To be with you. To show off to you.”

  Yeah, it wo
rked. But I wasn’t about to admit it.

  “If it makes you feel better,” he added, his voice having gone soft again. “I was sore for two days, too.”

  I laughed, but much of it was due to the nerves jangling around in my chest. “We’re a couple of idiots.”

  He snorted.

  I yawned.

  “You should go to sleep.”

  “I don’t think I can,” I said. “Not while you’re here and looking at me like that. But I don’t want you to leave.”

  “Then we have a problem,” he said, his voice low again. “Because I don’t want to leave, but I want you to rest.”

  “Then you’ll have to stop looking at me.”

  “I can’t,” he whispered.

  “Aren’t you tired?” I whispered back.

  He nodded.

  I inhaled, flaring my nostrils to try to get more oxygen to feed my thumping heart and said the two most frightening words I’d ever uttered in my life. “Come here.”

  “No.”

  “Not for that. Just lay down with me.”

  After an eternity, he blew out a loud breath, stood up and took the two steps that brought him to the side of my bed. He kicked off his shoes and I scootched over toward the wall, making room as I held up the covers for him.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ll stay on top.” He tucked the comforter around me and lay down on his side, propping his head on his hand.

  “You smell so good,” I said.

  “You do, too,” he leaned in so his face was close to my neck.

  “I’m sorry, but this might have been a bad idea,” I said to my virginity.

  But Danny thought I was talking to him. “Yes. But you said just to lay down.”

  “Well, then you’d better stop sniffing me.”

  “Maybe you should stop smelling so good.”

  I smiled and looked up at him. He smiled back. “You’re still looking at me,” I said.

  “Turn over.”

  I began to roll toward him, but he put a hand on my shoulder. “No, silly,” he said. “Toward the wall.”

  Duh.

  I did as he said, giving him my back and holding my breath as I waited for what I knew was coming next. A second later and he was against me, the thick comforter between us, his arm around me, holding me close. I exhaled.

  “Okay?” he asked, his breath tickling my ear.

  So much more than okay. “Fine,” I said, impressed that my voice didn’t wobble.

  “Now will you sleep?”

  “Yes,” I said, though I never thought I would. But after about ten minutes of listening to us both breathe, our inhales and exhales stretching out longer as we relaxed pressed against each other, I drifted off.

  ~ ♥ ~

  My eyes blinked open, but the darkness was complete. I couldn’t see anything, which was unusual, because usually I could at least see my clock. But then I realized I was facing a wall. Not the actual wall, but a wall of chest. Danny.

  “Mmm,” came out of me as I remembered the night before.

  He hummed sleepily and pulled me close until my face was mashed into him in the best way imaginable. I inhaled him, wishing there was some way to bottle that smell.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I slept well. What time is it?”

  “Just past midnight.”

  “That’s it?”

  He rumbled against me. “Yes. You’ve only been asleep for a bit.”

  “It felt like a long time. Deep.”

  “I should go,” he said.

  “Soon. Stay a bit longer. Please.” He was so warm and soothing, though being mashed into his chest was a bit suffocating. I rolled over, pressing my back into his chest.

  “A little longer,” he said.

  Feeling sleepy again, I closed my eyes and listened to his breathing, matching mine to his. Then, just as I began to drift, he spoke, his voice so soft, at first I thought it was a dream. Except the second I understood the words, my eyes opened and I was wide awake.

  “I killed my father.”

  Snowflakes

  I tried to turn back toward him, but his arms tightened around me, holding me in place, making me panic for half a second.

  “No, don’t,” he said, desperation threading through his voice. “I can’t tell you if you look at me.”

  I froze and then forced myself to relax as he loosened his hold, but kept his arms around me.

  I heard him swallow and felt his chest press against me as he filled his lungs. Several breaths later, he began, his voice soft but full of pain. “I used to have a sister, Rowan. She died of leukemia when she was seven.”

  “My God. I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

  He squeezed me a little, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge my words, instead continuing with his story. “My parents were never the same after that. My mother got depressed. Really depressed, to where she was popping a ton of pills, but they weren’t helping. And my Dad became a drunk and used to steal her pills and then when they didn’t work, he faked an injury at his job and went off on leave and got his own pills. They were such a mess.

  “I was a mess, too. I would go out and get high and drunk. Being destructive with my friends, jacking cars, that sort of thing. Anything to keep me busy and from having to go home.”

  I stroked the strong arm that was around me, tracing down his warm skin with my fingertips, wanting him to know I was here and awake: listening.

  “Anyway, they fought all the time. He blamed her for Rowan’s death and that made her even more depressed because I think she began to believe him. The sadder she got, the more he hated her, though I think it was mutual by that time.”

  It was hard to hear it and on one level, I wanted to make him stop, but knew I couldn’t. That he trusted me to tell me his story was everything, but he was still so vulnerable; I didn’t dare move.

  “He got angrier and angrier about everything: his life, Rowan, his job. Then he started to hit her.”

  “Oh God, Danny...”

  He squeezed me again. “It was Christmas Eve, three years ago. I came home high and drunk, and he was drunk too and waving a gun around and yelling at her that Rowan died because of her and Christmas meant nothing any more. He said he didn’t want to go on living without his little girl and that he was going to kill himself and then she’d be responsible for two deaths.”

  It had happened on Christmas? Oh God, I wished I’d known. Though I had no idea what I could have done. I held my breath, knowing where this was going. I didn’t need the details to know how the story ended. Bad. So bad.

  “He tried to aim the gun at his own head, but somehow I guess she still loved him or didn’t want his blood on her hands or something and wouldn’t let him kill himself. I tried to get in the way. I tried to keep her away from him, to just let him do it and get it over with,” he went on, even though his voice was getting reedy as his emotions started to get the better of him.

  “But she grabbed his arm and he pulled the trigger.” A sob escaped him and I threaded my fingers into his and squeezed, wanting desperately to turn and pull him into my arms, but knowing he wasn’t done.

  “She...she died instantly. Thank God for that; that she didn’t suffer. He’d made her suffer enough already...I...” he took a staggered breath.

  “And then what happened?” I whispered. Not because I needed to know, but because I wanted him to keep moving forward and get it all out. I couldn’t comfort him until it was all out.

  “I don’t remember everything exactly, but he freaked out and then came after me, blaming me for killing her. I know I didn’t. I watched it happen! Yeah, I was high, but I watched him kill her!”

  That he was suddenly so defensive told me volumes about the persecution he must have faced since all of this happened. “Shhhh...I know, Danny. Of course you didn’t.”

  “I...I defended myself, but he came at me and he was crazy and I was sure he was going to kill me, too. I was so confused and high and
I don’t know how it happened, but somehow I got the gun off him and shot him. I killed him right there in our living room. One second I’m partying with my friends and the next I’m an orphan with my parents’ blood on my hands, calling 911 because they were dead on the floor. I murdered him and I have to live with that for the rest of my life.”

  “It was self-defense,” I said, fighting my own sobs to keep my voice even. “It wasn’t your fault, Danny. It was him or you. You didn’t have a choice.”

  He was quiet for a long moment before he began shaking.

  “Oh God,” he said. “Oh God, oh God,” he repeated over and over, even as I finally turned in his arms and held him in the darkness as he wept.

  I held him for a long time, shushing in his ear and just being there for him while he sobbed into my neck, letting my own tears fall unchecked as I comforted him as best I could.

  Finally, when his breathing evened out and he pulled back from me, a movement caught my eye. I glanced up at the window to see fat snowflakes catching the moonlight as they drifted lazily down to the ground. “Look,” I said. “It’s snowing.”

  He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and looked up toward the window. “My mother always said it wasn’t a proper Christmas if there wasn’t any snow.”

  His face contorted with emotion, so I pressed my lips to his. At first it was for comfort, maybe for both of us because even though I was just hearing his story, I was more rattled than I’d realized I would be.

  But then, as I tasted his tears, it turned from comfort to something more. I think we both realized there was something between us that was more than keeping each other company on a night that was made for not being alone. He deepened the kiss, pulling me against him and then on top of him as he rolled onto his back.

  “Emmie,” he whispered against my lips, his big palms on my face, holding me together. He brought my forehead to touch his and closed his eyes. “We can’t...”

  “No. But that’s not what this is about. I want to be close to you. I want you to know you’re not alone. Is that okay?”

  He exhaled and nodded then pulled me down so I was lying beside him with my head on his chest, listening to his heart beating under my cheek.