by Leddy Harper
“It doesn’t matter, Nolan.”
His hand flew out and grabbed my upper arm, and it burned all the way to my chest. “It does matter, Novah.” He said my name with such emphasis, it seemed the word swarmed through the air and wrapped itself around my neck, strangling every inch of me. “Tell me…what answers to what questions?”
He appeared mad, yet his words and voice were full of desperation. A yearning for me to understand. Like he needed my answer in order to breathe. As if what I had to say would save his life. Again, his change in temperament had me swimming, drowning with confusion.
“Who you really are. The kind of person you are beneath the façade you’ve created. I’ve been hit with so many variations of you—from the boy in high school to the man in front of me now. What happened to you in the last fifteen years…”
“Is that a question?”
I shook my head. “No…I already have the answer.”
“Do you? You think you know what I’ve been through over the last fifteen years?” He let go of my arm. His face hardened as his forehead creased with deep lines. His gruff tone seeped through the tiny space between his taut lips as he straightened his shoulders and stood taller and more rigid than ever before.
“I don’t need your version, Nolan. You’ll only spin it the same way you’ve spun everything else. I’m not the young, naïve girl I was back then. I’ve grown up and learned the difference between bullshit and truth. So I don’t need you to waste your time telling me how much you cared about me, how you’ve spent the last fifteen years thinking of me, or how stunning you think I am. I won’t fall for it again. I know the real you. The one you give away with your eyes, the one you show the world with your cold expressions when you think no one is paying attention.”
Nolan abruptly turned around, rubbing the back of his neck until his knuckles turned white. “Just go, Novah. You’re done. I’m done. It is what it is. Thanks for the pictures. I’ll send you a check…by messenger.”
I couldn’t bear to be in his presence a moment longer. Desperation clawed at me, begged me to get out before I dissected every word, every second, and analyzed everything from his tone to his posture. I couldn’t handle it. If I did, I knew I would back down. I would hear him out and plead with him to tell me his story. And then he’d have me eating out of the palm of his hand…much like he did in high school, and much like he almost had the day before.
I reached for the doorknob and gulped in some air. I didn’t trust myself to hesitate. With my bag and camera, I practically ran for the elevator. My breathing didn’t return to normal again until I was safely seated in my car.
Even after the humiliation, the tears, the missing years, and his abrupt reappearance in my life, Nolan Richards still had a way of stealing my breath. Still made my heart beat fast, too hard against my chest.
If only it were a good thing.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Shari asked after the last client of the day left. I’d returned earlier with images of him on my camera, and she’d prodded me during every session, but I continued to brush over it. I guess I couldn’t anymore, not after my last excuse was gone.
“Nothing happened, Share. I took some pictures of him at his desk. End of story. We barely talked, and he kept his clothes on the entire time.”
She stuck her bottom lip out and pouted. “You’re no fun. In my next life, I’m going to come back as you and have all the hot, dirty, angry sex you should be having with him.”
I couldn’t contain the laughter from bubbling up, along with an eye roll. “Go right ahead. That just means you’ll have to be the one to deal with the fallout. Not me.”
“Fallout? There won’t be any. Because when I’m done with him, I’ll tie his ass to his chair—naked—and then leave him there until someone lets him out. But not before I take pictures and post them to every social media site there is.”
“Yeah…I guess it’s a good thing social media wasn’t prevalent in 2000.” The humor had drained from my tone. I no longer found any of it funny once my mind traveled back in time. Things could’ve been so much worse. I should’ve taken it as a positive, yet all I could do was dwell on what actually happened instead of what could’ve been.
Shari must’ve picked up on my change in attitude because she asked, “Want to hit the bar with me tonight? I’ll let you pick the place…”
“No, maybe next time. I want to hurry up and get through these images of Nolan so I can send them back and be done with him. The longer I put it off, the longer he’ll be hovering in my life.”
I couldn’t even look at her, because I knew the expression she’d give me. It would be full of sympathy and pity, two things I loathed more than anything else.
“Want me to stay and help?”
I finally glanced up at her. The intensity of her stare was too much to handle. “No, you don’t need to. It won’t take too long, I promise. I pretty much only need to go through them and trash the ones I won’t keep.”
She nodded, although I could tell by the way she bit her bottom lip it wasn’t so much of an agreement as it was a surrender. But she didn’t push or try to convince me, and I appreciated her for it. It was as if I’d been holding on by a frayed thread all day, and I didn’t know how much more I could take before snapping.
“Okay. You go ahead and get started on his photos. I’ll clean up the studio for you.”
“You don’t have to do that, Shari. I can get it. You should call the guy from the other day, Mike, and have him take you out tonight.” They seemed to hit it off rather well, and she’d worn a smile ever since.
She bit the corner of her lip before turning away, hiding the smile I knew was there whether I saw it or not. I could even hear it in her voice. “I think he’s going to come over later.”
“Then why ask me to go to a bar?”
She shrugged, still keeping her back to me. “Because I figured you needed it. And I’m sure Mike would understand. He’s pretty easy…a real go-with-the-flow kinda guy.”
I was happy for her, truly happy she seemed to have finally found someone good. “You’re being ridiculous. Go have fun with him. I’ll finish up here and then head home to catch up on sleep. I didn’t get much last night.”
“Then I’ll clean up, help you out some so you can get home faster. And I mean it, Novah—if you wanted to say screw it and go have some drinks, I’m here for you.”
For the first time all day, a genuine smile crept onto my face. “I know. And it’s yet another reason why I love you so much. But I’m serious, I just want to get this done and over with.”
I allowed her to clean up the studio while I sat at my desk in the corner and flipped through the images uploaded from this morning. I didn’t want to go through them, not sure I could handle looking into his eyes—even if it was only through the screen.
Somehow, the time must’ve gotten away from me because before I knew it, Shari interrupted me to say goodbye. She’d cleaned the entire studio and even organized the props—probably buying time in case I’d change my mind and take her up on her offer for drinks. But it didn’t happen. I’d ended up getting spellbound by the images of a lost boy.
It’s what seemed to have gotten to me the most—how confused he appeared. How young yet weathered he looked…the sad and despondent expression his eyes held. It went against everything I’d believed of him. Yet those beliefs were created by myself, in my own head. I had convinced myself he was one way, even though his eyes showed me someone different.
I ignored it as much as I could until I reached the last sets of images—the ones of him against the window. My fingers froze, unable to click to the next until I thoroughly examined each and every one. Not once touching any of them with a single editing tool. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. They were so raw, so full of emotion…perfect, all on their own.
As I went through them, I thought back to that moment in his office. It had only been hours ago, yet it seemed much longer. He’d told me he
was surprised I still took photos after what I’d gone through—after what he’d put me through. At the time, it seemed so arrogant of him to think. As if he had any idea what had happened after he left. He didn’t know. He wasn’t there to understand the devastation he’d left behind.
Before I could grow angry all over again, the face on the monitor stilled my inner rage. It calmed me like the sun after a heavy rain. It gutted me like a tornado and filled me like a flood. As if he had the ability to make me, break me, and heal me all at once.
Suddenly, so many thoughts bombarded my mind. His words came back to me, slamming into me until I was left utterly breathless, the room whirling around me as if I were Dorothy and Nolan was my Wizard of Oz.
“Just because I didn’t have to deal with it for four years in high school doesn’t mean I don’t walk around every fucking day with my own humiliation.”
“I didn’t lie all those years ago when I told you how beautiful I thought you were. I meant it then. And I mean it now.”
“Maybe this is as much for me as it is for you.”
“I’m surprised you still take pictures.”
But it was more than what he said. It was the words he didn’t utter, the things I could only see from the images in front of me. The emotions he expressed. The despair he kept inside, only exposing it through his eyes.
Those dark-green eyes gave everything away.
Yet while I was there, standing in front of him, I saw anger. Resentment. Maybe I’d convinced myself it was there. Possibly, it’s what he wanted me to see.
“I need you, Novah.”
I jumped at the sound of someone in the studio. I must’ve been so absorbed in the images in front of me that I didn’t hear anyone come in. I spun my chair around, quickly noticing Nolan standing in front of me. My heart hammered away in my chest, threatening to break through my ribcage and land at my feet.
I gasped, unable to say anything in return, even though I had a million thoughts racing through my head.
Why are you here?
What do you want?
Why do you need me?
But nothing came out. Not a single thing.
“I need you to show me what beauty means,” he continued with a raspy voice, almost as if he didn’t trust his own words to make it to my ears.
“Why?” My own tone was just as shaky, if not more than his.
“Because I don’t believe in it anymore. I don’t see it. It doesn’t exist…unless I’m looking into your eyes. But only when you don’t know it.”
He stepped closer to me, slowly, as if he were a lion and I the timid prey.
“Because when you’re looking at me, and I look at you, it’s not there. You know as well as I do it doesn’t exist in me. And I need you to show it to me, if only so you can see it when you look at me.” He stopped less than a foot away. His panting breaths fanned my face. “Please,” he begged like a lost child looking for his mother.
Without conscious thought, my hand reached out to cup his face, his warmth running through my palm, up my arm, and straight to my heart, giving it a reason to beat. “You are exquisite,” I whispered without thought. The words came out all on their own, yet I meant every one of them.
He was, in fact, breathtaking. Whether he believed it or not. No matter how many times I tried to convince myself otherwise, his eyes held a magnificence I had never seen before. It was also what I found most dangerous about him. He had the ability to wipe my thoughts clean of any damage he’d ever caused me.
Nolan took a step back, causing my arm to fall to my side. His fingers quickly worked the buttons on his shirt until they were all undone. “I’m far from it,” he said as he pulled the shirt from his body and let it fall off his arms and land on the floor at his feet. He then proceeded to draw the white undershirt over his head until it, too, landed silently in the pile of discarded clothing.
I couldn’t breathe as I watched him disrobe before me. I couldn’t look anywhere but his face, watching as the torture unfolded through his darkened eyes.
“You still think I’m exquisite?” He made quick work of his black slacks, starting with the belt until they fell to his ankles with a soft thud, but he didn’t step out of them.
Nothing made sense as I took him in. Flawless, tanned skin morphed into thick, colorless flesh beneath his armpit. It spread down one side of his chest and vanished beneath his boxer-briefs. My eyes continued down until they stopped at the hem of his boxers. They formed around his thick thighs like a second skin. Where his right leg showed defined muscles down to the pants around his ankle, the left ended just below the fabric of his underwear. A white, sock-like cloth hugged his thigh…and then there was steel. Mechanical rods and robotic joints took the place of his leg, and a metal box filled the space where his calf should’ve been.
“You can deny it all you want, Novah—lie to me, lie to yourself—but no matter what you say, I’m looking at you right now. And what I see is pity. You feel bad for me, just as I’m sure you felt bad for my friends this weekend.”
My gaze snapped to his. I held his stare with such desperation I worried I’d been frozen in time, unable to move. Unable to process what was right in front of me. “I don’t understand.” It was all I could say. My brain had lost all connection to the world, lagging minutes behind real time.
“What don’t you understand? I’m a fucking cripple. I’m damaged, ruined…hideous. And don’t even try to deny it. I can see it in your eyes as you look at me.”
I shook my head, attempting to force my thoughts to catch up as I blinked rapidly. “No. You’re wrong. It’s not what I think of when I look at you.”
“Then tell me what you think.”
I couldn’t. I had no words.
“I thought so.”
“Why did you come here? Why did you do this?” I begged for something, anything to explain it. To explain him, his injury, his motive behind ambushing me with this.
“You said you found your answers. I’m merely letting you know you didn’t. You didn’t want to believe my words. You continued to think I was lying to you. You believe I lied to you in high school, and I’m lying to you now.” He straightened his arms out at his sides, as if showing himself off. “Am I lying, Novah?” he asked with such a broken tone, so shaky and cracked I worried he’d shatter in front of me.
My words had failed me once, and I wouldn’t allow it to happen again. Instead, I closed the gap between our bodies and threw my arms around his neck, allowing his hot flesh to consume me. His warm breath hit me right before my lips sealed to his.
“You’re beautiful,” I whispered, and then I inhaled and covered his mouth with mine once again. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”
Six
His mouth assaulted mine. His tongue swept out and licked my bottom lip. I opened for him. And then he took over with warm, hungry kisses. Moans and deep guttural groans filled the space between us, circling around our heated bodies like a cocoon.
My body softened against his, and then his hand traveled up the front of my shirt until his callused palm wrapped around my face. With his thumb on one cheek and the rest of his fingers on the other, he applied enough pressure to make it hurt, and then he pushed me away slightly.
Shocked, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak or form a single thought. I could only gaze into his eyes, waiting for some hint from him. The way he took control seemed as if he’d wanted it, too, but then abruptly changed his mind.
“Beautiful?” The softness in his voice swept my face like storm-forced winds, and my insides nearly crumbled into a cluster of chaos and confusion. “What about me would you consider to be beautiful?”
I was taken aback by his question. I couldn’t put into words what I saw in him. There was just something there I couldn’t quite put my finger on…but it was something.
“Is it my fake leg? The metal rod sticking out of my thigh? Is that beautiful?” He motioned to the artificial leg that, up until a few moments ago, had been hidd
en beneath his clothes. He bent down to pull up his pants, never taking his eyes from mine. “Or is it my scars? The ones that will never go away?” His pants were fully up and buttoned, even though his belt hung from the loops. “Maybe…maybe it’s visions I play on repeat in my mind of the IED blowing up my Humvee. Or the bullets that took my brothers. Or the blood they shed as I carried their bodies to safety?”
I stood in complete silence as he started to pace the room, his voice getting louder and louder with each and every word he spoke. My heart broke with the memories of a war I had no idea he’d even fought, and all I wanted to do was comfort him.
Yet I didn’t know how.
“Tell me, Novah!” he shouted, half in anger and half out of desperation. “Don’t just stand there! Tell me what it is. I need to know what you find so appealing about me.”
I thought about running to him. I yearned to hold his face and make him look me in the eyes. But I couldn’t. The idea of touching him scared me. And the fear of rejection kept me firmly rooted in place as I opened my mouth to answer his pleas.
“I wish you could see what I do, Nolan. I wish you could see the survivor standing in front of me right now. The one who lived through an IED. The one who came home when so many of his brothers didn’t.” I wanted to know more, but the idea of hearing what he’d experienced frightened me. “You were given a second chance at life…and that, in and of itself, is what I find so magnificent.”
“A second chance for what? What did I live for?” He took a step back, adding more cold distance between us. “Over there, I saw the absolute worst things imaginable. Pure evil. Mindless killing and senseless hate. And then I come home…and I see the same thing happening here.”
My foot moved and inch, but then I stopped when he angrily ran his hands over his face. When he spoke again, his voice was heavy, dark, and gritty, and it commanded my full attention.