by Chloe Walsh
He didn't speak and I was grateful.
We ate in silence and I was surprised to discover that I was starving.
I ended up cleaning my plate.
****
After dinner, Noah walked outside and for some reason unknown to me, I found myself trailing after him, and then, after a while, walking alongside him.
I wasn't sure how long we walked for.
All I knew was I could have walked that trail for the rest of my life and not have wanted to go home.
He didn't touch me.
He didn't push me or force me to talk.
He didn't do anything I expected him to do.
He confounded me.
He allowed me to make the first move.
He gave me the option of coming or staying. I chose to stay.
Whatever he was doing, I was drawn to it. His behavior was exactly what I needed to be around. His silence was healing and his companionship was comforting.
For the first time since Einín's death, I didn't feel alone.
He didn't ask me how I was feeling.
He didn't look at me the way everyone else did.
I found myself completely drawn to him.
Almost similar to the way I had been drawn to him when we'd first met.
*****
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Noah
I watched the white range rover pull up out front and a nervous feeling shot straight through me.
This was the fifth day in a row Teagan had come to me.
Of her own accord.
As usual, I didn't make a big deal of it. I didn't even acknowledge her when she walked into the kitchen. She seemed to like that.
Instead, I did what I'd done every other day, and I silently handed her some food to prep.
She set to work immediately, cooking beside me, not speaking a single word, just being with me in a weird harmony.
It wasn't that I didn't want to talk to my wife.
I did.
But I needed to do this her way.
After months of being apart, I had found a way to get through to Teagan.
This was working and I wasn't about to fuck it up.
I'd missed all of my physiotherapy sessions this week. I'd cancelled them all with the reappearance of my estranged wife.
There was nothing I wouldn't do for her.
If she needed me then I sure as hell was going to be here for her.
"I brought over a movie," Teagan announced later that night when we were washing up after dinner. Drying our plates with a towel, she never looked at me as she spoke. "Thought we could watch one…you know…together." Her cheeks flushed. "That's if you want to."
"Fine by me," I said gruffly, secretly delighted. "But no chick flicks."
Teagan smiled to herself. "Deal."
She set the towel down on the counter before wandering out of the room, returning a few moments later with a DVD case in her hand.
"Set it up," I told her. "I'll be back in two minutes."
When I returned to the lounge, I plopped a large duvet on top of my wife who was on the couch before taking a seat on the armchair.
Teagan looked at me with a puzzled expression, but she didn't say a word.
Neither did I.
Settling under the duvet, she pressed play on the remote and I dimmed the lights.
It was hours later, when I felt something press down hard on my chest, that I realized I'd fallen asleep.
Startled, I opened my eyes to blonde hair.
She was curled up on my lap, fast asleep.
No tears.
No nightmares.
No screaming.
She was resting. It was a deep sleep because she didn't even stir when I adjusted the duvet around us.
I craved to touch her. To wrap my arms around her body and hold her to me and never let her go again, but I had to pace myself.
This was huge.
She was coming back to me.
Little by little.
Inhaling a deep breath, I pressed a soft kiss to her brow and allowed my eyelids to flutter shut once more.
Knowing that tonight I would sleep better than I had in years.
****
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Teagan
My life, for the past eight years, had been an emotional rollercoaster. I'd been involved with my husband since I was seventeen years old. He'd broken my heart and I'd broken his. We'd had our ups and downs, mostly downs, but I was still as desperately and recklessly in love with him now as I was when I was a teenager.
He completed me and he broke me. He drove me insane and he healed me.
I couldn't fully explain my feelings because they were alien to me.
I had always been a selfish person by nature, and with Noah, it was no different.
I wanted all of his attention.
All of his time.
I wanted all of him.
Nothing less would do.
We didn’t know each other well when we got married. We didn't know each other well now. It was a relationship I struggled to defend. One driven on feelings and emotions and raw instinct. And even though he didn’t know me, he still knew me.
Now I knew something myself.
I wanted to come home to my husband.
Noah had been there for me when I didn't know I wanted him to be.
He had this special way of knowing what I needed at the right time. He had brought me back to the present. To the living.
And I wanted to be here, living in the present with him.
We had found our way back to each other.
It hadn't been easy, but we'd done it.
I didn't ever want to be that far away from him again.
I even found myself wanting to argue with him last week.
It was the first homicidal notion I'd had in months.
He made me laugh yesterday. I hadn't laughed in forever.
It was as if I'd found some way of existing through the pain.
He made it tolerable.
He made it go away for a little while.
He was reaching me on a different level. It was in his presence. In his touch. In his kindness and loving ways.
He was giving me everything I needed without giving me anything at all.
All I knew was when I was in his presence, everything felt better for a little while. I could live in the moment when I was with him and not have to think so much… not have to feel so much pain.
He gave me strength and unconditional love and I cherished the feeling.
I longed for the day I would wake up not wanting to die. Being with Noah made me feel like that day was a possibility for my future.
****
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Noah
Teagan had partially moved back in.
Her toothbrush lay beside mine in the bathroom once again and her clothes had returned to cover our bedroom floor in that Teagan disarray I had come to know and love.
She still wandered around a lot. She was still quiet. But she was coming back to me.
She touched me, brushed past me, sat beside me, hovered around me.
She seemed to need the reassurance of my presence as much as I needed hers.
I knew we were drawing closer to the time when we would have to sit down and talk about the future of our marriage, but I didn't want to.
If I could wrap her up in this little bubble and keep her semi happy forever, then I would.
But it couldn't keep going like this.
We both knew it.
I went with her to the hospital for her appointments.
She didn't ask me to come and I didn't ask for her permission.
We had conjured up this strange alliance. We were, for the first time, in a strong sync with one another.
Last week, she even picked a fight with me. Threw shit in my face, and turned everything back on me. And sure, in the moment there was a part inside of me that was furious with hurt, but that part w
as overridden by sheer fucking joy at seeing a spark inside of my wife.
A slither of the fight she'd once had.
Last week, I told her to get her ass ready because I was taking her out someplace nice on Friday. I was determined to bring my wife back to life.
By the time Friday rolled around I was so fucking nervous, it was ridiculous.
I changed my shirt four goddamn times, something I couldn't recall doing in the twenty-six years I'd been on this earth.
She did that to me.
Thorn.
Settling on a red plaid, button-up shirt and jeans, I rolled the sleeves up to my elbows, hating the feeling of confinement I felt every time I put a damn shirt on.
Leaving open the top two buttons, I slung a baseball cap on my head and headed out to pick up my wife for our first official date.
****
Teagan
Last weekend Noah told me to be ready Friday night because he was taking me on a date. He didn’t give me an option; he simply told me to be ready at eight, and strangely I liked the idea. I enjoyed him taking charge.
By the time eight o clock rolled around on Friday, I had changed my outfit numerous times. I was currently wearing the fifth one, and if it weren't for the headlights pulling into my uncle's driveway, I was pretty sure I would have rushed upstairs and changed again.
Smoothing my hair in the mirror, I took in my complexion and reapplied my lipstick.
The sound of my uncle's doorbell caused the butterflies in my stomach to quadruple their effort of making me feel sick. Shoving the tube of lipstick into my purse, I rushed down the hallway and swung the door inwards.
My breath caught in my throat when I saw Noah standing on the porch, clad in a red plaid shirt and light blue denim jeans. He looked incredibly young and vulnerable as he stood there with a bunch of flowers in his hand.
"I don't know your favorites," he admitted with a shrug before thrusting the bouquet into my arms. "So I bought roses." He shrugged again and this time he cleared his throat. "Figured I couldn't go wrong with roses."
"They're beautiful. Thank you," I blurted out, before gesturing him to come inside. "Let me just put these in water and I'll be ready."
When I reached the kitchen, I placed the flowers on the counter and inhaled a deep calming breath before retrieving the two suitcases I had packed and ready on the kitchen table.
With one in each hand, I made my way back into the hallway.
The moment Noah spotted what was in my hands, a huge smile spread across his face.
"Does this mean what I think it means?" he asked, tone gruff.
Nodding, I handed him the cases. "I want to come home."
****
Noah
"You're quiet," I noted as I watched Teagan flick around pieces of food on her plate with her fork. I owed her more than a dinner in Chez Kreme, that was for sure. I only hoped my idea of going out on a date wasn’t making her change her mind about coming home.
"I'm just tired," she replied with a small smile. She reached for her wine glass and then quickly retracted her hand, picking up a glass of water instead.
"Is the wine bad?" I grabbed my beer bottle and chugged it back. "I can order you something else."
"Oh no." Her cheeks flamed. "I'm just…" She exhaled a shaky breath and said, "I'm sorry. I'm used to refusing alcohol."
And just like that, a dark cloud settled over us.
Einín…
"Thorn, I love you so much." I wasn't good with words or expressing my emotions and feelings, but I tried. For Teagan, I tried to be what she needed me to be. I worked my ass off to do that for her. She deserved nothing less. She was the girl I once adored, now the woman I had vowed to share my life with, the partner to which I shared an irrevocable bond. A painful link in a chain we both carried on our backs. But we carried it together. "I'm going to make you happy again," I told her. "If I have to die trying."
"You already do," she whispered. Reaching across the table, she placed her small hand on top of mine and squeezed. "Being with you makes me feel…safe."
"Good." I swallowed deeply, feeling my Adam's apple bob. "Because you are." Turning my hand palm up, I entwined my fingers with hers and smiled. "I'm always going to be here to take care of you."
"I know why I'm alive," she said, stunning me. "It's because of you. It's because there was a part of my soul, somewhere deep down inside, that refused to give up. It's the same part that held onto every moment we've ever had; every image of your face that my memory collected from the moment you walked into my life to the moment I walked out of yours." Sighing, Teagan said, "You are the reason I am still breathing. You are the reason I didn't give up. You are the only reason. My only everything…"
The sound of a baby crying broke through our little bubble and caused Teagan to completely clam up.
Groaning internally, I cast a quick glance around the restaurant, and sure enough, there was a woman, three tables away from us nursing her baby.
I watched my wife watch that woman nurse and the tears that filled her eyes fucking broke my heart.
"You…" Teagan whispered, looking up at me. "You're feeling it, too, aren't you?"
"I am," I replied in a tone thick with unshed emotion. This was the first time she had acknowledged my pain. My feelings. "I'm…broken."
"I'm sorry," she whispered, dropping her gaze to her plate. "For crossing that road." She blinked back her tears. "For not keeping your daughter safe."
It was at that very moment the walls of my cool facade came crumbling down around me. "I want to help you," I told her. "Tell me how to help you."
"Fill me up," she sobbed. "Hold me and love me and never let me go."
"I'm afraid to push you," I admitted. "I'm petrified of losing you again."
"I won't let that happen," she whispered. "I need you more than you'll ever know."
"Come on then," I said. Shoving my chair back, I tossed my napkin and a couple of fifties on the table before reaching for my wife's hand. "I'm taking you home."
****
Teagan
"I've got you." Noah comforted me as I clung to him in the dark parking lot of the restaurant. His tone was gruff and full of emotion. "I'm here, Thorn." His hands were in my hair, pulling me closer, making me feel safer than I had in months. "I'm right here."
Seeing that woman in the restaurant had really brought it home for me.
My body had ached with longing as I watched her nurse.
I would have given anything to trade places with her, even just for a day.
"It's so hard, Noah," I confessed, grasping his shirt tightly, drawing every ounce of my strength from his mere presence. "Everywhere I go, something or someone reminds me of her."
"It's the same for me," he admitted, voice torn, as he held onto me.
The trees swayed loudly above us. The cold mountain air cut at my face, making everything feel more real.
"I love you," I sobbed, breaking down, letting it all out. Pressing my cheek to his chest, I listened to his heart hammering in his chest. "I'm so in love with you." It was decidedly imbalanced and wholeheartedly unhealthy. But I did. I loved him more than I knew what to do with it. All the years. All the pain. All the fights. All the tears. I'd experienced them with Noah. He married me. He took care of me. I would never forget him for it.
The burden of responsibility we both carried for the loss of our daughter was an almost insufferable weight, but we carried it together.
We shared the load.
We teamed up.
We were one.
As I stood in my husband's embrace, passion bloomed inside of me, a feeling that had been absent for too long now.
I tightened my hold on his waist, clenching him, pulling him into my body, wanting to disappear in him. I loved him more than I loved anyone else on this planet and in that moment I thought we could do it.
We could get past it.
We could do it together.
I sure as hell couldn't do it
on my own, but with Noah, maybe I had a chance.
A fighting chance
****
Noah
Are you sore?" I whispered later that night when we were in bed.
This was the first time I'd been inside my wife since her surgery and I was terrified of hurting her. Making love to her felt fucking amazing, but I was worried. This woman was all that I had in the world. Breaking her wasn't an option.
"No," she breathed, wrapping her legs around my waist, pulling me in deeper. "It feels good…" she cried out softly and thrust her arm towards me, catching onto the back of my hair with her fingers. "It feels like coming home."
She really shouldn't have said that.
Her words set me off and I was coming inside her like a fucking jacked up teenager.
Thankfully, my orgasm brought on hers and she convulsed around me.
"Don't pull out," she whispered frantically. "Stay on me," she added, pulling me down on her. "Stay in me."
"But what if I…"
"Please, Noah," she begged. "I need you to stay right here with me."
Nodding slowly, I buried my head in her neck and pressed a kiss to her racing pulse.
This was going to be a long night.
****
Chapter Thirty
Hope
Teagan: I'm so worried about him. He's so stubborn.
Hope: Don’t worry. He's fighting fit and if all else fails, he has a really hard head.
Teagan: Not funny, Hope. I'm worried sick about him.
Hope: You need to breathe. Take some deep breaths – and maybe a valium. Everything is going to be okay. I promise.