“Do you want me to leave? I can find a place to stay if you would rather not have this conversation right now.” Dan stepped closer to me, but stopped right before making physical contact. He held out his arms, a wordless request to come closer.
Guilt and bile surged up from my stomach into my throat and threatened to spill out all over us both. I shook my head no, denying his request. I looked up at his face just in time to witness the flinch of pain. It hit me then that this look was only a hint of what would likely be there by the time this talk was through. My chest ached, the thought of hurting Dan causing a very real pain in my body, regardless of his own lack of innocence.
“No, don’t go. We need to figure this all out.” I made my way to the sofa in the living room, but Dan interrupted me before I made it there.
“Ros, could we go somewhere else to do this? Maybe go for a walk or something? I don’t know why, but I think this would go better outside.”
I thought about it for a minute. I considered declining. Insisting that we stay right here, but I was starting to feel suffocated by all the secrets and lies living in these walls.
And then it hit me that it was very likely that Archer would be a witness to all of this if it happened in the house. He was good about giving space and privacy when needed, but would he be able to say no to the temptation to secretly have a front-row seat to what could be the demise of my marriage?
“Sure, I know a pretty quiet area we can go to for some privacy. Just let me get changed and we can drive over.”
Dan simply nodded his head before walking out to the balcony. I went to our room to change and throw my hair up into a messy bun, too keyed up and anxious to even consider spending more than a minute or two on it. I took a quick look at myself in the mirror in our closet and barely recognized myself. My skin was too pale, my eyes had dark circles underneath, and there was a wild glint to my eyes that I had never seen before.
“Get it the fuck together, Ros. Just tell him. All you have to do is say the words. ‘I cheated too. I’m sorry.’ You can do this,” I whispered to myself in the mirror.
I needed the practice and the pep talk, though I was fairly sure it wouldn’t make one damn bit of difference. What did I say to Dan when he started asking questions about who and how and why? I couldn’t tell him the truth. I just had to hope the confession alone would be enough.
* * *
We parked near the shops and made our way to the same rocky beach where I’d had my breakthrough months ago. As I paced along the shore, it hit me that the place that had witnessed me come alive with purpose and passion would also be witness to the potential breakdown of my marriage. I swallowed hard, an attempt to keep the fear and pain down before it all erupted out of me in a flow of words and confessions I could never take back.
The crunching of rocks and shells under a heavy foot alerted me to his growing proximity, and before I was even close to being ready for this talk, the warmth and tension of his body made contact with my back. I turned and glanced at him over my shoulder, hesitation clear in his eyes. I didn’t know if he was hesitant to start this or hesitant to reach out to me. I didn’t know if I would have accepted that touch from him, if I could have accepted it. I did know that in no way did I deserve his touch or comfort.
“Ros. Fuck, I still don’t know what to say. I’m sorry. I’ll never stop being sorry.” He thrust his hands in his hair, leaving it in disarray before dragging his hands down his face.
“Dan. Just stop. I… I…” And there I stopped.
I turned away from him and looked out over the water again. It was breaking me that I was about to cause him even more pain than he was feeling now. Pain he’d rightfully earned and deserved, but it would never sit well with me to see him hurting, no matter the cause.
“Ros, just tell me what you’re thinking. Ask me whatever you want and I’ll answer it. If you need more space, I’ll give it to you. Whatever you need, just tell me. I just don’t want you to walk away from us. I know I fucked up, but we can fix this. Please tell me you want to fix this.”
Now.
Now was the time to tell him, to lay it all out there. I turned around again and took him in, searched for the love I’d always assumed would be evident in his face, his gaze when he looked at me. There was every chance in the world that this would be the last time I would see him look at me like this, even if it was all dampened by the turmoil roiling around him.
“Before you say anything else, I have something to say, and I need to get this out before you say anything.” I paused and he nodded his head as his body stiffened, his attempt to steel himself for what I was going to say.
So I loaded that gun, I cocked it, and I pulled the fucking trigger.
“I fucked up too, Dan. I—I cheated too.”
My words rang out, cutting through the sound of the water lapping at the shore, and I saw the moment they hit their target. He stumbled back and gripped his mouth in agony and disgust. He turned in circles, both hands gripping the back of his neck. I just stood and waited. Waited for his judgment, his pain, his hate. I deserved it all. More than he did.
Because though he’d fucked another woman, I’d given my heart to someone else. And of the two sins, mine was definitely the worst.
Thirty-Three
“Archer,” I called, standing out on the balcony. My arms, encased in a thick sweater, were wrapped around my stomach.
It had only been a day since I’d last laid eyes on him, since everything in our lives had imploded, but it seemed like even longer. Dan had come back to the house last night, though he was staying in one of the guest rooms. Archer had to be aware of all the tension going on in this house, though I wasn’t sure if he was still around or was just pretending to be gone. I hadn’t felt his presence in any of the ways I was used to in the last day, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried.
I walked over to the balcony railing and leaned on it, looking out into the water. This would be the first time I’d tried talking to him or seeing him during the day, and I wasn’t even sure he would show up at all, if he were able to. For all this time that we’d known each other, for all the years and years he’d been a ghost, we both still had almost no clue how it all worked. I continued to wait until I sensed his presence behind me, until I smelled that scent of his I loved so much, the one that now smelled like home to me.
“I’m here, Rosalind,” he replied, heartbreak written across his face, etched deeply in his eyes. I wondered what he had overheard in the last day, and the pain I was causing him shattered another piece of me.
“I wasn’t sure if you were still around or if you would even come.”
“I stayed out of the house to give you space, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave altogether. I’ve been here, but at a distance, in case you changed your mind.” The undeniable hint of hope rang out in his voice, and it broke my heart even more, especially knowing what I’d come to say.
“How, Archer? How did you do it? And why did you do it?”
I couldn’t mask the edge of accusation in my voice, even though I know he wasn’t solely at fault. He flinched as though I had struck him and I could see the buildup of what looked like unshed tears in his eyes. My question needed no further clarification.
“I don’t have an explanation. I don’t know how, you already know that. I know there is no excuse for what I let happen. After you told me you would be leaving and wanted me to give you space until then… You never wanted to see me again…”
He paused, dragging his hand over his face roughly. “In that moment, I’d thought I lost everything. When I woke up next to you, for lack of a better word, it was like a gift. I needed to see if you wanted this too, wanted us. If you did, I wanted to feel you, to share that moment of love and intimacy with you at least once. I’m sorry… No. If I’m honest, I’m not sorry. I wish I were, for your sake, but I can’t be sorry about what we shared. I’ll never regret it.”
I had no idea what to say after, and I a
lmost forgot why I came out here to talk to him in the first place. I dropped down onto the outdoor sofa and leaned over, resting my elbows on my knees, putting my head in my hands. I wanted to scream, to cry, to relive the last almost year of my life.
Archer came closer. His warm comfort washed over me when he placed his hand on my shoulder, gripping me tightly. It was like our time together continued to change him, empower him. As much as I wanted to feel the comfort of his presence, I shook him off, knowing it would lead to nothing good and wouldn’t change what I came here to say and do.
“Did you do it for revenge? Because you were pissed at Dan for admitting what he had done?” I asked, hearing the desperation in my voice.
I didn’t know why I needed answers from him, why I was so intent on trying to place the blame on him as though it would ever alleviate my guilt. I was just as guilty.
“Ros, no. You know me better than that. I love you, Rosalind. I love you with every fiber of my being. I will always love you until I cease to exist in any way. I did it without considering the ramifications it would have on you, on us.”
He turned away from me, gripping his hair before running his hand through the rest of his hair. He was right. I’d known the minute the question had left my mouth revenge had nothing to do with this just as it had nothing to do with why I’d gone along with it.
“God, I’m so sorry, Archer. This isn’t your fault. I’m to blame. I wanted it just as much as you did and I said yes. I asked you to stay… and I want you to know that it wasn’t revenge for me either. I just… I just need you to know that.”
We sat there in silence, the tension building between us. Finally, I looked up, staring at his back, rigid with the emotion of what we both knew was going to be goodbye. My throat ached with the weight of holding back all the words I needed to say, words I didn’t want to speak.
Archer had turned to face me, but his body was no less rigid, and his hands were now balled up into fists, as though he needed to do it to keep himself from trying to touch me. We were only a few feet apart, but he felt miles away from me in that moment. He opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off before he had a chance to get one word out.
“This isn’t even what I came here to say. Archer, I’ll be leaving in a week. For good. Dan and I are going back home to California.”
“What? Are you serious, Ros? What about what happened? What he did?”
As he said the words, my mind went back to what had happened yesterday.
“I fucked up too, Dan. I—I cheated too.”
He stumbled back and gripped his mouth in agony and disgust. He turned in circles, both hands gripping the back of his neck. The wait for whatever he would say in response felt like an eternity.
“What the fuck, Ros? You’re fucking with me right now, right? You’re just trying to show me how you feel. Tell me that’s what that is.” His voice shook with rage and disbelief and it scared me more than anything else. Any hope I had that we could move past this died.
“No, I’m telling the truth. And I’m sorry, Dan. I’m so sorry.” My voice broke on the last word and then the tears came.
“Fuck! When? Who? C’mon and tell me, Ros. I want to hear this. How long has it been going on? What fucking right did you have to kick me out last night when you were hiding this shit from me? When you had secrets of your own?”
Dan screamed, raged at me. He threw his arms out in a “come at me” gesture, but he never came any closer. My presence was repellent to him in that moment, and when my gaze finally met his, when he looked at me with hurt mixed up with loathing, I knew it likely wouldn’t change anytime soon.
“Dan, you don’t want the details just like I don’t want the details about you and Kelly. It happened once. Only once. It won’t ever happen again, I promise. I just need to know where we go from here.” The lies tasted terrible in my mouth, but it was all over, and I didn’t believe that being completely truthful helped anyone.
“I can’t do this, Ros. I can’t even stand to look at you right now.” His voice was an eerie, scary calm. Without a second look, he turned and walked off the beach and away from me.
He came back to the house later that night, broken and exhausted. I knew I had to have looked the same way when he flinched at the sight of me. The one thing I was surprised to see was the regret and apology written all over him. I knew those emotions had to be all over me as well. He sat down on the coffee table across from me, resting his arms on his thighs, and looked up at me.
“Ros, we both fucked up. I don’t know how the fuck we got here, I don’t know how we could even get past this… Fuck, I don’t know anything right now. But I know I want to try. I want to leave this fucking island, I want to go back to our home and I want to try to fix us. Do you think that’s even possible?” he asked when his eyes finally met mine.
“Ros. Rosalind!” Archer’s voice, louder than normal, broke through my thoughts. “Are you all right?” he asked, stepping closer.
“Yeah. No. No, I’m not okay. Nothing is okay right now. I told Dan yesterday what happened between us, Archer. I told him that I slept with you.”
I paused then, needing a break, not knowing what else to say. I gripped my arms even tighter around my body, trying to contain all of the emotions that wanted to spill out of me, my body taut and rigid with the effort.
“What did you tell him? He knows and you’re still leaving with him?”
Archer’s face was pale with shock, his body as tight and stock-still as mine. I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration. This was so much harder than I’d expected. I just needed to say it and get it over with. There was no way to sugarcoat the truth, and he deserved nothing less than it.
“I just told him I slept with someone else. I couldn’t give him the details. He would never understand, he—”
“You didn’t tell him that you love me? That it was more than just the act?”
“No.” A single, whispered word that held my apology and shame over hiding the full truth from Dan. “Dan and I talked last night. We decided to try to work through this, to fix everything that’s broken. I owe that to him.”
The words were out, and while I wanted to feel some sense of relief, instead my chest ached with a crushing sadness. Archer bent over with a gasp, my decision a blow to him.
Before I processed his movement, he was right beside me. His thumbs whispered against the skin under my eyes. I almost questioned what he was doing before I realized I had been crying and he was wiping away my tears. He was devastated but was still trying to take care of me, comfort me.
“Ros, I want to ask you to stay. I’d beg if I thought it would work, and I’ve never begged anyone for anything before. I wish I had the answers to make this all better. I wish I knew a way for us to be together. Though it would kill me if I were still alive, I know I have to let you go,” he whispered, holding my face in his hands.
His grasp tightened, and when I looked at him, his body looked just as real and present as it had that night. I turned my face into his hand, kissing his palm. The faint intake of his breath resounded in my ears, a barely audible gasp, wholly unnecessary, but there all the same.
He wrapped his hand around the back of my neck and pulled me closer, so close our lips were only a breath apart. I looked up from his lips into his green eyes, and I cried.
I tried to calm myself so I could memorize his beautiful face, every contour and line. So I could remember the exact shade of green of his eyes in this moment. I wanted to remember the look of love, passion, desire, and loss all so plainly evident in his eyes, each emotion warring with the other. He closed the distance between us and crashed his lips against mine.
I deepened the kiss without hesitation. I knew I should have stopped, that it was wrong, but I also knew this was the last kiss we would ever share. The damage had been done weeks ago, one last kiss wasn’t going to make it worse.
So I enjoyed that kiss.
When Archer ran his tongue along the seam of m
y lips, I moaned, opening myself up to his invasion. I ran my tongue along his, returning the kiss, savoring it. As our tongues tangled, he groaned into my mouth. Heat pulsed between my thighs and I knew my underwear was soaked. I leaned my body against his, dying for the contact.
I reached up and ran my hand through his thick, soft hair, shocked I could do so, that I could feel the strands, that I could feel his hard, solid body move against mine. Soon I was backed up against the house, my body caged in by his, the evidence of his desire rubbing against me, the only thing separating us the thin material of my leggings and the thickness of his pants. He reached down, gripping under my thighs and lifting, and I answered by wrapping my legs around his waist, grinding against his hardness, seeking the friction his body was providing.
“Rosalind,” he whispered in an agonized voice full of lust.
Hearing his voice worked like a bucket of ice water. I pushed against his chest, and he looked into my eyes. The moment he recognized I wanted space something changed in him, a resigned acceptance clouded over the lust raging in his gaze just moments before. He released my thighs, gently putting me down.
He didn’t move back more than a step though. His arms still caged me in, his forehead dropped to mine, and we stood there gasping, chests heaving, trying to calm our raging bodies down. I would have gone there again with him, given in to what we so desperately wanted.
His growing strength, the change in the things he was able to do, and the love and connection that tied us together were all the reasons why I needed to say goodbye and walk away now. There was no future in this, no future with a ghost. How could there be?
Through the Mist Page 21