Her presence didn’t make it difficult for me to proceed along my previously calculated path of slow steps, soft talk, and winning her heart; it seemed to have made it impossible. I was now under what I would personally describe as a full-scale attack, and she was providing minimal resistance to my approach.
I couldn’t accept that I had simply been shot, hospitalized, and was now in recovery; my beliefs were more complex. Convinced I had been shot, died, and was now resurrected, I viewed life, my existence, and Sydney much differently. In clear contrast to my former way of thinking, I no longer felt guilty for my presence on earth.
I was now truly grateful to be alive.
Lying flat on my back, I stared up at the ceiling and spoke. “You know, my parents named me after my grandfather, right?”
“Yes, you told me that,” she responded.
I tilted my head her direction slightly. “Do you know what it means?”
She raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth slightly. After a few seconds of silence, she breathed her response. “No, I guess not.”
“Change. Cambio means change in Italian.” As I finished speaking I shifted my gaze to the ceiling again.
“I didn’t just get shot. I’m going to tell you what I think happened and you can believe me, I don’t know…consider it…or think I’m crazy and go in the other room. I uhhm, but I’m going to tell you anyway,” I said.
“I won’t think your nuts,” she said.
“Hold that thought,” I responded.
“Some people get tossed in prison and they look at whatever it is they’ve done and make a decision to change. They decide if they don’t, they’re going to continue to repeat their behaviors and end up right back in there. That’s what the system hopes for, making the criminal think, and causing them to change into a law abiding citizen as a result. I guess you could call the experience of going to prison, for this particular person, an eye-opener.” I paused and tilted my head her direction.
She blinked her eyes as she nodded her head slightly. To relieve the pain in my shoulder, I shifted my eyes back to the ceiling.
“So I’m sure some people get shot, end up in the hospital, and make a conscious decision to change their life afterward. You know, just like the guy in prison. Make sense so far?” I asked.
“Makes perfect sense,” she responded.
“Okay, well that’s not what happened to me. I got shot, went to the hospital, and at some point in time, I died. I know I did. I was dead, Sydney. And I came back from that place, and now I’m a different person. I didn’t decide this, it just happened. I guess I need to back up, I’m not different, I see life differently. It’s hard to explain.” I shifted my eyes in her direction and waited for a response.
She had moved from resting her head in her hand and looking at me to lying beside me and staring at the ceiling.
“”What was it like, being dead?” she asked in an almost eerie monotone voice.
I stared up at the ceiling and spoke as if recollecting a scene from a movie. “My reply is probably what you’d expect me to say. Strange. Hard to explain. I don’t know, difficult to think about. It seems like a dream, but it wasn’t. I was weightless, but the experience was heavy. I felt like there was weight on me or with me at all times. I wasn’t a ghost or spirit, it was really me.”
“You know I have to ask, where’d you end up in your opinion? Heaven or hell?’ she asked.
“Heaven as far as I’m concerned. I mean it was peaceful. Not chaotic, like I think hell would be; and my grandfather was there, but he wasn’t sick. He was the way he used to be before he got sick, still old, but really full of energy and he seemed to be having fun,” I said.
“Did you talk to him? I mean in the experience?” she asked.
“No, he was out of reach. Just close enough I could see him, but not so close I could touch him. You know.” I paused and tilted my head her direction. “It’s weird. It’s like an entire lifetime of time passed in the 24 hours that I was in the coma. It’s just weird.”
She rolled her head to the side and grinned slightly. “I suppose so.”
“You believe me?” I asked.
“Uh huh, I do,” she said.
“I just don’t want you to think I got shot, ended up scared of dying, and decided to try and become someone I’m not going to be able to be. If anything, I’m not afraid to die, not now. And this wasn’t something I decided. It happened and I’m different.”
“I believe you,” she said as she rested her elbow on the bed and her cheek against her palm.
“So you still going to ride in the club?” she asked.
I shifted my body her direction until the pain reminded me to stop. “Fuck yes, I am. It might have changed me, but it didn’t change me into a twat. Jesus. I guess along with the change, it made me want to live life instead of just existing.”
“I was just asking,” she said with a laugh. “And you weren’t just existing, believe me.”
“Well, whatever I was doing, I’ve decided I want more out of life,” I said as I shifted my gaze to the ceiling.
“Starting when?’ she asked.
“Now. Starting now. I want to kiss you.” As soon as I heard the words escape my lips, I wished they hadn’t.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to kiss her, because I did. Although my mind was obviously ready, I feared I wasn’t. Not yet. Before I had a chance to retract what I had said, apologize, or claim some type of mental incompetence, she sat up on the bed, leaned over me, and pressed her lips softly against mine.
Prior to the kiss, I couldn’t for the life of me recall the last time I actually kissed a woman. As our tongues fought for possession of the space our combined mouths created, I knew one thing for certain.
I’d never forget this kiss.
And I didn’t want it to end.
As the weight of her upper body shifted on top of my chest, she lifted herself by pressing her hands into the bed. Her breasts now lightly brushing against my chest as she straddled my torso, I pulled my lips away for a much needed breath.
As I attempted to focus on her face, I brushed her hair from her face, and over her shoulder.
“I just needed to take a breath. My lung…”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Maybe we should stop,” she sighed.
“No. No, we don’t need to stop, I just needed to…to take a breather. You might want to shift your weight a little lower. Move your hips down on my hips, and keep your little butt off my stomach. It’ll be less painful. You were sitting on me. Just lay on me,” I groaned.
As she shifted her weight and repositioned herself, she lowered her mouth to meet mine. As we began to kiss again, my mind filled with emotions I never knew existed. Feeling as if I wanted to cry, laugh, and scream for joy at the same time, I continued to kiss her eagerly. As I felt her weight against my hips, I realized, much to my surprise, my cock was steadily rising against my very low resistance sweat pants. I felt like I was in high school again.
Well, that’s a first.
Somewhat embarrassed and hoping I could convince it to recede - at least for a while - I attempted to think of anything but Sydney. As she continued to be the aggressor, kissing me passionately, I realized my attempts were not only feeble, but quite unsuccessful. When our lips finally parted for another much needed breath, she lifted her weight from my chest completely.
Now sitting on my upper thighs with her arms dangling at her sides, she gazed into my eyes and grinned.
“We’re together, right?”
Somewhat confused, and still reeling from a whirlwind of emotions, I pressed my elbows into the bed until my shoulders lifted slightly from the comforter. “Say again?”
“You and me? We’re together, right?” she said as she began to fumble nervously with the bottom of her tee shirt.
“Oh, yeah. Absolutely,” I nodded.
“No one else?” she said.
“No. Hell no, I want you to know…”
She leaned forward
and pressed her index finger against my lips. “Shhh. That’s all I needed to know. Lean back.”
She lifted her shirt over her head, unclasped her bra, and tossed both on the floor beside the bed. As my cock continued to test the tensile strength of the cotton fabric of my sweats, I watched as she gripped the waistband and pulled them to my thighs. As my cock popped out of the sweats and stood at full attention, she shifted her eyes from my face to my cock, and back.
“Wow,” she gasped.
“That’s all I’ve got. Wow.” She chuckled as she reached down and gripped the shaft in her hand.
She slid her body along my legs until her boobs were pressing against my knees, and her blonde hair was draped over my hips. I could feel her warm breath against the tip of my pre-cum covered cock as she spoke.
“I’m far from a virgin, and I’m not even going to act like this is the first cock I’ve ever sucked, but I can tell you this.” She paused and licked the tip of my twitching cock.
“If you grab my head and try to force it down my throat, it’ll be the last.” She gripped my cock in her hand tightly and slapped it against her lips as she waited for my response.
Incapable of doing much other than staring, I blinked my eyes, considered speaking, and nodded my head once instead.
“Agreed?” she asked as she slapped it against her lips again.
I moistened my lips, opened my mouth, and listened as the word absolutely puffed from my lungs.
She tossed her hair over her shoulder, licked the pre-cum from the tip, and slowly began to slide her full lips along the swollen shaft. As if witnessing a miracle, I watched as she worked her mouth up and down the shaft half a dozen times.
I attempted to lean forward and reach for her perfectly sculpted breasts. As the pain in my shoulder reminded me of what I’d been through, I fought against it and pressed my elbows into the bed, leaning up into an almost seated position. I slowly slid my hands along my thighs, not wanting to confuse her in any way regarding my intent. As my hands cupped her breasts and my fingers fumbled with her nipples, my breathing immediately changed.
Surprised, sickened by my lack of performance, and beyond embarrassed that I was reaching climax in a matter of seconds, I considered lifting her head away from my cock. Instead, I released her breasts and pressed my hands firmly into the comforter.
As the sound of my heavy breathing filled the room, I closed my eyes and arched my back slightly. In tune completely with where my mind, body, and sexual state of arousal was, Sydney began to stroke and suck my cock simultaneously. I closed my eyes as I felt every muscle in my body constrict. My fingers dug into the comforter as I held my breath, attempting unsuccessfully to prolong the experience.
I opened my eyes and stared as she lifted her mouth from the tip of my throbbing cock, stroked it twice, and smiled a smile of complete and utter satisfaction as she watched a geyser of cum erupt all over my thighs and sweats.
“Holy…”
“Fucking…”
“Shit…” I breathed as I released the comforter from my grasp.
She gazed into my eyes and smiled. “Sorry. I just, uhhm, I wanted to watch you, you know…cum. I wanted to see it, knowing it was me that did that for you.”
“Holy shit.” I said. “Sorry I didn’t last longer. I got kind of excited.”
“Me too,” she said as she leaned over and rolled off the edge of the bed.
As I watched her tip-toe shirtless to the bathroom, realized just how delicate, sweet, and utterly adorable she actually was. It didn’t in any way change my perception of her, or my opinion of who she was or where we were hopefully going. It did, however, cause me to mentally place her in a category where no one else had ever been placed.
As Sydney walked from the bathroom with a washrag, I closed my eyes and allowed her to slowly seep into the void in my heart the war had long since left. As she leaned over the bed and kissed my lips lightly, I felt her continue to fill the vacant space. I opened my eyes and admired her beautiful face as our lips parted. For a lingering moment, she silently hovered over me; gazing into my eyes, and smiling the entire time.
I closed my eyes and grinned.
I had breathed life into Sydney when I saved her from herself at the bank. In turn, she had breathed life into me in the hospital; the day she whispered in my ear. Both of us acted not for reward or recognition, but out of a natural desire to be kind. One we certainly always possessed, but rarely exhibited toward others.
“You know,” she said as she wiped the warm cloth over my hips and thighs. “If you have two broken cars, or two broken toys, you can take the two broken objects and make one working one? Like use the pieces from one to fix the other?”
She paused and held the washcloth in her hand as she waited on my response. Having no idea what point she was trying to make, I smiled and nodded my head.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Well,” she paused and wiped the clean side of the washcloth along my sweats, “As individuals, we’re both broken. I think together, maybe we’ll make a complete, unbroken us.”
“Let’s just take a shower together,” I said as I painfully watched her attempt to clean up the mess I had made.
She carefully climbed off of me and stood on the floor beside the bed.
Knowing I had been broken beyond repair for almost a decade, I considered what she had said, and wondered if there was any validity to her statement. Quite possibly, I decided, jointly we could become a couple who was able to be together what we were incapable of being independently. Combined, it would stand to reason we would be at least twice what we were as individuals.
“It makes sense. You know, what you said a second ago.” I paused and raised my hand to my chin.
“Unbreak me, Sydney,” I said as I stood.
She stopped walking, turned, and looked over her shoulder. After an awkward pause, she smiled.
“Let me,” she said over her shoulder.
As she held her pose and waited for me to respond, I admired her every feature. Slowly, I felt her fill what little void remained; completely.
“I am,” I said.
As simple as it sounded and as complex as it seemed, I knew she was slowly doing just that.
Unbreaking me.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
SYDNEY
Life has never provided me anything without taking something in return. If I ran in an effort to stay in shape, my joints became overworked and eventually turned weak and fragile. If I lay in the sun to obtain a glowing tan, my skin would eventually develop premature wrinkles, and appear worn beyond my years. If I worked excessively to earn money to purchase the finer things life offered, I would miss out on all of the life I could have lived while I was working. There are no free rides, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and with everything comes a price. Life, in my opinion, comes down to whether or not you’re willing to pay for what it is you wish to obtain.
Is the give worth the get?
I had spent my life convinced I had paid in advance for something I had yet to receive. As much as I gave in my early years, and as little as I collected in return, I believed one day life would simply provide me my reward.
I had no idea Cambio Todelli would be my reward.
The smell of fresh coffee woke us both, and after a few minutes of whispering and kissing, we opted to get out of bed. The voices in the other room acted as a reminder that I wasn’t the only one who was here to see Cambio. It appeared at some point in time through the night Otis had shown up as well. Reluctantly I rolled off of the bed, brushed my teeth, and considered brushing my hair and getting dressed. I settled for twisting my hair into a messy bun and wearing sweats.
“I like your hair like that,” he said as I walked out of the bathroom.
“Seriously? Do you know what this is called?” I laughed as I raised my hand to the back of my hair.
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“It’s called a messy bun; because it’s a mess and a
bun at the same time. It’s like a quick fix,” I said.
“Well, I like it; it shows your face and all of your jaw. I like it. You’ve got a good face.” he said.
“Thanks. You’ve got a good face too. I’ll make a personal note to wear my hair up as much as possible,” I said as I reached for the door and waited for his approval to open it.
He stood silently and gazed at me blankly. After a long moment, he grinned.
“You know, I want to take you to see my grandfather. Not him, you know, his grave. It’ll have to be after I get a little better, it’s a long ride.”
“Oh wow. I’d love that. Where is he buried?” I asked.
“Philadelphia,” he responded.
“I though you went to see him all the time? You ride to Philly to see him?” I asked, shocked at the distance he was traveling to go to the gravesite.
“Yeah, it’s about 2,700 miles round trip. My folks live up there too. Maybe we’ll stop and see them. It’ll be a nice trip. I haven’t seen them in a bit, but maybe we’ll talk about that later,” he said as he slowly approached.
No differently than any other woman, I wanted definition to our relationship. In some respects feeling as if I had thrust myself into something I hadn’t prepared for, I wondered if he was as devoted as I was to what it was we were doing. His actions as well as his words were proving he was as invested in this as I was. I stood, holding the door handle, and simply grinned at the thought of going to Philadelphia with him.
“I’m ready if you are,” he said.
I turned toward the door and pulled against the handle. As soon as I pulled the door open, I immediately jumped back. Startled by the fact Otis stood directly in front of the door, I screeched.
“Oh my God!” I shouted.
“Holy shit! You scared me to death,” I said.
“Morning, Syd,” Otis said.
“What the fuck you doing, Brother Otis? Standing there with your ear against the door? Hell, we’re brothers, I’m not keeping secrets in here. You wanna know something, just ask,” Cambio said as he ducked under my arm and walked past.
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