Indelible

by Shae Scott

  “Maybe we’ll luck out,” he said.

  We walked in silence for a bit, hand in hand, before Owen broke the silence.

  “I like having you here,” he said. “It makes it feel complete.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I chose not to say anything. He squeezed my hand, as if to say that it was okay that I didn’t. I heard a rumble of thunder in the distance as the breeze picked up speed. The quiet between us settled around us. It felt intimate, this quiet walk back from our special place and up to the big house that he’d bought because of it. Our memories were wrapped up in this place. And a little bit of our hopes for the future too.

  “Hey, Kat?” he said breaking the silence. His voice sounded cautious, as if he were already questioning what he had to say.

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  “Have you forgiven me?” he asked quietly.

  I stopped. Where had this question come from? And more importantly, how did I answer it? Had I forgiven him? And if I hadn’t, why was I here? These were the questions I hadn’t even asked myself.

  He noticed my abrupt halt when our hands broke apart. He turned to face me, quietly expectant. I still didn’t say anything.

  “It’s just, we’ve been spending a lot of time together, and I love it. But, I guess I just need to know if you’ve forgiven me for everything.” I could tell that while he may have needed the answer to that question, he hadn’t necessarily wanted to ask it.

  “Owen, I -” I still didn’t know how to finish my sentence.

  “I just need to know. I can’t stop thinking about it. I keep trying to play by your rules and not talk about that night and not explain it. But I feel like we can never really move forward until we do. And I want to move forward with you,” he admitted.

  I had to close my eyes; his gaze was too intense for me to take. I didn’t want to talk about this. It would ruin our night and I just wanted to enjoy the evening. Why couldn’t he understand that going back wasn’t going to help?

  “Can’t we just let it go?” I begged.

  “No. I have things that I need to say. Things that I think you need to hear. I know you think that we can just forget it and start over, but it doesn’t work that way. It will always be there until we deal with it.”

  I shook my head, frustrated. “I don’t agree.”

  “Please?” he asked.

  I couldn’t do this. Had this been his entire plan for the night? To corner me and make me hear his side of the story? I didn’t want to hear it. Couldn’t he understand that? I was too afraid of what that conversation would do. I didn’t feel strong enough to hear it. My heart still felt too fragile, especially when it was going against hope to try and rebuild something between the two of us. Bringing up that pain would make me hate him all over again. It would crush me once more.

  I didn’t have to stay here. I needed to leave. I didn’t want to have this conversation, but no matter how many times I begged him to just let it go, he still pushed. “It’s going to rain. I should get going.” I brushed past him and headed up the hill towards the house. I heard the frustrated groan from behind me, but I didn’t turn back.

  “Fuck, Ally, I need you to listen to me. I’m not giving up until you hear me out,” he said. I felt his hand on my arm as he stopped my retreat and forced me to look at him. “We need to talk about that night. I know you don’t want to, but you have to know what happened. We can’t keep hiding from it,” he said. I covered my ears like a child. He pulled my hands away, frustrated. “I’m serious, Ally. We need to have this conversation. No more running.”

  I glared at him. “I’m not running. I just don’t want to revisit that night. What’s the point? It was the hardest night of my life and you rehashing it isn’t going to make us better today. Can’t we just let it go and move on?” I begged.

  “No. Because none of what I said that night was true. How can you not see that? I lied. I lied to you that night. Did I want to hurt you? Yes. But I did it because I was trying to protect you,” he said.

  There it was. The small hope I’d held on to, the fantasy that he hadn’t meant those words. This was the hope that had allowed me to get this close to him again. But now that the words were out there I didn’t feel relieved like I’d thought I would.

  “Protect me?” I choked out a laugh at the question. “Protect me from what?”

  “To protect you from me!” he said, so loud that it rumbled along with the thunder, erupting out in a rush as if it had been waiting just beneath the surface for far too long.

  I took a step back and stared at him, feeling confused. “I don’t understand.”

  “I was hurting you. I saw it when I showed up that night. I couldn’t do it anymore. When I saw what I was doing to you I knew I’d never be good enough. I knew I’d never live up to your expectations or what you deserved. So I decided to lie. It felt like the only way.”

  “You lied? To protect me?” I asked incredulously.

  “Yes.”

  “Wow. How noble of you. Is that supposed to make everything better?”

  He sighed, “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  “By protecting me? Funny, it didn’t make me feel protected. It made me shut down and doubt everything around me. It made me question everything. You didn’t protect me, you destroyed me,” I bit out. I was angry now. How dare he try to take it all back? How dare he try to say he did it with good intentions? That didn’t matter. It made it worse.

  “I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention. I thought if you hated me you could move on and be happy,” he said.

  “You stood in front of me and told me that you’d never loved me!!! You told me that I was just a good fuck that you had to get out of your system. You thought that would make me happy? You’re an asshole. You were then and you are now,” I yelled.

  He flinched.

  “I know what I said. It was wrong. I never meant any of it.” His voice was even. He was letting me yell and the fact that he was keeping his calm was making me all the more furious.

  “I have lived those words every day since you left. They are permanent scars on my heart. So you don’t get to stand there and tell me they were for my own good, that they were said to protect me. That’s bullshit. Those words changed me. If you think that you can take them back and get that same girl back then you’re dead wrong. She doesn’t exist anymore. You broke her. With your good intentions.”

  I was a mess of emotions. I was so angry at him for thinking he had the right to manipulate me for my own good, especially when it was so heartless and cruel. He thought he was doing me a favor? All he had done was crush me. I had spent months feeling lost and incomplete. Living like a fool. Did he think I could forget that? It was part of me now. I would carry the scars with me for the rest of my life. Dramatic or not, it was my truth.

  “I can see that it was wrong now. I know that I messed up. Again. But you have to believe me when I say I thought I was doing right by you. I was trying to give you a chance at something you deserved. Something I didn’t think I could be,” he said.

  “You are so arrogant. To stand there and think that you know what I need or what’s best for me. Did you pat yourself on the back because you’d done this big selfless thing? Should I thank you for looking out for me?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said.

  “You know what? It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if it was a lie or the truth or some version of the two. Because I still felt every single word. You can’t take any of that back. It changed me and you can’t erase it now,” I said.

  “I know. I know it doesn’t change anything. God knows if I could go back and fix it I would. But I still need you to know the truth. It kills me to know that you believed me when I said I didn’t love you, because I have never loved anyone else. You are it for me. You always have been. I just need you to know that. Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I don’t care anymore. Hate me if you need to, I get it, but just know that I loved you. I do love y
ou. I would do anything, I would walk through fire to make you happy,” he said. His words were earnest. I heard the truth in them, but it didn’t change my need to hurt him the way he’d hurt me.

  “Like walk away?” I asked, my gaze locked on his. “Would you walk away now if you knew it would make me happy? Like you did before?” I wasn’t sure what I wanted his answer to be.

  “Would it? Would it make you happy if I left you alone and we never saw each other again?”

  I wanted to tell him yes. The word was right there on my lips. But what if he took me at my word? Could I stand to watch him leave again, even if it was what was best for me?

  “I don’t think it would. I think you feel this just as powerfully as you did before. I don’t think either of us can walk away from it. You are part of me. I am part of you. Good or bad. We can keep trying to mess it up, we can keep trying to push it away, but at the end of the day, we belong to each other. We’re better together than we are apart. I need you, Ally. I think you need me too, even if you don’t want to.”

  I wanted to hate this man. I really did. I wanted to hate him for all of the pain he’d caused me. I wanted to hate him for all of the good things too. Because the good things made it impossible for me to let him go. I hated that I wanted to give into him.

  “If I give in it makes me a fool,” I admitted quietly.

  He took a step towards me and placed his hands on my shoulders, pulling me towards him. “Look at me,” he demanded. I did, my eyes stinging with frustrated, helpless tears. “This is about you and me. Not the rest of the world. I have a lot to prove. Let me prove it. Let me prove it to you. You are the only one that matters. Let me fight for you. Just give me a chance to fight for us. Don’t shut me out. Let me make you happy…the way I should have before. Just let me try.”

  There was a desperation in his eyes and I felt it weaken what little resolve I had been holding on to. But I couldn’t make this decision when I was feeling so wound up. I wouldn’t do it in this heightened state of emotion, with his hands on me and fire in his eyes. I needed to think I needed to sort this whole messy situation out in my head. I needed to make a list.

  “I don’t know. I need to think,” I admitted.

  “Stop over-thinking. Just feel this. Feel me. This is what’s real. It’s not about what makes sense on paper or what you think you should do. Don’t shut down on me. Don’t close up on me again. Just feel,” he begged.

  My voice came out soft and quiet, the words spoken without permission. “I’m scared.”

  He let out a breath and pulled me to his chest, his hands tangled in my hair as he buried his face against my neck. ‘I know, baby. I know. Just try. I just want us to really try, with everything out on the table. No secrets.” I heard the crack in his voice as he choked on emotion. It pushed away all of my defenses and I wrapped my arms around him. It caused him to cling to me tighter. “I love you,” he murmured and I had to close my eyes against the tears. I was so confused. I was tired of fighting myself. Tired of the war between head and heart. I couldn’t do it anymore. I no longer knew who to root for.

  We stayed there, in that embrace for a few long moments. The air whipping around us, blowing my hair wildly. It matched my feelings perfectly. Unsettled and chaotic. There were so many feelings coursing through me that I couldn’t find the dominant one.

  “Stay here with me. Don’t leave yet,” he said softly.

  I didn’t answer him. I didn’t move to leave or agree to stay. I just couldn’t decide. On any of it. I wanted him to be the right choice for me, but that didn’t mean he was. But what if I was pushing away the one thing that I needed because I was being stubborn? What if he had changed and we could make it? What if I gave up the last piece of myself to him and he left me again? There was no way of knowing and I just didn’t know if I had the strength to risk it.

  I felt the cold rain begin to fall, but neither of us moved, wrapped in this embrace where we could pause everything and not have to make hard decisions. I shut my eyes and tried to focus. Could I just follow my heart? Did I trust it to lead me in the right direction? Was I brave enough to go there again? I didn’t know. I wasn’t ready to say yes, but I also wasn’t ready to walk away.

  I pulled back enough to look at him. His eyes focused on mine and I could see so much emotion there. And it hit me how different he really was now. He was letting it in. He was embracing all of the emotion that he’d shut out for so long. He was me. Before it had been me trying to pull him back from that fear of feeling. I’d been the one trying to knock down the walls. Now, the tables had turned and it was bazaar.

  “I’m trying,” I said softly, as he ran his fingers across my face wiping the drops of rain that steadily fell around us.

  “Baby, that’s all I want. I just want to try. I want us to try to find our way back,” he said.

  “I’m still so mad at you,” I admitted.

  “I know.”

  “But I still love you too.” The words came out just above a whisper and I wasn’t sure if he could hear me over the wind and the rain, but his eyes lit up like I’d just given him the best gift in the world and he pulled me to him. His mouth covered mine instantly in a deep kiss that left me no choice but to melt into him. No choice but to give in, at least for this moment to what my heart was screaming out for.

  His mouth moved against mine, frenzied and needy. He pulled me close against him and I swear I could feel his heart beating against his chest. Or maybe it was my own. Either way, I stopped thinking and kissed him back.

  The rain was coming down hard, but neither of us seemed to notice. His mouth was so warm and soft against my own that I was oblivious to the cold sheets of water assaulting us. I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer to me. Sometimes, you just can’t fight what you want. Sometimes, the heart just wins out.

  His hands were in my hair, holding me in place as he kissed me deeper, his tongue exploring every corner of my mouth. I was thankful the rain drowned out the sound of my whimper as he bit my lip, giving it a tug. The pull went straight to my core which was awake and yearning for every touch he would give me. My body craved him, missed him and wasn’t willing to stop whatever was happening here.

  When we pulled apart we were both breathing heavily. He rested his forehead against mine, droplets of water running from his skin to mine. We were drenched, but clung together as if afraid to break this strange spell that held us.

  “We should go inside. You’ll be sick again,” he said softly. I could barely hear him over the pounding rain. My hands moved up and down his chest, not wanting to move away from him.

  Thunder cracked overhead and I knew it was probably safer to move this inside. But honestly, my mind was full of fantasies of him taking me out here in the rain. There was something sexy about the rain and the way it covered us, making our skin slick. I was surprised there wasn’t steam coming off of us. My skin was so hot, even as the cold water drenched me.

  I managed a nod, knowing I needed to reel it in. I was getting lost again. My guard was non existent. He leaned in and kissed me again. I grabbed his shirt and fisted it in my hands. I wanted to take it off of him. He cooled my fire, kissing the top of my head before stepping back, taking my hand, and leading me inside. He always had way more control than I did.

  “I put your clothes in the dryer,” Owen said. He had changed, into a t-shirt and some dark gray lounge pants. His hair was still damp and going in every direction, probably from being towel dried. He looked so good and I bit my lip nervously. There was something about seeing him like this that pulled at the familiarity we’d always had. He was comfortable and at home and that was always my favorite look on him.

  “Thanks,” I managed, my voice coming out a little raspy. I was still lost in the memory of the kiss outside. I hadn’t wanted to stop. If he hadn’t stopped us I know we’d be lost somewhere among his sheets right now and the thought made me shift uncomfortably as I was feeling far from satisfied. My body was screaming at m
e to give in, to make him give in.

  I tugged at the t-shirt he’d given me, trying to cover the boxers I was wearing. I felt vulnerable, more so because he had stopped us from going further. I couldn’t blame him. The last time we’d given in I’d snuck out of his house in the middle of the night. I should be thankful that he had more control than I did. Our conversation outside had been heavy and I still needed to process what it all meant. It was probably smart of him to push the pause button. That didn’t mean my body had cooled enough for me to appreciate his levelheaded decision.

  “You can sit. It will be awhile before your stuff is dry.” He gave me a smirk and motioned to the couch. I took a deep breath and sat folding myself into the corner of the cushions, pulling my knees to me and wrapping my arms around them as if that could provide some protection should he change his mind. Although, let’s be honest, if he changed his mind and made a move I wasn’t going to put up much of a fight.

  Owen took a seat beside me and smirked at me. “Are you hiding from me?” he asked.

  “I’m sitting on the same couch as you,” I countered,

  “Right,” he laughed.

  “I don’t trust myself around you. Especially when you are wearing that and looking all scruffy.” I hadn’t meant to say all of that.

  He quirked up an eyebrow and studied me. “Wearing this?” He seemed baffled.

  I shrugged. He wasn’t going to get me to elaborate.

  I held my breath as he moved a little closer. I swear the air between us evaporated. “I like what you are wearing too. I’ve always loved seeing you in my clothes. It does something to me. Makes me feel like a caveman,” he smiled.

  “Stop,” I warned as he closed in even more. It was making my skin flush. Our kiss was still too fresh in my mind.

  “Stop what?” he asked.

  “You know what. Don’t come any closer,” I warned. If he expected me to go along with the responsible path he needed to give me room to breathe, because when he was this close I couldn’t think clearly.