This Is Love

by Ivy Smoak

  "Penny? Say something."

  "All this talk about forever..."

  "I mean it."

  "But what happens when you get bored with me? Will you go off chasing your next high?"

  "No." He lowered his eyebrows. "I'm not addicted to you. It's different with you, it's not the same."

  "How do you know?"

  "I was trying to avoid my life. I was miserable. Every day I felt like I was suffocating. I needed an escape. But I'm happy now."

  "Because of me? Or because of teaching? Or what?"

  "It was my decision to come here."

  "Because you walked in on Isabella..."

  "Yes. But I came here for me. I'm living the way I want to live. I'm not answering to anyone else. I don't need an escape anymore."

  "Isabella said you needed to get help."

  "I've gotten help."

  "So you're not addicted to drugs, or alcohol, or work, or...sex anymore?"

  "No. I haven't been addicted to anything since I left the city. I was living a life that wasn't mine there. I was numb. Those things made me feel alive. They sustained me. They were a choice I could make for myself."

  "So you chose to do them? That doesn't make you an addict, James. If you had control over your choices..."

  "I couldn't stop, Penny. Whenever I was able to pull myself out of one thing, I just moved on to the next." His words hung in the air. "Don't look at me like that. I'm not addicted to you. I'm not going to move on. I need you in my life. I need you, Penny."

  He needs me. All of his words now seemed to have a double meaning. But didn't I need him too? When he didn't talk to me for weeks I was a complete mess. My world had become isolated and cold. And I had hated it. I hated my life without him.

  "Penny, I've made so many mistakes. But I was young and stupid."

  "You're still young."

  "Okay. But I'm not stupid anymore." He gave me a forced smile.

  "Addicts are like...it's not something that goes away, is it?"

  "No, it's not."

  "So, how do you control it?" I felt stupid asking these questions. The age gap between us suddenly felt larger than before. He was an adult, with adult problems. All I was worried about was my next Stat test. And now him.

  He lowered his eyebrows slightly. "My therapist helps me with that."

  "You have a therapist?"

  "I do." His eyes searched my face. "He doesn't think I'm addicted to you either."

  "You talk about me?"

  "Yes."

  "He knows that you're dating a student?"

  "Doctor patient confidentiality. He did advise me against it. I think he's glad that I ignored his advice though."

  "Why?"

  "I'm happier when we're together. Everyone can see that."

  It was weird, standing in the rain so far apart. It made me feel so separate from him. I didn't like that feeling. "Why didn't you just tell me?"

  "Because I liked the way you looked at me. Like I was strong and in control. It made me feel like I could be those things for you. I thought everyone could see my demons when they looked in my eyes. You never did. You just saw me. I didn't want that to change."

  "I don't think any differently of you." His words made me want to cry. I didn't have much self confidence. I thought he was the opposite of me. But we were more alike than I thought. He was so broken. I didn't want him to feel that way.

  "You do. You're looking at me right now like I'm weak."

  "I don't think that you're weak. You're incredibly strong for overcoming something like that."

  He put his hands in his pockets. We were both completely drenched. He was staring at me. The distance between us was unbearable.

  "I don't want you to leave me," he said slowly. "But if this is too much..."

  "No. James." I closed the distance between us. "I'll never let you go."

  "I'm not addicted to you."

  "You keep saying that. And all I can think about is how rude it sounds." I smiled at him.

  "I don't understand how you can keep choosing me. I'm..."

  "Perfect. Everything that you've been through has made you who you are. And I love the man I see in front of me. I love you so much."

  It started raining harder. "I'm divorced." He almost had to yell it over the rain.

  "I know."

  "No more of this waiting nonsense?"

  "No. My heart is yours."

  He was smiling down at me. "I'm divorced!" He picked me up and twirled me around.

  I laughed as he set me back down on my feet. I rubbed my palm against the scruff on his cheek. "You're all mine."

  "All yours, Miss Taylor." He turned his head and kissed my palm.

  Miss Taylor. That wasn’t my name anymore. That wasn’t me. I was Mrs. James Hunter. And I couldn’t live without the man in front of me. I couldn’t breathe without him either.

  “My heart is yours,” I mumbled into his chest. “Forever and always. It’s yours, James.”

  He held me even tighter, if that was possible.

  I wasn’t the same vulnerable girl from my memories. I was strong. I was whole. I was a wife. And a mother. All the memories came to a halt. “Liam.” My voice came out like a croak as I pulled away from James’ embrace. “We have to go to Liam.” I remembered him. I remembered him kicking me constantly. And I remembered knowing he’d be a little boy. I knew it. And now he was here and he hadn’t really met me. The real me.

  “You’re soaked,” James' mother said. “Come inside. I’ll have Helga dry your clothes. And then we can all go see him together, okay?”

  It felt like I was running out of time. Like I needed to see him right this second. As if there was a clock ticking down in my head approaching zero. “No, I need to see my son. He doesn’t know…he doesn’t know how much…”

  James grabbed both sides of my face. “How much you love him? He knows, baby. Take a deep breath for me. My mother is right. We’ve both just been through surgery. We can’t afford to get sick on top of everything else. Liam needs us to be strong right now.”

  Surgery. Surgery. The words echoed around in my head. “James.” I placed my hand on the left side of his chest. God, James. I could feel his heart beating through his shirt. “James.” My voice cracked.

  “Let’s get in out of the rain.”

  My dreamlike state returned as he guided me into the house. His mom started talking and pointing but I didn’t hear anything she said. But I did register the fact that she smiled at me. I had never seen her smile at me before. Right?

  James and I walked into a guest bedroom. I had a million things I needed to tell him. He didn’t know about Dr. Nelson. He didn’t know what pieces of us I remembered. I had apologized, but he didn’t really know how sorry I was. How could I put it into words? How could I ever apologize enough?

  “Penny?”

  He pulled me out of my thoughts. The way he was staring at me made it seem like I had missed something. Like he had been trying to get my attention for some time. He was staring at me expectantly. I didn’t want to miss any more moments. I had already missed so much. I wanted to apologize again. I wanted him to hold me again. Kiss me again. But there was a distance between us. I thought we had just closed it. But in this cold, unfamiliar room? I felt it. Like there was a crack in the ground separating us.

  “Hop in the shower to warm up. We can talk afterward. If you want,” he quickly added. “It’s fine if you don’t want to.” He gave me a small smile that for some reason looked sad.

  What had I missed? What had he been trying to ask me?

  “Leave your clothes out here so I can give them to my mom’s maid,” he said before I could ask. “I’ll go grab you a towel. And just…let me know when you’re done, okay? There’s another shower down the hall that I’m going to use real quick.”

  I remembered showering with him. I remembered doing that a lot. But we weren’t alone. We were at his estranged mother’s house. And she and Rob were both waiting for us. This wasn
’t the time or place for us to reconnect. But I so badly wanted to reach for him. My body didn’t move though. And my throat didn’t seem to be able to work. So I just nodded. My apology from earlier definitely wasn’t enough. How could it have been? I almost ruined us. And I felt the distance between us reverberating through my soul.

  I turned away from him. We weren’t okay. Would we ever be okay again? Tears welled in my eyes as I closed the bathroom door behind me. I waited for the water to run scalding hot before I stepped under its stream. It should have burned my skin, but I barely felt it.

  It was like the steam was choking me. Like it was everything I had done in the past week trying to push me down. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I couldn’t breathe. What had I done? What a fucking mess I had made. “I’m sorry.” My knees buckled and I fell to the tiled floor of the shower. “I’m sorry.” My son was alone in a hospital fighting for his life when I didn’t remember him. “I’m sorry.” My daughter tried to accept the imposter that I was, but missed her actual mother. “I’m sorry.” And James? James. I tried to leave him. I tried to dismiss the life we had built together. I broke us. “I’m sorry.”

  I heard the bathroom door squeak open and swallowed a huge gulp of air even though it didn’t seem to fill my lungs.

  “I have the towels.” James’ voice was quiet through the steam and the sound of the water.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled to the floor. I wanted him to be able to hear me, but I was out of strength. My whisper disappeared into the steam.

  “Penny?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again.

  The shower door opened but I kept staring at the tiled floor.

  “Jesus.” His hands were on me in a matter of seconds, trying to help me back to my feet, but I resisted his help.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “Baby, it’s okay,” he said in the voice he used for Scarlett. Like I was just some innocent child that had done nothing wrong. But that wasn’t true. I had done everything wrong.

  “None of this okay!” I couldn’t breathe. “I broke us. I broke us.”

  “You didn’t break us. I’m right here.” His hands gripped my shoulders. “You came back to me. That’s all that matters.”

  “But I tried so hard to push you away.”

  “And failed. You failed. I’ve never wanted you to fail in anything you do except this. You failed at this one thing, and I’m so grateful. Penny, look at me.”

  I couldn’t look up at him. “How could you possibly keep loving me despite how awful I was?”

  “Because that wasn’t you. You weren’t you. It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay! I was awful! I tried to leave. I…” I was choking on my words. “I wanted to leave everything behind. I wanted to leave you. I wanted to start a new life that had nothing to do with this one. How can you just stand there saying it’s okay?”

  He knelt down on the floor with me. “Oh, baby.” He cradled my face in his hands and tilted my face up so that I’d look at him. “That never would have happened. There’s no way you could live without me.”

  It was such a cocky thing to say. But he didn’t say it in an arrogant way. He said it as he stared deep into my eyes. He said it because it was true.

  My eyes dropped to the towel that was wrapped around his waist. And the perfect V line that dipped beneath the towel. I remembered this. I remembered us. But a memory was so different from reality. I wanted to experience him. And there was no better apology than a blowjob. I had heard that phrase before. From Rob maybe? Who the fuck cared. I wanted James to know that I loved him. That I’d always love him. That I was so fucking sorry.

  I grabbed the knot in his towel and pulled.

  He reached down to hold it in place.

  “You’re healing, Penny. We can’t…”

  “I need you. I feel like I can’t breathe. This…this will show me that we’re okay. This…” I pulled harder, but he gripped the towel tighter too. It didn’t budge.

  I swallowed hard. I remembered the sex being amazing. I knew that he was perfection underneath that towel. But he wasn’t offering that to me. He didn’t want me. And I honestly couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t want me. It felt like my heart couldn’t beat any faster. That my cheeks couldn’t be any redder. I swallowed hard. He doesn’t want you anymore, Penny. You ruined everything.

  I pulled my hand back like his skin had stung me. Of course he didn’t love me anymore. He was a Greek god. And I was just…me. The scales were so tipped in his favor that it didn’t make any logical sense for us to be together in the first place. Except one thing that wasn’t tangible. He loved me. Love balanced the scales. But I lost it. I lost him.

  Minutes ago he had run down the steps of this house and kissed me like I was his whole world. Now? He had time to realize that I wasn’t worth it. He had time to see me crying on a bathroom floor. He had seen me. The real me. A literal puddle of the person I once was. And now he knew better than to love me.

  I expected him to walk away from me. Instead, he pulled me into his arms and hugged me impossibly tight. And as soon as his arms were around me, I started crying again. I hugged him back. Maybe he didn’t want to make love to me anymore, but I’d take what I could get.

  “I don’t know what else I can say.” My words were jumbled by the water falling on top of us. “I don’t know how to apologize enough. I wasn’t me. And I was horrible to you. But that wasn’t me. That’s not how I feel. I love you. I love you, James.” I was clinging to him so tightly I wasn’t sure he could breathe.

  “Just don’t leave me again.” His words almost got lost in the steam, but I heard them. “My heart can’t take it. Please stop running away from what we have.”

  Suddenly everything clicked. Like a million little pieces falling into place. He thought I ran out on him again tonight? That’s what he thought? God. “James, I didn’t run out on you tonight. I didn’t. I know I tried to once, but I’d never do that now.”

  “It’s okay, I’m just glad you’re back…”

  “James, I swear I didn’t. I was already starting to remember what we had. It was Dr. Nelson. He attacked me in Central Park.”

  “What?” The vulnerability in his voice was gone. He pulled back and he looked like he was about to commit murder and end up in a jail cell right beside the one Dr. Nelson was probably sitting in right now.

  “It’s okay, he’s in custody. Dr. Nelson tried to hurt me, but Tyler saw the whole thing. He stopped him.”

  “Tyler saved you.” He said the words slowly like he didn’t understand.

  “Yeah…I guess you could put it that way.” I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say. Yes, Tyler had rescued me. I couldn’t exactly sugarcoat the truth.

  He just stared at me.

  “Technically he did save me. But it was random luck. He just happened to be on a run. I was lucky.”

  “Tyler.” He released me from his embrace. “Of course. I looked everywhere for you, but your fucking knight in shining armor saved the day.” He stood up.

  “James.” I scrambled to my feet and almost slipped on the slick tile. “You’re not seriously upset?”

  “How am I supposed to feel after I saw that you were reading all about him before you disappeared?”

  What was he talking about? “I shuffled the pages around because I read a…” I awkwardly cleared my throat. “I happened to read a heated scene between you and me and didn’t want anyone to know where I left off. I guess something else ended up on top?”

  “So it was a coincidence that all your encounters with Tyler were spread out all over the coffee table?”

  “Yes.” Damn, how did that happen? Luck was only on my side once tonight, I guess. I was glad I wasn’t dead, but I really freaking wished James wasn’t looking at me the way he was right now. The steam in the shower might as well have been coming out of his ears.

  “Penny, the reason you didn’t tell me your favorite movie was because it reminds you of him. H
e’s your Westley.”

  I shook my head. “What? No.”

  “You felt him up while you watched the movie together.”

  “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. When? When I was 19? Jesus, James, it’s like you said. It’s just a dumb movie.”

  “A dumb movie that the 19-year-old version of you loved.”

  “Well she fucking sucked. I think we both can agree to that. She was an idiot. The only good thing she ever did was sleep with her professor.”

  “That’s debatable.”

  I wasn’t sad anymore. I was seething. “Which part? That you were the only good decision I made back then? Or that you were even a good decision at all?” I poked him hard in the middle of his chest. “I never asked for you to save me. If I remember correctly, which I feel like I do now, you were never a white knight. You were a dark one. We didn’t ride off into the sunset. We fought for our love. Just like I’m doing now. So don’t stand there and tell me that we were a mistake all those years ago, because you couldn’t be more wrong. You should be thanking Tyler for saving me. I could have been dead. And there’s no way you could live without me either, James.” I threw his words back at him.

  “Do you remember what it’s like when I’m mad at you?”

  A memory came rushing back.

  "Tomorrow I'm going to make love to you." He slid his fingers up the insides of my thighs. "Tell me what you want me to do to you tonight."

  "Porter is right inside the door, James. What if he comes up here?"

  "The idea of getting caught has always made you want me even more. Besides, he's blocking the door so we won't have any unexpected visitors." He kissed the side of my neck. "I want you to remember tonight. I want you to remember what it was like to choose me because you wanted me, not because we had a slip of paper that said you had to. But because you can't resist me. Because I'm the only one that can make you scream. Because the thought of my cock makes your pussy ache. Because you can't fucking live without me."