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Chapter Fifty-Two
Mia
Things at the office stayed tense with Terry. He avoided me, and I avoided him. But I missed him, that much remained the same. The ache for him grew deep inside of my chest. I knew what I had to do. I knew he still went to the park by our old apartment to take pictures on Sunday mornings.
When we had started back up again, it was something we did together. I enjoyed it so much, especially after our photography lessons. I needed to see him. I needed to be near him on our terms. Not in some sterile office building, or in an elevator, or in a conference room full of people staring at us.
I hobbled into the park after the cab dropped me off at the entrance. I found him on a park bench. His camera was beside him, still in the bag. He hadn’t started taking pictures yet. I couldn’t see what he was looking at, but I thought he might have been staring at nothing at all.
“I hear the camera takes better pictures if you take it out of the bag,” I told him, hobbling to sit beside him on the park bench.
Terry grabbed the camera bag and placed it on his lap. “You don’t have your camera with you. It’s kind of hard to take pictures without it.”
“I think that the crutches and bum ankle will make it harder to take pictures,” I quipped, hoping I could make him smile. But it didn’t work; he didn’t smile.
“My teacher taught me that, in order to take great pictures, I should be standing up, straight and tall, looking at my subjects as if they’re scenery like this. Or if I’m taking pictures of a subject, I just lean in and learn what makes them tick through the lens.”
“So if you don’t have your camera, and you can’t shoot the subjects the way your teacher taught you, what are you doing here?” he asked, his gaze remaining forward.
“I came here for you,” I admitted. It was out there, the raw and real reason I was here. I was here for him. I was here hoping that, against all odds, we could fix what I had broken.
He didn’t say a word. He didn’t acknowledge that I had spoken to him. This might be harder than I thought.
“I wasn’t sure you’d be here. But I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I found you here, it would be a sign.”
“What kind of sign?” Terry asked me. He never looked over at me, though. He just kept staring straight ahead.
“That maybe, just maybe, you and I were supposed to still be together.” I swallowed loudly at the words. I couldn’t believe I put them out there for him to hear. I was baring it all to him because I thought it was my only shot at getting him back.
“You broke up with me.” His tone was flat, emotionless.
“I did. But I didn’t do it to hurt you. I did it to protect you. I didn’t want him to come back and hurt you. I did it for you.”
“I can take care of myself.” There was a hint of anger in his voice.
“I know you can. And I know that I shouldn’t have made that decision for you. But I was only doing it because I love you so much, and I couldn’t bear the thought that he might hurt you.” Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, threatening to fall. “I’m sorry, Terry.”
Terry sighed loudly beside me. He leaned forward and put his head in his hands. I remained silent, waiting for him to make the next move. I wasn’t sure what he was going to do, and I hoped he didn’t leave.
“I wanted to be there for you. It was hard for me knowing that he was gone and you were free and I couldn’t be there when you walked back into our apartment for the first time.” He looked over at me, and I could see the pain in his eyes.
“Terry—” I began, but he cut me off.
“Jackson said you handled things really well when you came home. He said that, sometimes, there can be a lot of anxiety when you return to your home. Even though he never came into your home, even though he never assaulted you in your home—well, this time. He said that some women have a lot of trouble going back to their home. But you didn’t. I think I was relieved because that was our apartment and we had made so many good memories there a long time ago and recently. I didn’t want you to be without those. I didn’t want you to be without a piece of us. Without our darkroom, without our space.”
I nodded and wanted to see if he would continue. When he didn’t, I spoke up.
“My favorite memory of us was always that Thanksgiving we spent together. Holidays were something we dreaded. We had no family, you and me, so we were each other’s family. It wasn’t the way it would have been had we had family, though, and I was always okay with that, but I also kind of hated it. I wanted you to meet my parents, and I wanted them to meet you. I always wished I had a brother or sister, someone to introduce you to. But I didn’t. That Thanksgiving, you changed that for me. I didn’t feel like such an outsider. I felt like you and I had created our own family. Our own new tradition.”
“That was my favorite holiday too. The holidays weren’t the same after I left you. After I did what I did to you,” Terry said. There was emotion in his voice, but I couldn’t read it.
“They weren’t for me either,” I admitted. What I didn’t tell him was that I had such a hard time with holidays after we broke up that I usually spent them in a drunken stupor. “I missed you then and I miss you now.”
“I miss you too,” he said. He was extending an olive branch to me.
“Does that mean you miss me enough to accept my apology? Enough to take me back and fall into bed with me and let me promise you that I’ll never do anything like that to you again?” I snuck a peek over at him and caught his brief smile.
“Is that what you would like to do?” he asked me. He turned to face me, a wicked grin crossing his lips.
