My body sags, landing with a heavy thud into a safety net. I feel safeguarded. Like I can weather an entire storm and come out the other end unscathed. I can’t explain it. The way it courses through me, exposing my heart by placing it right on my sleeve, but it’s there. The last few bricks of the wall I spent so many years building crumble to the ground, and it’s just me. It’s just me and Everett. And for some reason, it feels so right.
“Why did you?” I say, my voice so low, I don’t even know if Everett heard me. “Why did you hurt me?”
He cups my face in his hands and forces my eyes to him. “I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know how to stop the hurt inside me, and it made me hurt you instead.” His eyes mist over, and they start to rim red. He closes his eyes, a wince taking over his features with his tight jaw and furrowed brow. I see a tear trail down his cheek, and he rests his forehead against mine. “I don’t regret a lot of things in my life, but hurting you is something I wish I could take back. All of it. I wish I could go back in time and change everything.” He pulls away, and the tears continue to fall. “I miss you so much, Teeny. God, I missed you.” His voice cracks and it’s enough to break me.
I pull at his neck, bringing him closer, and kiss him. And it feels like I’ve come home. Right onto the plush purple rug in the middle of my childhood bedroom, surrounded by half-empty tubes of acrylic paints and bristly paintbrushes. Everett’s arms wrap around my waist, holding me so tight I can barely breathe. It’s suffocating, but he doesn’t loosen his grip. He grunts into my mouth, letting that little bit of reserve he was clinging to fall apart. My entire body presses into him, seeking more than just this kiss. I want to mold into him. I want to feel every part of him to every part of me as if there’d been no time spent away from him. As if I’d spent the last twenty years by his side and I knew his body as if it were my own.
Everett lifts me, his hold on me growing impossibly tighter. I follow him as his steps move backward toward my driveway. He fumbles his hand against the door of his car, but not the front seat. He veers to the back, and I don’t even protest. I follow willingly because I don’t think there’s a place on this earth I wouldn’t follow him to right now. I’d follow him right into the ruins of our past if it means more of this.
Everett goes first and I follow, naturally situating myself on his lap. When I do, my thighs straddling his, he takes a moment to look at me. To run his hands over my skin, trailing goose bumps over the exposed areas. He doesn’t say anything, and for some reason, that silence says more than any words possibly could. I try to kiss him again, going for his lips, but he stops me.
“Sorry,” he whispers. “I just need a minute.”
My hands thread into his nape and up to his hair. “Do you not…do you want to stop?”
“No,” he answers urgently. “No, Teeny. I just…I can’t believe this is happening. I’ve thought about this moment for so long.”
I watch the way he studies me under the glowing moonlight, his eyes looking at me as if he’s committing everything to memory. The way my skin gleams in the light streaming in from the windows and the way my chest heaves against my too-thin shirt. And I wonder if he notices me too. All the changes. Like the fine lines that etch my face or the body that withstood motherhood with stretch marks and saggy skin. Or if he doesn’t see any of that. If he still sees the girl next door he fell in love with.
“I can’t lose you again, Teeny,” he finally says. A fresh wave of tears gloss over his eyes, and I see the pain pulled to the surface. “Please tell me what to do. I don’t know what to do, and I’m scared that what I do might hurt you again. And I can’t?—”
I cut him off with a deep kiss, pressing my hips into his. Tears roll down my cheeks, and they mix with his, making our kiss salty and wet. My hands reach for the hem of his sweatshirt, and he pulls it off. I’m taken aback when I see that he’s not wearing anything underneath, but that passes quickly, and my focus shifts to his tattoo. In the darkness, I trace it with my fingers, appreciating the fine lines and colors that stand out even in the veil of the night.
“It was the only way to keep a part of you with me,” he whispers, watching me. “I walked away from everything, and your paintings and this place and you…I wanted it all to stay with me forever.”
I look at him, his words firing every nerve ending in my body until my limbs buzz with electricity. “You got this…”
He looks at me, waiting for something, anything. When all I can do is look at him in awe, he inches closer, moving cautiously. In that moment, I realize how deeply we’re meant for each other. The moment I laid eyes on him, it was set in stone. Regardless of our journey, of the different paths we took, and the fork in the road that drew us apart, we were always meant to find our way back to each other. This is what soulmates are made of. The invisible string tugging at our hearts, tying us to one another to connect us whenever we lose our way.
My hands start to fumble at the button of his pants, and he quickly follows my lead. I reach into his boxers and grip him. I feel his arms slacken around me, and he lets out the most erotic moan I’ve ever heard. It shoots straight into the pit of my stomach, making it tumble and roll.
His hands snake up my back, under my shirt, against my bare skin, and all the way to the opening at my neck. The movement lifts my shirt, exposing more of my skin, and he ducks his head, taking my nipple in his mouth through the almost see-through fabric. My back arches, and I swear I see stars on the ceiling of his car. I want him. I need him. I need him like I need air to breathe. This is becoming more than just our bodies wanting each other. It’s becoming a way of sustaining life. We need each other to survive.
He trails kisses up my chest and when he reaches my neckline, his tongue caresses my skin all the way up to my earlobe. He takes an indecent taste between his teeth, and it feels like numbing pins and needles low in my stomach. My body begins to feel desperate.
I start to climb off of him, removing the loose sleep shorts I was wearing, exposing the bareness of my entire bottom half. He watches me, his eyes turning dark and hungry. I move so that I’m straddling him again, and my hand is on him, stroking him, learning how to do this all over again.
Everett suddenly grips my wrist in his hand to stop me. “Shit!” he mutters, cursing under his breath. “Fuck. Teeny, I don’t have a condom.”
“I have an IUD,” I tell him quickly. “Unless you don’t think we should…”
“No, I do,” he answers, that urgency back in his voice, full of desperation. I wait for him to continue. “Are you sure?”
“I trust you,” I tell him, finally realizing how deeply I believe those words. I trust him. With my entire body, I trust him. And suddenly, all the pain, all the hurt falls into the shadows, drawing the curtains closed as if they’ve done their part. I’m safe now.
“I trust you, too.”
With that, I position myself over him, and we both gasp. Everything inside me grows wanton. I claw at his bare shoulders, needing something to ground myself to. I feel like I’m going to float away on a big fluffy cloud, and this will all be a figment of my imagination.
Everett kisses me, crushing his lips into mine. His hands tremble against my waist, and I realize his entire body is shaking. I wrap my arms around his neck, drawing our bodies even closer together. I start to move, my hips seeking friction against his.
“You feel…incredible,” he groans. “Jesus, you feel fucking amazing.”
I shift so he hits a spot inside me that makes my entire body jolt and quiver. He notices how I react, his gaze growing dark and heady.
“There?” he asks. He gives a rousing thrust upward, testing his question only to find the answer in my reaction.
“Mh-hmm,” I whimper, nodding while my lids fall heavy. I shudder and fall slack on his lap, shivering through the overwhelming sensation from how skilled he is even at an angle where I’m at the advantage. “Touch me, Everett.”
