Okay, maybe more than a little courage.
The pleased expression on his face curdled, and his lip trembled slightly. “W-when?”
The pain in his voice damn near strangled me before I realized what must have flashed through his mind. God, I really was the worst at this, and I panicked, grabbing hold of his arm and squeezing it. Worse yet was that I could see the moment he thought about drawing away rather than letting me touch him.
“Before you,” I said so quickly it felt like I was going to choke on the words before they left my mouth. “It stopped a few months before he even met you. Never while he was with you. Shit, I remember him telling me when he met you and asked you out on the spot. It was like a cartoon, where you could see hearts in his eyes. Never in his life would he have done anything like that to you.”
Reggie’s terrified expression softened slightly. “I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have?—”
“Don’t! I’m bad at this, you know that,” I said with a grimace. “I wanted to tell you. From the first time we did anything, I wanted to tell you.”
“Okay,” he said slowly, and then turned back to my leg. “Tell me why you didn’t while I do this.”
“I don’t know why,” I told him honestly. “I’ve never known why I’m so bad at talking to people. It’s like the words get all jumbled up, and even when I know it would be better to just spit them out and try to sort them out later, it’s like… Oh holyfuck, is that acid?”
“I told you it might hurt,” he said grimly, having cut away my jeans and was now applying the antiseptic with a sterile swab.
“It’s like…” I began with a pant as I tried to adjust to the searing pain. “Like the words get lost behind a wall I can’t get through. So, they stay locked in my head. I did it to Charlene…it’s why it’s hard sometimes to blame her for what she did.”
“It wasn’t right, what she did.”
“No, she knew that. I knew that. I told her that much. And I would never trust her again, not after an affair,” I grunted. “But I don’t blame her either. For too long, she was on the other side of that wall, banging to be let in, and I just…didn’t, couldn’t, I don’t know if there’s a difference. When you’re locked out in the cold for so long, eventually you’re going to seek some warmth, even if it’s in places you should never tread.”
Reggie was silent for a moment as he carefully wrapped a clean roll of gauze around a clean bandage before nodding. “Life isn’t always as black and white as we want. Is it still alright if I continue to bear a quiet grudge against her for that?”
I eyed him in amusement, even as I winced when pressure sent a fresh wave of pain through my leg. “When…when have Iever been able to stop you from doing anything? When have I ever tried?”
“You’ve tried, and I usually listen.”
“Because I don’t do it that often, that’s probably why.”
“Probably, you’ve always let me be me, even when we were coming at a problem from two different directions.”
“If you were more like I preferred, then you wouldn’t be you.”
“I do like being me.”
“And I like you being you.”
He turned to me, apparently satisfied with his work, and smiled sadly. “Do you like being you?”
The question caught me off guard, but I answered honestly before I could think too heavily about it. “Most of the time…I think. There are some things I wish I could work on, like talking to you more about things, sharing myself better.”
“You do a lot better than you think,” he said, pushing my hair off my forehead and sighing. “You’re too hard on yourself, Marc. Not everyone is a chatterbox who shares the first thing that pops into their head like me. You have your own way of sharing things, and yeah, sometimes I have to read between the lines or pull things out of you, but you also have patience with me, and show an understanding many people don’t have for the shit I do. Whatever we are, whatever kind of relationship is between us, it’s going to be give and take, and all we can do is try to be better.”
“Spoken like a true Guide,” I said softly. “You’ve always known what to say; I envy that about you. Along with your honesty and your forthrightness.”
He smiled, but then it fell guiltily. “I wish?—”
“Hey,” I said, reaching up to poke his frown. “What is that? What’s that about?”
“I haven’t been as forthright as I should have been,” he said with a wince. “I, uh?—”
“Is this the thing you and Jude were keeping from me?” I asked with a frown. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have lost my temper. I trusted you to keep an eye on him and make decisions based on your judgement, and I should have trusted that. Instead, I was…scared there was something I was being left out of, something that might…I don’t know, hurt you or Jude.”
“Jude kissed me,” he said so quickly and quietly I almost missed it.
“I…he…he what now?” I asked, dumbfounded.
