It’s why we work so damn well. Together, we create balance. I give what he needs. He gives what I need. After that, we have immeasurable chemistry, and that chemistry goes way beyond the sexual. There is a pull and bond between us that surpasses definition. And in that, I trust.
I have let him fall into me more times than I can count, and tonight, I need to fall into him.
Hour after hour, I alternate between lifting my eyes to Sabin on the beach and staring at my phone. The video that Annie sent me plays repeatedly, and it’s beyond me to stop it. I want to live in the past with my family and in the life I had before I knew what it meant to have my world blow up.
Sabin is likely right. I will never get over my losses and the vivid images I have of the precise seconds when those losses slammed into me. As much as I’ve tried to move through the memories of that fucking fire, I cannot forget. I’ll never forget.
I will very possibly drown in those flames.
If Chris does not get here soon and pull me from the fire again, I might just fucking drown in flames.
Worse, maybe, Sabin will drown in himself.
My entire body is full of anger and sadness, and I stand up and slam my hands onto the railing as I scream out at the water, “A little less fucking drowning and a little more land would be nice! Do you hear me? Do you fucking hear me? Less drowning, more land!” I stay frozen as I squint into the dark, waiting for some sort of response from the universe.
When a car door slams, I start to cry again. I’m sick of crying. I’ve done enough of it in my life, and I hate coming undone, but I can’t control myself. In a blur, I’m in Christopher’s arms, and he wordlessly holds me against his chest until I begin to find some level of calm.
“Sabin’s still out, so he’s okay for right now,” Chris says gently. “Let’s take this one piece at a time. We’re all going to get through this.”
He lowers me down to a chair and then sits himself across from me.
“Annie made that video for me,” I share. “And all it does is break my heart. I couldn’t get myself to show you before. Or anyone. It’s supposed to make me happy, and instead, it shreds me. Sabin knows that none of us will recover. We won’t, Chris. We won’t. That means that James and Estelle and Eric…we can’t get better, can we? The video just shows how true that is.”
“Oh, Blythe. Do you want me to watch it?” he asks. “I don’t have to, but would it help you?”
I nod, so he starts it from the beginning. I now know every sound of every second, and I watch him as my family and my past move before his eyes. At one point, he stops the video and rewinds a particular section a few times, listening to a young me with my parents. I hear my mother talking to me as she rocks me to sleep while I murmur what sounds like nonsense.
Chris smiles, finishes the video, and turns off the phone.
“What Annie put together for you? It’s extraordinary. Tonight, you only see the loss, but it’s so much more than that. You got to experience something beautiful. Please don’t forget that. By default, we grab on to the loss, but you can choose not to. Look at these pictures for what they are. It’s just love here. Over and over, it’s love.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think about how this compares…about how you didn’t have this. God, I’m sorry.” I’m awash with the level of selfishness I’ve allowed myself.
“You get to feel this loss. You had something that was stolen from you for no good reason. You’re allowed grief—when it happened, now, and in the future. You can feel this pain for the rest of your life, and that’s okay. One day, it will become tolerable, but it’s all right if it’s not today. You plan for healing. You have to assume that you’ll get there. That’s the fight we are in. Each day, we are fighting to heal.”
“I don’t know if we can. We’ll never forget.”
Chris runs a hand through his hair. “Jesus, Sabin did a number on you, didn’t he? Look, we don’t have to forget. There is no forgetting. Healing doesn’t mean that the past doesn’t exist. It means that we allow it, that we accept it, and that we continue to move on.”
I want to believe him, I do, but I have doubts tonight.
He takes my hands in his. “Let’s take care of the first thing. Look at me, and listen very carefully. The wedding invitation. You don’t understand why I still have that, do you?”
I shake my head.
“I keep that with me as a reminder to never do anything so fucking stupid in my life ever again. To never shut myself off from you or run from closeness and intimacy. I keep it to remind myself that I was the one who should have never let things go that far and that I am the one who should have stopped the wedding. I’m ashamed of everything related to Jennifer and the wedding. I very nearly lost you for good, and it’s only because of your faith in us and your profound trust in me that I got fucking lucky enough to get you back. Then, we got to build this relationship that we have today. That’s why I keep the invitation. Blythe, you are my world. You know that, right?”
His adoration is so genuine that I actually smile. “You are the great love of my life that I get to have.”
Chris kneels in front of me and wipes my eyes. “Yes. You will always have me. We are unbreakable.”
“We are unbreakable,” I repeat.
“Yes. Now, you need to tell me about Sabin. And about you and Sabin because I think you guys are a little mixed up about where you stand with each other.”
So, I tell him everything. It’s difficult to share the details because I know it must hurt Chris to hear about Sabin’s anger toward him, and Chris already feels as though he should have done the impossible when they were growing up. But he listens patiently as I pour out what I know.
To his credit, he doesn’t flinch when I tell him that Sabin thinks he might be in love with me and how that is contributing to his self-destruction.
