He sounds exhausted and drunk, and I can only imagine how miserable he is. This is not the kind of pain that anyone can get over. Maybe it can lessen some, but it can never disappear. His hurt and his self-loathing are brutal, and I would give anything to take those feelings away. I can’t, I know that, but I’m aware of my need to show him that I’m not scared off, that I don’t think of him differently.How could I?We all have something miserable in our pasts. I’m no different.
Sam has shown me raw pain, so I can show him mine.
I tell him my truths, letting them pour out of me in fragmented bits, “When you and I met? My entire world came undone that day at the hospital. My father had given me this bracelet.” I put his hand on my wrist. “The bracelet is a lie because he vanished with no explanation a few days after the car accident he was in with my sister, Amy, and I was left with a mother who never should have been a mother.
“She grew to hate me—hate everything really—more than she already had, and she nearly destroyed me. Amy became a mess of a selfish, mean drug addict. She tried to kill herself. I mean, it was so bad that she wanted to die. Not just escape temporarily, but actually die. She was done. I don’t believe it was an accidental overdose. I think Amy couldn’t tolerate this world any longer. As difficult as she is and as hard as our relationship is, she is my sister, and I can’t stand the thought of her dying.”
I inhale and feel the shudder when I release it. “Then, she asked me to leave, so I did. I left Chicago to save myself from falling down a rabbit hole of crazy that I might never get out of…so I wouldn’t try to kill myself, too, or slip into some kind of permanent delirium. To get away from the guy I was sleeping with, the one who made me shut down and disappear every time I let him fuck me. I let him…I let him use me and treat me terribly. It allowed me to escape the real world.
“I wanted to save myself when I left. The only thing I thought to do was to go to the one person I knew who I could intrinsically trust. You.” I brush his hair back.
“We all have pain of some kind. You lost two people who meant the world to you. You went through hell, and you’re still here. You get to hurt. But itisgoing to be okay.” I lift up and ease my mouth over Sam’s. “It’s going to be okay because while you get to hurt, you also get to heal. And you get to be you again.”
I kiss him with everything I have, drowning in some messed-up hope that I can ease his devastation. While he tastes overwhelmingly like whiskey, he tastes even more like love.
I pull back enough to whisper words into his mouth, “Let me be your good.”
Sam’s body tenses, and his heart pounds against me. “Can you let me be yours?”
I answer by continuing to kiss him, and he relaxes under me, letting my body sink into his.
