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‘You are twice the man that I am.’ ‘You are the man I always wished I could be.’ ‘I want you to know how proud I am of you.’ They were words that Neal would have loved to hear. They were words that would have meant the world to him. He knew he was undeserving of them, but he still wished.
He felt a sudden irrational anger towards George. It was saturated with jealousy, and all at once, it dissolved into shame. His brother had always been there for him. He had always been patient and tolerant and more than generous. He had asked for nothing in return, and suddenly, Neal realized that George was dead. It hit him like a punch in the gut. He had watched the news, heard it from several different sources, he had discussed it with Harry and accepted condolences from sympathetic strangers, but he had never let it sink in. He had never really thought about the crash. He had listened, without feeling.
Now he found himself longing for his brother. He wanted to talk to him, to hug him, to watch as George rolled his eyes at something ridiculous that he had said. He was lost without George, and he realized suddenly why he had felt so off balance this whole time. He didn’t realize he was crying until he felt Elena’s hands circle him gently.
Neal felt her kiss his hair, stroke his back, and those gestures – so foreign to him, made him cry even harder. He sat there on his brother’s bed and sobbed out his sorrow, while Elena held him hard, rocking him back and forth until he had spent all his tears. When he was done, he felt hollow, but strangely lighter. Elena stood and turned to face him. He looked up at her, wanting to reach out and draw her to him again.
She held out her hand to him.
“Let’s go home,” she said.
Those words, more than anything else, made him breathe a little easier.
Chapter9
It was a strange few weeks. Neal and Elena found themselves walking around in what seemed like an alternate reality. Slowly, as they got to know one another, they grew more comfortable around each other. They teased and laughed together,
they played pool and board games. They watched movies that they hated and threw popcorn at the television, and slowly, the trivial morphed into the personal. They began sharing details of their childhoods, until suddenly the things they had thought they could never admit to themselves, let alone say aloud, was easy to do.
In their incessant talking, the things that had come to bother them greatly, seemed lighter somehow, as though the act of sharing had somehow made their little parcels of pain inconsequential in the greater scheme of things. They became friends, they asked each other’s advice, and they gave each other brutally honest opinions. They cemented a relationship that some people might have taken years to cultivate, and both Neal and Elena started looking forward to each new day.
The surrealistic nature of their relationship was brought on by their frequent and increasingly passionate coupling. They had sex at least three times a day, and instead of becoming a chore, it became something else entirely. For Neal, it was the first time he had ever grown so familiar with a woman. His trysts never lasted long and so he assumed he was skipping out on the boring, mechanical phase of a sexual relationship, but he realized that familiarity could be a potent stimulant.
He knew all the curves and edges of Elena’s body. He found himself secure enough with her to become more experimental, because he couldn’t stomach the thought of her being bored with him in bed. He told himself it was simply a business deal, but he could not help feeling a huge sense of triumph every time she shuddered beneath him in climax.
For Elena, their lovemaking was different shades of passion. Sometimes it was rough and sweaty and other times it was slow and gentle. She had never been with a man who was so unselfish in bed. Neal was considerate and attentive; he anticipated what she wanted without her having to tell him.
Her pleasure seemed as important to him as her own. She found herself looking at him differently. Not just as an unexpected friend, but as a true lover. She knew it was dangerous to look at him and admire his fine features, his prominent bone structure, his lean, muscular body. She knew those thoughts could lead nowhere, but still, she couldn’t help herself.
There were times, after they had made love that she would lie in his arms, and secretly wish that she wouldn’t get pregnant too soon. She knew that the moment she got pregnant, their days of long conversations and repeated lovemaking would be at an end. She felt a pinch of sadness at the inevitability of that day.
They built a bubble for themselves that was cut off from everything else. They took sporadic breaks, Neal to visit Hargrove Brothers, and Elena to visit the tiny studio she rented to work on her statues. For a couple of hours, they would re-join the real world and then come back to the comfort of their self-made bubble. Both of them realized how much they missed it when they were away for more than a half a day. After the first week, Neal brought home four packs of pregnancy tests.
Each night, they would go to the bathroom and Neal would wait patiently until Elena had peed on a stick. The days went by, and each test came out negative. Neal felt a prick of panic, and Elena felt a wave of relief. Neither one shared how they felt with the other.
Then one day, a different mark appeared on the pregnancy test. Elena looked at it in shock, realizing that the sign was a tiny pink positive. She rushed outside, and ran straight into Neal, nearly dropping the test.
“It’s positive,” she said breathlessly, and in complete shock.
She saw her own expression mirrored in Neal’s face. He stared down at her face and then at the test she was holding up.
“Oh my God!” he exclaimed.
“I know!” Elena said.
“This is really happening!” Neal breathed out as the reality hit him squarely.
Elena nodded, the smile fading slowly from her face. She walked to the sofa and sank down onto it, still holding the stick. Neal noticed the change. He saw her face and felt his own smile drain away. He walked to the couch and sat opposite her on the coffee table. He placed his hands on her knees.
“I know this is a lot,” he said softly.
“It’s… it’s just hitting me,” Elena admitted.
Neal nodded. “Me too… I… it’s different now that it’s…"
“Real?” Elena offered.
Neal nodded again.
