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And we do. For a long time. Until the point comes when neither your mind nor your body knows how to cope anymore and you finally dare to allow yourself the painful realization that you have a right to a life free of the pain of every barbed interaction with them.
Now as I peer up at Greyson, my heart beats frenetically as I wait for more of the same invalidation and pressure I've always got from men when I dare say the wordsMy mother abused me,knowing in my soul that the man I’m supposed to be with one day will never ever do that.
If Grey does, that will make losing him so much easier.
“You’re right,” he responds, lifting his hand to the side of my face and stroking his thumb across my cheek. A mist shrouds his eyes. “You should never have to speak to people who hurt you.”
The words are so simple, spoken soberly, and yet relief rushes through my body as he says them, so much so that my breath begins to shake a little.
I nod, trying to silently convey his own words back at him.
The pain of cutting parents off is isolating and leaves you open to so much invalidation, pressure and misunderstanding, but it’s nothing compared to the pain of letting the people who were put on Earth to protect you keep hurting you over and over again. Yet only he can make a decision so life-altering and which has so much fallout.
I blink fast to stop tears of relief from welling up in my eyes as he watches my face until I finally decide to cut through the tension, angling my gaze towards the keys of the piano. “Do you play?”
He nods.
“Can you play something for me?” I ask.
He manages a weak smile. “How about an exchange?”
“Um, what exactly kind ofexchange, sir?” I ask, skepticism twisting my voice.
“I play you a piece… and you read me a poem that moves you.”
“I think I can manage that.”
45
Indigo
Sitting next to him on the wide stool as his fingers stroll along the keys, not pressing down yet, I try to focus on how strong and competent his hands look and ignore the thin, short pink scars sliced into his muscular forearms, relics of that horrible night when that man that I just know Micah sent over stabbed him, albeit shallowly.
They came into focus as he rolled his sleeves up… as did other scars further up, closer to his elbow. Though these are not the ones that that man inflicted upon him. They’re much older, paler and way thicker and shinier, as if having been part of him for years. They snake up around the back of his arm, hidden from sight by his sweater.
I saw a few scars on him at the swimming pool, but in the brighter light and with rivulets of water dripping down his muscles, which were frankly already wildly distracting, I didn’t realize quite how many he had and in how many places on his body.
The first note he plays makes goosebumps trickle across my skin and sends music into me, music which, the more he plays, his elegance, competence and grace apparent in every bar, moves me more than it should, the incongruous mix of his strength and the frailty of the melody confusing to my senses.
As is the fact that I’m even sitting here in some scene which feels entirely too perfect—this man, this house, the piano in the fucking wall-to-ceiling library.
This can’t be real life.
This has to be an illusion.
And while I live in it, I already know it’ll dissolve leaving a starkness behind which frightens me.
My body moves a little as he plays, his hands dancing so easily over the keys, his feet pressing the pedals, his body so insanely vital in spite of the scars.
Despite the threat of melancholy that hangs over me as he finishes playing after a few minutes, I exclaim, “That wassobeautiful.”
“Fantaisie-Impromptu. Chopin. My grandfather taught me to play it. My mother’s father.”
“He left you this house.”
“Yes. And everything in it.”
“You’re so good.”
