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She trusted that Elsie could figure out the missing words.
“Really?”Elsie looked shocked.
“Yeah. I... He’s...”
Did the words even exist for Gus? For what she felt for him? What she’d felt in his arms...
“It’s okay that you care for him,” Elsie said, gently.
Alaina swallowed. “I do. I always have. That doesn’t surprise me. It’sthis... And it doesn’t feel weird, it just feels right. It’s Gus, and he’s sodifficult. But he’s also so wonderful. And...”
“And you don’t have to know how things are going to go.”
“That seems to be the theme of the last twenty-four hours. I keep trying to remind myself of that. I keep trying.”
Elsie was looking at her, her expression so keen Alaina felt like she was looking into her.
“Was it good?” Elsie asked, finally.
Alaina shifted, feeling warm. It felt personal, but she was also...proud. Of him. Of them. It was the strangest feeling.
“He’s amazing,” she said. “I had no idea it could be... Travis was awful. Awful.”
Elsie blinked, and her mouth fell open.
“Well, it’s true,” Alaina said, and now that she’d started talking, continuing on felt easy. “I didn’t want to go bringing it up, because honestly, I’d rather forget about it. I’d rather forget about him. It was just... It wasnothing. Just... Sex when you don’t know someone or like them, or when they don’t care about you at all? It’s nothing. It was over in minutes, and he didn’t care that I didn’t have an orgasm, and I didn’t feeldifferent.” She’d wanted to. She’d thought it was that simple. Virgin, not virgin, and you were transformed. But it wasn’t. And she’d been silly. “Today I feeldifferent,” she whispered. “Because with Gus there was something else. I mean, chemistry first of all. But there’s something else there.”
It made her feel small, and a little bit scared, that something else.
And she didn’t want to push to defend that, and it seemed like Elsie understood that.
“Well, it’s a good thing you’re married to him,” Elsie said.
“Yeah.” Except somehow she knew it wouldn’t be that simple, and she also knew she didn’t have the words to explain it. It would take too much of Gus’s story to explain it. And she didn’t want to do anything to reveal Gus. She felt like the keeper of secrets. Because he had told her things, said things to her, and they were hers. Just like he was.
He was her husband. That was the thing. Even if it wasn’t a traditional marriage, that felt like something. It felt special. It felt important and singular. And the things that she knew about him weren’t for anyone else to know.
“I’m just so glad that you have that,” Elsie said. And then she laughed. “Maybe I’m being ridiculous and shallow. But I was very sad thinking that you weren’t going to have great sex.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Because what I have with Hunter is so great. Then... It scared me a little bit at first. Because of the feelings, thatsomething elseyou mentioned, it terrified me.”
“Except your something else was love,” Alaina said.
Elsie grabbed a couple of jars off of the shelves, and then stood there, looking at her. “Can you tell me you don’t love Gus?”
Alaina just stood there, feeling ironically rootless in the root cellar. Feeling a little bit unsteady.
“I care about him a whole lot.”
“You always have,” Elsie said.
“You know, I didn’t really ever want to get married, Elsie. Or have kids. And here we are. And I don’t really know what to call the feelings I have for him.”
“You don’t have to,” Elsie said.
Alaina nodded. “No. I don’t have to.”
