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Everything I was starting to realize, like waking up after years of being asleep.
Everything I was starting to understand.
About my dad. My mom. My relationships with other people.
So much pain.
Yet…
Something inside of me felt stronger than before. I didn’t know what it was yet. Or how to explain it. With the pain rushing to the surface, I understood that these were muscles being worked. Muscles that would eventually grow and heal and mend and maybe break all over again but then form into something even stronger.
I stepped down my hallway, entered my bedroom, and continued through to the master bath. I stepped into the shower, twisting the knob. I waited in the middle, letting the cool water shoot down over the top. Landing on my head, drenching all of me, including the clothes on my back. Like sharp pellets of rain in the chill fall Portland weather. I tilted my head away from the opening, toward the tiles, staring at nothing but blankness.
“Jemma?” Jamie breathed, reaching a hand to my shoulder.
I ignored him. The water heated up, beating against my body. Spinning around, I leaned my back against the tiles, sliding down until I sat on the tile flooring, warm water falling onto me. My head tilted down. Little beads of liquid splashed against my sneakers.
Why do you still have your clothes on in the shower, lover?
Jamie’s voice drifted into my mind, the sound slightly below the noise of the sprinkling water, as he slid down next to me. I raised my gaze, focusing on his drenched, dark-blond hair. His clothes, also seeming to be soaked, clung to his skin. He wrapped an arm around me, and I leaned my head against his shoulder.
I can hear you in my mind. My thought simply an observation, as if hearing him in my head was the most natural thing in the world.
Yes, he sent.
Why now? I asked internally.
Because… you’re finally letting down all your walls,he sent.
Then, for a reason I couldn’t quite explain, I burst into tears, silenced by the water falling around us. I wept for Holly’s pain—a child without a mother. I wept for my own pain, a woman who realized she’d never had a mother. I wept for all the people in my life I’d loved and lost. For all the people I had never had the opportunity to say goodbye to.
I wept for Jamie.
I wept for our relationship.
Most importantly, I wept for the love in my heart… the reason I continued to feel so much pain. An endless stream of hurt that never dissipated completely. That consumed me during my waking hours. Lately, even the hours when I slept, too.
You never have to weep for us, Jamie sent as he wiped the tears from my eyes.
“That’s silly,” I whispered, “to wipe away tears when I’m only going to get wet again.”
Not silly at all, Jamie sent. He leaned forward and pressed his lips around mine as he cupped his hands around my face. His mouth found mine, mine found his. The water seemed to let up above us, the pellets now feeling more like little spritzes, as if the water had drifted away, coming in like the salty waves sprayed you when you weren’t actually in the ocean.
Without breaking our kiss, I gazed above, noticing now that the shower fell around us, not on top of us. As if we were locked in a bubble, the water from the sprout above bent around our bodies, no longer directly falling on me.
Jamie pushed his forehead against mine.
I love you,he sent.I love you, no matter how far apart we are. I can’t ever repeat it too many times… I will always be here with you.
We’re still so broken, Jamie.As if these words would be enough to get him to stay even as I knew in my heart I was moving beyond where I’d been when Jamie first arrived.
Jems… you’re healing…
Though he didn’t directly say what this meant, I read between the lines. Heard the sadness in his voice. The bittersweet good and bad of what my healing meant.
“I’m healing,” I murmured, repeating what he’d just said. Finally admitting to myself what we both seemed to be dancing around. The scariest part of this entire situation. Weeping, feeling these emotions I’d suppressed, and suddenly handling things I hadn’t touched. Healing. The pain meant healing.
Which also meant saying goodbye.
