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“There’s something to be said about the Midwestern nice idea,” I agreed, running my finger down her cheek.
“Stop being nice and kiss me, Irving,” she sighed.
I lowered my lips to hers and drank from her in the flickering candle light. I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted any woman before. She was the whole package no matter how you looked at it, which made it hard to believe that I was the man she wanted to kiss. The man she wanted to make love to. I tipped my head, and traced her lips with my tongue. When she opened, I darted in and we danced together until my chest burned with the need for air. I broke the kiss long enough to take a breath, her soft mewls and moans driving me back to her lips to fill my head with them.
“Irving,” she whispered against my lips. “This feels so right.”
Her words jarred me and I broke the kiss. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lost control like that.”
“Why? It seemed to me like you were enjoying it.”
My laughter was soft, but sarcastic. “You have no idea how much I was enjoying it, but despite how we feel when we’re together, we can’t have a relationship.”
“This comes back to what’s her name, right?”
“Norah,” I said, finally using her name. “Her name was Norah.”
“Not all women are like Norah, Irving.”
“I don’t want to do this tonight, Hazel,” I said, staring at the ceiling.
“Do what? Be vulnerable? Be honest about how you feel? Or admit that you’re afraid.”
“You think you know a lot, don’t you?” I ground out, wishing I could get up and walk away, but that wasn’t going to happen, which was partly my point.
“All I know is how I feel when we’re together, Irving. I wouldn’t pretend to know what you feel. Those were just guesses based on how I feel about our situation.”
I rolled my head to the left to make eye contact. “You feel vulnerable and afraid?”
“Rejection hurts, Irving, no matter the reason.”
I laughed again but this time it just sounded sad. “I’m not rejecting you out of want, Hazel. I’m keeping you at arm’s length out of need.”
“Need not to get hurt again?”
“I certainly don’t need a broken heart,” I agreed.
“Don’t you think that’s kind of unfair to me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Assuming that I’ll hurt you without taking into consideration that I won’t.”
“Oh, trust me, I’ve taken that into consideration, but in the end, I don’t want you to live the life I live, Hazel. It’s frustrating, costly, and time consuming.”
“Being afraid to love someone for those reasons is sad, lonely, and defeating.”
“You don’t get that I’m giving you an out, do you?” I asked, sarcastic laughter bubbling from my lips. “I know you’re not Norah, but I also know you have so much potential to do great things, Hazel,” I said with emphasis, taking her hands. “I can’t weigh you down or hold you back from being what you’re supposed to be.”
“What if,” she said, squeezing my hands back, “I’m supposed to be with you? What if I’m supposed to be part of this community where we build a life together? What if everything in our pasts led us here to this place because what we’re supposed to be is each other’s?”
“Those are what-ifs I can’t afford to ask myself, much less answer, Hazel,” I whispered, running a finger down her cheek. “If I do, how I feel about you will outweigh all the reasons we shouldn’t be together.”
“I don’t see any reasons we shouldn’t be together, Irving. That’s the part I don’t think you understand. Your wheelchair is the way you get around, it’s not who you are, right? It’s your legs, but we don’t think or feel or love with our legs.”
“But legs do many other things that I can’t, Hazel.”
“And none of those things are insurmountable when we work together, which ultimately is the crux of the problem. You’ve been with so many other women who didn’t want to work to be in a relationship with you that you’re afraid I’m the same. Relationships indeed take work, so if they weren’t willing to do the work, that reflected on them, not you. It meant you weren’t right for each other. I’m not them.”
