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Finally, I move out of his way so he can come in. After I sense him go past me, I reopen my eyes, close the door, and turn to look at him.
As I wipe at where the tears got loose, I tremble out a whispered, “I’m sorry.”
He whispers back, “For what?” and looks for all the world like he wants to touch me.
I wonder why he isn’t doing it—why he hasn’t tried to wipe my cheeks dry like the last time he saw me crying, why he hasn’t tried to hug me or move my hair out of my face.
But his expression tells me that, too: he doesn’t want to freak me out more. He doesn’t know what I can and can’t handle.
My thoughts return to our quiet conversation. I sniffle. “I’m sorry you had to leave work.”
He breathes out the faintest of laughs, his expression still very earnest. “I had twenty minutes left of that shift.” After a beat, “Even if I had longer, I still would’ve left. I would do anything for you.”
I chew hard on the inside of my cheek as I let his words sink in.
“What do you need from me right now?” he asks as he looks me over. “Right this second? Name it and I’ll do it.”
‘I would do anything for you.’
I stammer out, “Li-listen.”
He nods. “Okay. You need me to keep my hands to myself?”
He wants to touch me, but he won’t if I can’t take it.
‘I would do anything for you.’
I shake my head because I don’t need him to keep his hands to himself. I can take—I would like—having his hands on me.
As if he’s been close to bursting with the urge this whole time, he steps up to me and tucks my hair behind my ears, rubs his thumbs under my eyes. I realize he’s shaking.
Makes two of us.
Belatedly, weakly, I say, “And I’m sorry you have to hear it.”
“Don’t be.” He tucks my hair back again, unnecessarily. “Don’t be.”
As I look at him, the two halves of me start up an argument with each other.
On the light side:How do I say it? Do I start with the nightmare? Do I pick back up on our talks about my past and tell him about Bud, who was around first, and then Thad? Do I only tell him about Thad because he was worse than Bud?
On the dark side:Why does he even need to know this? What does this have to do with him? You don’t have to share everything with him. This is extremely personal. What business is it of his?
For a moment, I think the dark side has a point.
Then I remember the state I was in when I woke up a little while ago, drowning in my blackest memory, desperate for this man to help me get out because there’s something strong in him that I just don’t have in myself. And I remember the nightmare I had about Bud and how withdrawing from Landon didn’t help a damn thing, only made me hurt more, only made my frailty worse.
“I think I have to just say it,” I tell both him and me.
He nods once and fits his hands comfortingly to the sides of my neck. As he draws a slow breath, I catch myself doing it, too.
Then, for the first time in all these years, I put the horrors into words: “I—I was sexually abused as a child.” The frown that I feel on my face seems to reach my very soul. “Two of my mom’s boyfriends. One didn’t—didn’t do—uh—it. He just did other—other stuff to me.” More tears in my eyes, more quaking in my body, more anguish in my heart, more humiliation in my cheeks. “But the…the other one….”
I nod several times because I can’t say the words like I thought I could. A weak cry cracks out of me even thoughnothingabout these memories is weak—they stab through my mind, and I lift my hands to my mouth like rickety cages, as horrified by this as ever.
I’m only able to look at Landon through my tears for a moment, and then I’m looking at the floor because the floor isn’t wearing an expression of unspeakable sadness.
He doesn’t say anything, but as I start crying, he tugs me right up to him and locks his arms securely around me.
