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He folded his fingers around mine, pressing them to his palm, still holding my gaze. “What do you want most, Poe?”
“To live again,” I answered without an instant of hesitation. There were so many things I wanted, but they could all be summed up with those three words. “I want to ask you something, Frost.”
“Anything.”
“Did you really just check my work for my name? Or did you read some of it?”
The corner of his mouth tipped up slightly. “You’ll never know.”
I bit my lip seriously. “I ask because…I want to know if you could…if you could tell when I was on anti-depressants.”
His brow creased and the sadness returned to the set of his mouth. “You don’t think you can write anymore.”
“No.”
I watched as his jaw tightened and his expression became more guarded. “Tell me which one,” he said.
I swallowed hard and tightened my eyes to hold in the probable tears. He could tell. He had read enough to be able to tell the difference. “I don’t have to. You already gave me the answer.”
“Poe…”
“No,” I interrupted, cutting him off before he’d begun. “Tell me honestly. How bad?”
His fingers tightened over mine, as if he was afraid I’d pull away. “I’m so sorry, Poe. That’s part of why I’m trying so hard to help you. I saw how brilliant your writing once was and I wanted you to have that back. At the time, I didn’t understand the change, but when I saw all those medications, I knew. I’m sorry.”
I looked away and let my dark, wet hair fall forward so he couldn’t see my face. He did not deserve to see my pain. He was just trying to help me. “Don’t do that,” he whispered pleadingly. “Don’t shut down on me.”
My blood felt cold, my muscles stiff and numb. I pulled one arm around my middle and stepped back away from him, trying to take my left hand with me. Frost held it tightly and took a few short steps to follow me. His stride was longer than mine and he drew closer, reaching out towards me to…what? Touch my shoulder? Hold me? I didn’t know and didn’t think about it. Almost automatically, I wrenched my hand from his and took several panicked steps backward. He froze immediately, letting me create a space of some five feet between us. When I realized what I had done, I looked up to meet his gaze and shuddered, tears brimming in my eyes. I wished I had slapped him instead. It may have hurt him less.
Frost tightened his eyes and mouth in pain, taking a step towards me as he did. I shuffled half a step away in turn, wincing even as I did it, wishing to God that I could help it. Dark lines formed at his brow and the corners of his mouth with the tension and ever so slowly, he reached out towards me to nearly imperceptibly touch my arm. I winced and bit my lip, but didn’t move away, just stayed there locked in his gaze, tears in my eyes as he took a cautious half step closer, his palm and fingers molding into a breakable hold around my upper arm. Warmth passed through his hand across my skin and deep into my arm, reaching into my bones, and I shivered because I realized just how cold the rest of me was. He tipped his head sadly and stroked my arm lightly with his thumb, sending waves of contentment and fear racing across my nerve endings. “Don’t you trust me by now?” he whispered.
I shuddered as ice-cold tears fell down over my cheeks, tracing lines of chill on my face. “Frost, I warned you. My heart trusts you, but my mind doesn’t trust it anymore. I can’t help being afraid.”
Frost’s fingers gently slid down my arm to take my hand, holding it up before him to kiss my knuckles oh-so-softly, his eyes remaining ever locked with mine, burning like molten, swirling ice. “Are you afraid I’ll hurt you or that you’ll lose me?”
I swallowed hard, shaking with how badly I wanted to tell him not to stop, to kiss every fingertip, my palm, my wrist, up my arm, my neck, my lips…all while I desperately needed to rip my hand from his grasp and run. The words made their way to my lips, but no farther, and I mouthed the answer,Both.
He nodded just slightly to let me know he understood and folded my hand into both of his, as if to warm my frigid fingers. “Please give me a chance,” he whispered. When I didn’t answer, he took another cautious step towards me so we were scarcely a foot apart and I had to tip my head back slightly to look up into those eyes. I couldn’t tell whether it was his hands or mine that were shaking as he gently held my palm pressed against his chest, my fingers splayed over the spot where his heart was hidden, not far from the scar the bullet had left in his chest. Heat seeped into me, easing up my arm and into my core. “Let me prove your mind wrong.”
The two pieces of me waged war inside my body and my stomach and head ached with the fear and indecision. The pain of wanting something so desperately and at once wanting to push it away with all my might tore me apart and ate away at every organ, every muscle, every bone. “I can’t,” I sobbed. “I don’t know what to do, Frost. This is killing me inside. I can’t do this.”
His eyes tightened sadly and I thought I saw unshed tears shining in them. “Please let me help you. I can’t leave you like this.”
“You have to. I can’t be yours, Frost. I will never be whole enough.” I began to pull my hand from his grasp, but he twined his fingers in mine and held me there. “Please,” he begged. “Don’t do this. Poe…” he extended one hand to softly brush my jaw with his fingertips and I let my eyes fall shut beneath the wave of peace and longing he sent over me. My eyes closed, the tears still streaming over my cheeks, I felt his breath across my lips like the brush of a feather and shivered. “I’m here for you, Poe. Let me help you be whole enough. Give me a chance.”
After a long moment of silent waiting, my heart won out and I let my eyes ease open to look up into the wintery depths of his imploring me, begging me, and looking down upon me like the greatest treasure he could look on, but never, ever hold. He noticed the change in my eyes instantly and the hand that had stroked my jaw moved to cradle my cheek in its palm, his thumb softly brushing away my tears. I let my eyes fall shut again with the warmth of his touch and, after a seemingly endless moment through which he hesitated, he kissed me like the fleeting brush of dove’s wings against my lips. I felt the blood fall through my veins from my upper body to my feet and through the floor, as though I was melting, and my knees became weak. I could hear my heart beating in my head and a shiver ran across my skin with the static along my nerves. I had never been kissed like that before…not like I was…fragile. Valuable. Cherished.
I let my eyes open once more and looked up to find the deepest passion I had ever seen in my life rolling beneath the ice-covered waves in his eyes. I let my hand slip from his and slide over his chest and up to grip his shoulder as his fingers traced red-hot lines up my arm and across my back and shoulders. He pulled me towards him, into a careful, warm embrace, and pressed his lips to my forehead. When my eyes fell shut again, he softly kissed my eyelids, then the bridge of my nose, and then my cheek. He held me close, resting his forehead against mine, and rubbed gentle circles into my back, ran his fingers through my long hair, let the warmth of his body chase away the numbness and chill in mine as I quietly cried.
“Why are you crying?” he whispered, kissing the tears away from my cheeks.
I brought both my arms tightly around him, twining my fingers in his hair and gripping his shoulders like a lifeline. “Because I thought that no one would ever hold me like this or kiss me like this. I didn’t think that something like this existed.”
Frost met my eyes sadly, then gently pulled me into him, resting my head on his shoulder, and kissed my hair. “I know,” he whispered. “I am so sorry. If I could take all the pain away, I would, no matter the price. I’m sorry, Poe.”
----
We talked about almost everything. There were some things that we both refused to say, some topics we did not dare approach. But these were few in number and more of a gesture of sympathy that we didn’t approach them, rather than a notion of distrust that kept us silent. We talked about my writing a lot. He had read as much of my work as was physically possible in that one night he had my flashdrive, including my beloved novel. He did not ask me why I wouldn’t finish it or why, as Dr. Grey had tried to broach, I didn’t at least try. He knew why I couldn’t bear to. We talked about his family too, though carefully. We avoided the subject of his father and why he tried to kill himself. He was intensely protective and reverent towards his mother and his younger siblings, Trina in particular. He talked about the tiny, blond girl the way some people talk about God, the way fathers talk about their daughters. Most fathers, anyway.
