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I laugh. “Something like that. My mom wanted me to go into the church, but it wasn’t something I ever thought about. She was very religious, always went to church, devoutly catholic. I rejected all that, and she understood. She supported my dreams of going into research. I wanted to find a cure for cancer. Or at least a new treatment. My mom supported me one hundred percent. But, I had a bad boy streak as well. I got into trouble alot. And then...” I lick my lips swallowing back the rest of that story.
“Then?” she prompts.
I meet her eyes, searching her face for some clue. Some hint of how much she can take.
But then I realize: life isn’t like that.
Life isn’t certain or safe. It’s a series of risks. And I want to face them all with her.
“Then my mother found out she was sick,” I tell her. “Cancer. Like your dad.”
I expect her to break down. I expect to have to pick up the pieces. But instead she stops walking, takes my other hand in hers and stares up into my face, her big green eyes so perfect and comforting and grounded.
“I’m sorry,” she says, and there’s so much meaning in those two simple words.
She’s sorry because she understands, because she’s felt it. She’s sorry because she doesn’t like the idea of me hurting any more than I would want that for her. I can’t tell her how close our stories are, that when my mom died my father was no comfort to me at all, same as her mom. Because that would bring us too close to the truth I’ve promised not to reveal.
But, I have to. Soon. I never expect things to be…this.
God, if I have one more favor to ask, please, don’t let me have fucked this up beyond repair. Help me figure out how to scale this final wall and not blow up what we’ve built.
“I was already on a bad path before she got sick. I have no excuses,” I tell her and she smiles knowingly. “But then something really shitty happened…”
A memory flashes back into my mind. Being called a pervert by a girl I’d trusted, the first person I ever allowed to see that side of me. The side that likes to play at being dominant and caring. The first girl who ever called me daddy, and in the moment seemed to love it, but everything changed when it was over.
She didn’t want me, she wanted good grades. I was the professor’s assistant.
“What happened?” she asks. There’s concern in her green eyes as she looks up into mine, and the guilt I’ve been carrying all these years over the accusations made against me seems insignificant against the love I feel for this woman, right here and now.
I smile. “Things happen. We make mistakes and move forward. I made the mistake of trusting someone and they used that trust to hurt me. Stabbed me where it hurt the most at the time. When I wouldn’t do as I was told, charges were filed against me by people I’d never even talked to. The school couldn’t find any evidence, of course, but you fling enough mud and some of it’s going to stick. I was kicked out, my mom was dying and she wanted me to be safe. Between her and my grandmother, they came up with a plan.”
“And that was going into the church? Kind of drastic, don’t you think?”
“I had a choice to make. Continue the way I was going or find something new. People talk about hearing God’s voice calling them to the church, but I didn’t hear any voice. I saw an option that would give me the seclusion I wanted. A wall around methat said, stay out, especially when it came to relationships. That was my calling, I guess, or at least that’s what I thought.”
I look up, and nod at the doorway to the tattooist’s shop we’ve stopped outside.
“We’re here,” I tell her.
She glances at the front of the shop and half-smiles, one corner of her lips going up. I can’t resist moving forward to kiss them.
“A tattoo studio?” she says when the kiss breaks.
“Uh huh. You’ve seen my tattoos. I want a new one. Potassium Permanganate and Glycerin.”
“Excuse me?” she giggles.
“Come on, you know the chemistry.”
“Yes, it explodes.”
I chuckle, gathering her into my arms. “Well, kind of a slow burn to begin with. Then the sparks start to fly. Like us.”
Her eyes go wide, then she narrows them at me. “Hold on, am I the Potassium Permanganate or the Glycerin in this reaction?”
“Oh, you’ve definitely excited my Permanganate.”
She smirks, one hand trailing down to my growing bulge. “You’re such a nerd.”
