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Shoshana stared at him for a long moment. He wondered what she was thinking, but her face was inscrutable. He wanted to think that quick, incongruous giggle meant more than it probably did. After a breath he didn’t know he was holding, she said, “You were hurting, and you wanted to hurt someone else, so you did.”
Twenty-Seven
“You were hurting, and you wanted to hurt someone else, so you did,” Shoshana said. She could tell by his face that he didn’t want to agree to her summation, but he nodded.
She nodded slowly, thinking about what he’d said. The urge to comfort him was a physical ache in her arms. She made a frustrated noise and slipped down from the barstool, pacing from the kitchen to the reading nook and back. Shoshana stopped in front of him, so close she could smell that smell that was justDavid. She still wanted to roll around in it until it was in her hair. She cursed under her breath.
“Do you have any idea how furious I am with you right now?”
“You have every right to be,” he started, and she made a dashing motion with her hand. The blanket slipped off her shoulder and she jerked at it angrily.
“Stop,” she said, “Do you realize not two days before your hissy fit, I was joking with people that I was sureIwas going to be the one to fuck things up?”
“Shoshana--”
“Shut. Up.” she said, glaring at him. Her look stopped him.
He lifted his hands to show he understood. He had the decency to look her in the eye while she got this out. She wasn’t used to being on this side of things, usually she was the one apologizing. Explaining her behavior. And the worst part was, she knew he was telling the truth. She could see it in the tense line of his jaw. As angry with him as she was, she also wanted to help him. She laughed, shaking her head again.
“I thought you were perfect, you know. Iwantedyou to be perfect. Because of the way you looked at me. Because of the way I felt when you touched me. I’ve never--ever since I could remember I’ve felt wrong. Like I didn’t fit.”
He stood up from his own bar stool. Made a move as though to reach for her. She stepped back. If he started touching her now, she’d never get this out. She knew it hurt him, could see it in the look in his eyes, but she wouldn’t apologize for it.
“It’s like… everyone is a puzzle piece and they all have the place where they go, you know? And my whole life I’ve felt like I must be in the wrong box, I’m part of a different picture or something. And then you come along and it’s the simplest thing, but you just turn me a different way and all of a sudden, there I am. Right there. Where I’m supposed to be. And what do you know, the picture isn’t what I thought it was at all.” She felt the tears welling and dashed at them with the corner of the blanket, annoyed with her traitorous eyes. Now was not the time for tears. “And it’s okay that you’re not perfect, because it really doesn’t matter. It never mattered--you didn’t have to be perfect any more than I did. But what you said to me?”
He nodded, because she had stopped, waiting for him to acknowledge that he remembered exactly what he’d said. She swallowed hard.
“You said the thing I’d been most scared of being true, and I realized it just wasn’t.” Shoshana was as surprised as he seemed to be at this. She shrugged, she hadn’t expected it to be true. Immediately after she’d hung up the phone that night she’d cried, she’d been stung. But she realized it was more because of the way he’d lashed out at her, the words hadn’t landed, not really. She wasn’t sure when that happened--when she’d internalized the idea that she was valid, but it must have been sometime between the first and last time he’d kissed her.
Shoshana’s view of herself had not changed because of David’s kisses, that was absurd, life didn’t work like that. But there was something to be said for seeing yourself through someone else’s eyes. She had been serious when she said he’d only turned her a different way and then everything fit. Nothing substantial was different.
And yet, everything was different.
David touched her cheek. It was dry, but she was blinking very fast. He was so close his warmth was making the blanket unbearable. She was tempted to pull away, but she couldn’t do it.
“I don’t regret hanging up on you. It was still an incredibly shitty thing to say, and if you ever say anything even close to that again you’re dead to me,” she said, lifting a hand to his chest, perhaps to restrain him, maybe just to touch him. His hand covered hers, trapping it against his warmth.
“That is incredibly fair,” he said. The look in his eyes was one she’d never seen before. It was fierce, and tender at the same time. Her breath caught.
“I mean it, David,” she said, forcing her face to be stone. “That never happens again. You don't get to lash out like that. I don't care what’s happening.”
“You’re right,” he said quietly, dipping his head, his forehead touching hers. “I promise you that will never happen again.”
She wondered what she would do if he kissed her in this moment. Could she take it?
“I need to tell you that I love you,” he said, his lips close to her ear. she closed her eyes, her fingers twisting in the fabric of his shirt. “It’s something I have to say. But I have to say it fast, the first time. Just to get it out of the way.”
“Jerkface,” she said, shoving at his chest, but it didn’t matter because he was kissing her and it was so, so good that she was kissing him back. His fingers tangled in the hem of the blanket and she let him pull it so that it was falling away from her. The rush of cool air on her arms made her shiver, but then he was enfolding her in that heat, and it didn’t matter.
David was stepping back, but his arms were around her and Shoshana was following him. Dimly, she was aware that he was guiding them to the window seat. He sat, pulling her into his lap and she groaned against his mouth, encouraging his hands in their attempts to roam her body by tunneling her fingers in his hair, knocking his kippah askew. David nipped at the fullness of her bottom lip and she laughed against his mouth. His fingers were dipping between her legs and she tried to open for him, but it was awkward, the window seat cramped.
“This is unfortunate,” she said, lifting her head to indicate the seat. He made a noise of agreement, his mouth closing over the pulse at her neck. Shoshana’s fingers held his head against her. His hand closed over her breast and she sighed, wondering if she could convince him to take her upstairs. Or at least to the couch.
“Shoshana,” he said, his lips still against her skin. She turned her head, opening her mouth to speak, but his phone trilled loudly from his pocket. He grunted, hand covering his pocket for the briefest moment before he was kissing her again, intent. The phone trilled again, a different sound this time, more of a pinging. She laughed.
“You need to answer that,” she said, pulling away from him enough to brush the loose curls of his hair out of his eyes.
“I need to do this,” he said, touching her jaw, angling her head down to capture her lips again. The phone pinged a second time.
