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“Explain,” he whispered harshly.
My skin stung along the path of yet another tear. “Darling.” No more would I call him that. One day, probably soon, I would see him with another, his dimples flashing, his daughter laughing. “You couldn’t possibly understand. You’re light and I’m dark.” My voice broke but I pressed on. “It plagues me,” I confessed. “I feel so dirty sometimes. And when I’m with you, and especially Dolly, I’m contaminating you both.”
Shame burned me from the inside out. I covered my face. I didn’t want him to remember me like this.
I wanted him to remember sparkly dresses and dancing with Dolly, parks and blanket forts and giant balloons at the zoo.
I wanted him to picture me singing on stage with Drivetrain, working on my commissions while he played guitar, curled up beside him reading in his backyard, singing with him at the cookout, teasing him about musical instruments, naked Shakespeare, the goddess at play…
He touched me and I reared away from him.
“It’s not that I don’t want to share you.” Another tear escaped. “I love Dolly. How can I not? She’s yours.” I needed to make sure there was no misinterpretation. “I want to take her to the park and the zoo and put her in the bath and tuck her into bed and kiss her booboos and change her diapers and buy her ice cream and do her hair and cover her with sparkles, but I can’t!”
“Why can’t you? Lay it out for me in a way I can understand.”
“Because the OCD fallout makes me crazy. I cannot live like this. I cannot survive like this. I don’t want to survive like this!”
“It’s early days, baby. We can work on these things. We haven’t even had a chance…”
“Captain,” I whispered. “I know my limits.”
“Minty…baby…” he entreated. “Don’t do this.” He stopped suddenly and narrowed his eyes on my face. “There’s really only one thing I need to know right now. Is it too much because you don’t love me enough? If that’s what it is, you gotta say the words.”
Lying is a sin.
Not lying is selfish.
The truth will set you free.
You need to set him free.
My shoulders hunched inward. “I can’t give you those words. But I can’t be with you. I’m suffering. I can’t handle it. Please, Lucky,” I pleaded, wanting him to go? Stay? Understand?
His face cleared and he seemed almost relieved which left a different kind of wound. “Please what, baby?” He pushed.
“Please leave.” I reached for him then snatched my hand back. “I cannot.” My voice broke and I began again. “It’s too much, Captain. I cannot cope.”
The words dropped from my lips like lead weights, and I curled into myself, turning my face away from him.
He stepped close but didn’t touch me.
His voice was low and controlled when he spoke, almost calm. “You told me there was one you loved who walked away because he couldn’t handle your OCD. I’m not him. I can, and will, handle you.”
He touched the calloused tip of his finger to my cheek. “Beautiful. My heart.”
A sob caught in my throat.
Focused on the floor in front of me, I watched his shoes as he turned and walked away.
The door snicked shut. He turned the lock from the outside with his key and knocked briskly on the doorframe. I heard his words in my head.
I’ll be back.
Despite what he said, I knew it was over. I’d make it so.
Still, I leaned against the door and strained to hear the last of his footsteps as he thumped down the stairs, leaving me to the angry buzz of silence. My hands shook as I grabbed a blanket off the back of the couch and tucked myself into a ball underneath it. If I thought I’d been suffering before, it was nothing compared to the sharp spear of loss running me through now.
Even so, with the pain there mingled a sick sense of relief.
