“How do you feel?”
“What?”
“How do you feel? Or should I start?”
“What is this? Twenty questions?”
“I’m sick of pu**yfooting around the subject of us!” he half-yells. “Damn it, Kia! I don’t want stolen kisses against my truck or an emotional f**k in a treehouse! I want you to tell me how you feel!”
“I don’t get you. You just demanded to know why I came today and now you’re asking me to pour my heart out?”
“Okay. You know what? I’ll start.” He runs his fingers through his hair and steps closer to me. “I’ve got nothing to compare it with, no benchmark to hold it against, but I’m pretty damn sure I’m completely in love with you. I’m also pretty damn sure I’ve been in love with you since last summer. This whole thing is the biggest headfuck ever, but I still can’t let it go. I don’t even have a reason why. You disappear for a year, come back, then do the same thing for two days, and let me tell you, Kia, those two days felt longer than that goddamn year! I guess I can’t let it go because I love you, but I have no idea why I love you. You flit in and out of my life like a butterfly, and I’m still the poor flower sitting and waiting for you to come back every time.”
I press my hands against my stomach, nausea swirling as the reality of his words hit me and the truth of them swirl around me and suffocate me. What am I supposed to say back to that? There’s nothing that can change it, no matter how much I wish there was.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper lamely, unable to look at him.
“And d’ya know the worst thing?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“The worst thing is that I’m waiting for you to turn around and walk away right now. I’m standing here waiting for you to run, all because you’re so damn frightened of something that isn’t gonna happen.”
“You don’t –”
“Know you? You know that’s wrong. You know I do. Maybe that’s why you’re so frightened of hanging around. Is it? Is that why you have to run, Kia? Huh?”
My head snaps back up, my eyes drawn to his.
“You run because you’re scared of the fact I know every single bit of you. I know everything about you, and you can’t deal with that. That’s exactly it.”
I shake my head again; silent denial even in the face of a partial truth, unable to accept the fact we’re tarring this perfect place with our imperfections.
“Yeah, it is. That’s all it is. Nothin’ else,” Reese says simply.
“That’s not true,” I say quietly.
“You can’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Run then. If you’re not lying, run like you normally do!”
“Maybe I’m scared of giving you everything then having you walk away from me like I’ve done to you so many times!” The words burst out of me, and my hands tremble against my stomach. “Maybe it’s because I know I deserve that. I don’t deserve to have you stand here in front of me and tell me you love me when I’ve been nothing but a complete and utter ass**le to you since the day I walked away. I don’t deserve any of that but for some reason I have it, and that scares the crap outta me. So yeah, you’re kinda right. I’m scared of the fact you know me better than I know myself, but that’s not all of it. That’s not everything.”
“What are you scared of, baby? What do you have to be scared of?” He walks across the grass to me; his eyes still fixed on mine.
“I’m scared of not being able to feel the way I do whenever I’m with you. I’m scared that one day you’ll walk away and I’ll never feel this way again.”
“What do you feel?” His voice is low, quiet, and a whisper away from me as he stops. His hands grip my arms gently, holding me still.
My hands wrap around my stomach, and I close my eyes, unable to look at him.
“Love.” The word is barely a breath as the ultimate admission falls from my lips. “I don’t want to feel it, but I do. And it’s not just any love. It’s the all-consuming, once in a lifetime kind of love. That’s all I feel whenever I’m around you.”
“What makes you think the way I feel is any different?”
“Fear.”
“Kia, as long as you feel the way I do you have nothing to be afraid of. Not now and not ever.”
I open my eyes slightly and look straight into his. “How do you know?”
Reese brings his hand up and cups my face, rubbing his thumb across my cheek gently, and his other moves from my arm to my side. “I know,” he says softly. “Because I’m afraid that one day you’ll walk away – for good this time – and I’ll never feel this way again, either.”
It takes a second for me to realize the wetness running down my cheeks isn’t spray from the waterfall – its tears. Because it’s true. I fight it because I’m too scared to take a risk. I’m too scared to throw my arms up in the air and jump in head first.
I’m too scared I love Reese the way Momma loved Daddy.
I feel like a toddler learning about the world for the first time, that time where so much is scary because it’s uncertain and unknown. I want to know what will happen the same way a toddler wants to know why they can’t jump over the furniture or why it’s so dark under their bed if there are no monsters living there.
I want someone to explain everything to me. To explain life, love, and even what it is about Reese I can’t seem to let go. I can’t resist him even though I wish I could. If I could, then I might not have to face up to the truth.
Because the truth is, no matter what I do or how I try to fight it, Reese Pembleton owns me. Heart, body and soul. It’s all his. He owns me so completely and entirely it petrifies me.
And the only thing that’s scarier than that is looking into his eyes and knowing I own him the exact same way.
~
I push the front door open, ignoring the constant buzzing of my phone in my pocket from Luce. The kitchen light is on, so I know Momma is home. Stupidly, a small part of me hope she’s not passed out somewhere even though I know she will be. After all… It is past midnight.
The body slumped over the table in the middle of the room tells me that my hope was indeed stupid. The half-empty vodka bottle and empty glass tell me the same thing. In fact, they don’t just tell it. They scream it, because she never hides it.