Page 121 of Notorious

Kurt has tears in his eyes, too. “Were you sitting here with the gun, thinking about aiming it at yourself?”

“I did,” I whisper.

His face falls. “Oh, babe. No. No, then … we need to get you some more help.”

I sniffle. “Sure, yeah. Okay. But I realized something.”

“What’s that?” He looks so stricken I wanna kick my own ass.

“I don’t actually want to kill myself. I’m in so much pain, and I’m desperate for help—but you help me. And I fucking wanna—I wanna be with you. I don’t want to leave you.”

“I want to be with you, too. No matter what.” He huffs a laugh. “We got married, and I have no idea what our vows were. But aren’t wedding vows usually like, ‘I will be with you in sickness and in health, for richer and poorer,’ all that?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, call this the sickness part. Or maybe the worse part of ‘for better and for worse.’ But no matter what, I’m staying with you. For as long as you’ll have me, I’m yours. I’m so in love with you, Johnny, you have no idea. I couldn’t fall in love with the man I saw on my screen—he wasn’t real—but I have fallen in love with you. Messy you, who calls me precious and who treats me like I’m exactly that. Who enforces honesty even when you don’t want to. Even when it’s so painful to do.”

I blink at him. “I dunno what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. I think this is the pressures of the trial and the election and all kinds of shit piling on top of each other. It’s not surprising that you’re feeling really bad right now. But, babe, you know that mental health isn’t just magically fixed. You’re going to have days like this.”

Looking over at the gun, I mutter, “I hope not. This hurts too much.”

“If we need to check you back into the hospital, then that’s what we do. It’s okay. You’re going to be okay, and all you have to do right now is decide to stay alive for the rest of today. Can you do that?”

“I can,” I say.

“Fuck, you scared me,” Kurt says. “I thought this was going to be Andrei again. Except worse, because I love you so much more.”

My stomach clenches. There’s no way on the green earth of the Lord that I wanted to make Kurt feel bad. I was only thinking about myself. “I’m so sorry.”

He lifts up my chin. “Do not feel guilty.”

“Of course I feel guilty. I never want to hurt you.”

“Then … let’s go talk to Christian again.”

I smile at him. A creaky smile, but a smile nonetheless. “I think that’s a wise idea.”

“Do you think you’re ready to get out of the garage? The floor is cold, and Lady’s probably worried about us.”

“Yeah.” I stare at the gun. “Can you put that away somewhere?”

“Of course.” He sighs. “I don’t know where to hide the keys, though. That was my best hiding spot.”

“It wasn’t very good. It didn’t take me long to find it. I guess ‘out of sight, out of mind’ is what we’ll have to do for now.”

“Okay. Wait for me just outside the door,” he orders.

I raise an eyebrow. “You the dom now, darlin’?”

“Never.”

I kiss him. “I’ll wait.”

He meets me in the hallway after a minute, and we go up the stairs to the living room. “This is the scariest fucking day of my life,” he says. “I’m making an appointment with Christian for first thing tomorrow morning.”

“I’m sorry,” I say again.

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