Page 53 of Beacon

Not until I found him holed up in this cabin in the woods and I had him in my life again.

The memories roll through my mind like a movie reel, and I feel all the same stress and uncertainty and upset again. I don’t cry, and I manage to keep my body still, but I’m not anywhere close to sleep.

Until Mack finally bursts out, “What the hell is going on over there?”

There’s noover there. I’m snuggled right up against him. But I know what he means anyway. “Nothing’s going on!”

“Then why are you getting all upset for no reason! Are the cramps worse? Or are you sick again? Like yesterday?”

It is kind of like yesterday when I was crying in the bathroom. “I’m not sick. I’m fine. I was trying to sleep. I thought you were asleep.”

“Well, I was, but then I was getting hit by all these stressed vibes from you. It was very disturbing.”

I sigh and give up trying to convince him of something that isn’t true. “I wasn’t really stressed. Just a bad memory. Sometimes they hit me, and I can’t push them away, and I feel it all again.”

“Yeah. That happens to everyone, I think. What bad memory are you thinking about right now?”

He asks the questions as if he’s absolutely certain that he has a right to the answer.

I exhale deeply again. Stroke his hip. His lower back. His tight butt, completely bare as usual. “Honestly, I was thinking about when I broke up with you.”

“Why were you thinking about that?”

“I don’t know. Just a random, passing thought. But once it was lodged in my brain, it wouldn’t budge.”

“And it upset you that much?”

“Of course it upset me! It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”

He’s fully awake now. He eases me onto my back and rolls over on top of me, propping himself up on his arms so he can look down at me. “It was hard for me too.”

“I know it was. I felt like shit for doing that to you. And I felt like shit for not realizing the way things… things really were a lot sooner.”

“No, that part is my fault. All mine. I’m the one who told you all I wanted was the casual thing. I had my ownself half-convinced it was the truth. Why wouldn’t you have believed me?”

“I don’t know. But I felt guilty anyway. Still do a little.”

“You shouldn’t. I’m a big boy, and I can use my words to ask for what I want.”

I giggle at this, as he probably intended. I lift my hand to play idly with his beard. “I’ve never wanted to use you, Mack.”

“You never have. Not even once. It was hard for me when you broke things off, but you didn’t do wrong by me then or any time before then. I might have… I might have done a little wrong to myself.”

I gulp and slide my palm up to his cheek. I wonder if I can possibly find the courage to tell him that my feelings have started to change.

“But I know things are different now,” he continues. “I’m not holding on to any secret hopes or dreams about you anymore. I know we’re just together for right now, and I know that’s best for both of us. But I still want to have these last few weeks, if that’s okay.”

I nod, my heart breaking a little but not enough to really matter. I knew what the situation was when I started having sex with him again, and I can’t guilt him for doing the same thing that I myself did for years in the past. Assume the spoken boundaries around our relationship were genuine on both sides.

“You still seem a little upset,” he murmurs, peering down at me in the darkness of the room.

“I’m just emotional. From all those memories and probably because of my period. I’m really okay. And I want these last few weeks with you too.”

He leans down to kiss me. Then rolls over and pulls me back into our snuggling position. “So try to get some more sleep so maybe we can enjoy ourselves later.”

I laugh at that. And I purposefully blow out the angst from my mind so I can finally fall back to sleep.

I sleep a couple of hours. Long enough for some gray light to be coming in from the cracks around the curtains when I open my eyes again. The sun must be starting to rise.

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