Page 51 of Sunrise Arrows

Tinsley

I layin bed with Archer—my head pillowed on his chest listening to the steady rhythm of his heart while he sleeps—and Hunter’s secret weighs on me more than I thought it would.

Archer was always demonstrative with me, but he’s even more so now. It’s like he’s scooping up sand from the shore and trying to catch the grains that escape through his fingers, afraid of losing a single one. Where he’s open with his affection, he’s more guarded with his words. His candor still exists and he always tells me he loves me, but I see and hear the reservation in his voice. There’s a subtle struggle between his heart and his head, the way his vivid memory creeps in on the present, like phantom hands pulling him back from me at the last second.

Nights are the worst.

He loves me each night with a branding passion that has me soaring, but like the sand he tries to hold onto, there’s an echo of desperation that whispers in. I feel it in the press of his fingers into my flesh, a whisper of the anger he refuses to let himself feel. It’s there in the way he’s reluctant to pull out of me, his brow pulling together in pain as he looks down between us. The lingering kisses that travel from my lips down my throat as he breathes me in, making sure every sense is engaged so when his mind moves the night into long term storage it’s as crisp as possible. Like a savings account for a rainy day he knows is coming, one where I’ll be gone again and he’s trying to learn from the past how to best preserve me.

And when he falls asleep, the tears come, silently rolling down my cheeks as they have every night since our first night together. It’s made worse when his subconscious pushes him to hold me tighter, pull me closer, as if somewhere inside his mind, something is telling him I might run and he needs to be ready.

It’s a defense mechanism I created and Hunter fostered, and seeing it play out each night breaks me down and feeds my anger in equal measure.

Archer doesn’t deserve this, and I have the power to lift it from him. To show him how deep my love has always run. I could come clean and give him the rest of the picture that he’s missing. Show him what happened that night and almost a year later. And some nights, I want to. I don’t want to shoulder someone else’s sins, or be blamed, however buried it may be, for the acts of another.

But I don’t—not even when the opportunity presents itself so prettily on a platter with Archer’s quizzical eyes narrowing and studying me.

He knows I’m not telling him everything, that there’s something I’m holding back. It’s just not what he thinks it is. No matter how much I want to absolve myself and wash away the stain though, I can’t. I won’t. For I fear the truth may cause more harm than the partial lie.

I just hope with time, the scars fade—and with it, Archer’s fears of losing me—making the lie I carry disappear.

Wiping a tear as it falls from my face onto his chest, I cling to him, throwing my leg over his for good measure. If he needs to hold on tight to soothe himself, I’ll hold him right back for as long as he needs me to.

I kiss his chest once, then twice, whispering, “I love you, Superman,” hoping it reaches his subconscious so the worry will let him go and allow him to sleep peacefully.

When he finally starts to relax, truly relax, into a deeper slumber, I close my eyes and drift off with him, not moving from how I’m wrapped around him until the morning.

* * *

“No, no, no, no,”Briar laughs, crossing her hands back and forth in front of her as she shakes her head.

We’re in a booth at Dark Horse with Archer and his family, the plates from our dinner having been cleared long ago. My face is buried in the crook of his neck, hiding from the embarrassment that’s unfolding as Briar regales them with a behind the scenes story from after last year’s Grammy Awards.

“Oh my God,” Ryder crows, laughing like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard while his mom, Eleanor gasps, “No! What did you do?”

I mime scissors and again her mouth drops. “No! You didn’t…”

“We did,” I confirm. “We couldn’t get it over my head and when I tried to shimmy and tug it down, it got even more stuck.

“It was like that episode ofFriendswhen Ross has the leather pants except I couldn’t get the dress off and he couldn’t get his pants back on. It had been a long day and an even longer night. It was what, like three in the morning when I said we were cutting me free?” I ask.

“Mmm at least,” Briar says, sipping her margarita.

“It was going on twenty-fours that I’d been awake, two weeks of hardcore dieting to flush my body of any bloating, and I just wanted to shower, eat a cheeseburger with a strawberry milkshake to drink, and sleep for twelve hours, and the damn thing would not come off. I was way past the point of caring how much the dress cost.”

“Unfortunately, we had used so much Crisco,she was like a little ball of grease, and when she went to shower—” Briar’s cut off by her own wheezing laughter, unable to continue.

“I slipped,” I say, taking my hair from Archer, who’s playing with the ends as he tries and fails to not laugh. Turning to the side, I lift it up to show the small scar and explain, “Cracked my head on the tile and had to get stitches.

“And this one—” I point to Briar who’s red in the face as she laughs without sound right alongside Ryder, “—was zero help. She ran in when she heard me fall but the moment she saw my blood, she passed out! Mikey and John had to take usbothto the E.R.”

“But you got your milkshake!”

“I did,” I laugh.

“Shit, baby,” Archer softly swears, no longer finding the story funny. His fingers thread back through my hair, seeking out the small scar. When he finds it, he turns my head toward him and presses his lips to the long since healed wound. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I dismiss, letting my head lull into his palm, my eyes closing as he massages my scalp.

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