Page 50 of Tracing Holland

She waves me inside and closes the door.I see her belongings organized in neat piles around the large space, and smile that even her toiletries are confident and put-together.Her dressing room is a museum compared to ours, which is just an explosion of our shit dumped on the floor and tables.

I blink and take a deep breath, fully aware I’m just distracting myself.“Look, I know I’ve screwed up a lot of things with you.You keep giving me chances and I keep blowing it.I’m not here for another one, I just wanted to tell you one thing and then I’m gone.It’s about the pictures.”

She stiffens and holds up her hand.“Luke, that’s your business.I don’t want to know.What you do, who you party with, has nothing to do with me.”

I feel every pinch of her statement.I’m not even sure she was trying to cut me, but I realize right then how much it hurts that I’ve lost her.“They were taken at Club Castor in Atlantic City.Two years ago,” I explain quietly.

She stares at me.I can’t read her face, but I’m not sure I even want to know what she’s thinking right now.The silence is excruciating as her gaze bores into me, and I suddenly can’t stand to be here anymore.I did what I came to do.I never promised I’d stay for the fallout.

“Anyway, that’s all I came to say.I wanted you to know the truth before it comes out.It will soon,” I mumble and head toward the exit.The door seems so far all of a sudden, the air in the room so thin and stagnant.I try to stay calm as I make my escape, but inside my head is screaming.Laughing at me, cursing.Mocking this embarrassing failure of a mission.I’ve just reached for the handle when she grabs my arm and yanks me around.

I flinch at the fire blazing in her eyes.

“Not good enough!”she hisses, shoving me against the door.Her palm is on my chest, almost painful as she stiff-arms me into submission to her wrath.

“I’m sorry, I just…”

“Stop!Just…stop!It’s my turn to talk for once!”she cries, and I can only stare, eyes wide, as her long overdue fury explodes on me.

“Why the hell are you here?You came for what exactly?Huh?To confuse me again with some infuriating glimpse of honesty?To clear your conscience for a second, and then what?What’s next, Luke?I let you back in for five minutes until you get scared again?Push me away and leave that huge gaping hole in your wake?God!”

She lets go and clasps her hands over her head in distress as she steps back.“I can’t get you out of my head!Do you know what that’s doing to me?I’m a confident woman.I control my life, myself.I set my standards high because I can.Because I know I deserve that!”

She holds her fist over her heart.“I don’t need a man to complete me, to give me value.I want one, but I don’t need one.Sure, maybe one day I’ll find someone who will fit into the box I created for my life, but it’s a measured choice, nothing more, nothing less.”She stops and meets my gaze, almost angry.“And then you come along.”

There are tears in her eyes as she stares at me.I can’t move, can’t breathe.“You with your drama and your lies and your fucking eyes that haunt me and threaten everything I thought I understood about what I wanted!You’re every reason I have my rules in place!You’re everything I’ve fought to avoid for my life, every reason I should be running in the opposite direction!”

She closes her eyes and draws in a deep breath.I can see her visibly soften, change, and it guts me.“But that song, Luke,” she whispers, daring to look at me again.“You put that song in me that day at the snack bar and now I can’t get it out.In that brief moment, you showed me what it’s like to transform from a connection with another person.You’re the very reason I have my rules and yet make me want to break them every second we’re together.I don’t know what to do anymore!I don’t know how to fix it, how to make it stop and put things back to the way they’re supposed to be.I don’t know how to forget the music now that it’s ingrained in my soul!”

“Holland…”

“Don’t,” she says, wiping at her eyes with a rough hand.“You were right.We can’t be friends.You should just go.It’s better if you just go.”

I should, but for one of the first times in my life, I don’t.I shake my head.“No.I don’t want to.Not this time.”

Her eyes meet mine in shock.The words came out on their own, and I’m just as surprised.But I realize they are Truth.They are more Truth than anything about pictures or haunted pasts or reputations.I don’t want to leave her.That is the truth.I want to be here with her.I want to let this person inside me.

She’s in my arms before I can say another word, and I pull her tight against my chest.Her own arms constrict around my back as though she’s afraid I’m not real, that I’ll vanish before her eyes if she doesn’t hold on tight enough.I rest my cheek on her hair as we hold on, wondering what this moment means, terrified that we’re officially breaking every rule we’ve separately constructed to protect ourselves from each other.But we don’t belong apart, that much is clear.We may not have a clue about how to be together, but there’s no more denying we can’t seem to separate no matter how hard we try.

“I’m sorry, Holland.So sorry,” I whisper, and she pulls tighter.“I don’t want to be what I am.”

“Just let me in, Luke.Please,” she pleads into my shirt.“That’s all I’ve ever wanted from you.”

I nod, even though I know she can’t see me, and close my eyes.It feels so amazing to be held.To feel the warmth of someone’s body against mine.Not in a gesture of comfort, but in a union.Free of the guilt, the pain, the horror that is usually weighing on my soul when I’m touched.This isn’t comfort, it’s connection.

My body starts to react to the closeness of hers, and it’s everything I can do to control the dizzying rush of blood and longing.The agony is unbearable when she finally pulls back and unveils the same mirrored in her eyes.

“I’m not sure I’m totally ready to break all my rules yet, but I want more than a hug, Luke.I want free access to you.All of you,” she whispers, and I find her comfort with her honesty so incredibly hot.

We’re done with words, and my lips find hers in an instinctive crash that sends my brain into oblivion.Her hands slide up my back, curving around my shoulders in a desperate attempt to pull me closer.I can feel her fingertips digging into my muscles, completely claiming me in that moment.It’s not enough, though, and soon we’re backing toward a table in her dressing room.She pushes me against it and I love her confidence.She wants me and has no hesitation in making sure I know it.She grabs the hem of my t-shirt, and I help her yank it over my head.We work together on hers as well, and when it’s our skin making contact this time, the eruptions inside me make it impossible to focus on anything else.

“You are a work of art, you know that?”she breathes, tracing her fingers along my chest, down my abs.

I respond by kissing her again, my blood pounding in my veins.I want her, all of her.I want her naked form melted into mine, to fill her completely, to consume her mind, body, and soul.And I want to give her every inch of me that she’s willing to take.God, I want everything, even though I’m still not convinced either of us is ready for that.We instinctively know that, for us, this moment, will come with a commitment both of us still fear from each other.

And then it hits me.Crashes down in an avalanche that slams into my lungs, and it’s everything I can do to stay standing.There it is in all its vile, eternal glory, the Truth.The rest of it anyway, all the things I haven’t told her but she deserves to know to make this choice.I care about her too much to let her break her rules for a man she doesn’t know.

“Holland, wait…” I say, pulling away.

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