Page 19 of Carver
I don’t believe in curses, but if I did, I might come to believe that the only thing that can prosper there is shit that can’t be stamped out anywhere. Thistles. Weeds. Remnants of the marijuana plants my uncles grew. I guess the land did support just enough corn for them to make their shine. The old, dried up stalks still stand in the far field.
I didn’t even realize I was considering it until the words are out, but I’m completely fixated on the idea of coming here.
What would life look like?
Why did I think that someone like me couldn’t have a fresh start?
I can’t escape myself or my past, but I can leave the land. It doesn’t mean I have to sell it. I could rent it, like Dravin suggested. Just because it hasn’t been farmed in decades doesn’t mean that it can’t be. The junk would have to be cleared away. The farmhouse knocked down. Everything scraped away to give the land a rebirth.
It might be easier just to sell it, but I know that I could never do that. However many bad memories that the place holds, it’s also part of me.
Bronte’s silent while I think that all out. She knows that I’m not a big talker. I’m always up in my head, even when I’m trying to have a conversation. She said that in chess, she takes too long to make a move and the game drags. That’s me, but in every aspect of my life.
“Not that I can blame anything on land,” I say. She nods, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “I can’t blame it on my dad or my uncles or even that fucking stone. It was me. Entirely. Me.” I thump my chest. Her head snaps up at the sound. “I need to be better. I need to figure myself out.” My palm is soaked with sweat, my knuckles aching, so I unfurl my hand. “All those times I encouraged you to not be with me, it was because I knew I didn’t have the first clue how toliveand you did.”
“Dom—”
“Just- hold on for a second. Don’t try and make me feel better until I’ve got it all out.”
She doesn’t like it. She’s never liked when I’ve said terrible things about myself. She’s always been my truest champion. I couldn’t fathom why, but she knows her reasons. She always has. Always will. That’s Bronteexactly.
“I didn’t want to be the reason you couldn’t do the things you wanted to do or be who you wanted to be. I know that you love me. You love all the versions of me. The ones from the past, the me you see in the future, the person right now. To you, I’ve always been who I need to be, but I- that doesn’t mean that it’s true. I’m not the man that I should be.”
Her lips thin out and turn down at the corners. I know that it hurts her to hear me say this. The feeling is electric in the room. Her distress bites into my heart with sharp teeth, tearing away another chunk.
“You’ve waited and waited, hoping that I’d realize that potential or just fucking materialize at all. You’ve been waiting all this time for me to do more than exist. Iwantto. I owe that to you, and I owe it to myself.”
Bronte gathers her legs up, wrapping her arms around her knees and setting her chin on them. She looks so small and vulnerable, but even the smallest diamond is still one of the toughest stones in the world.
“I just don’t know how to do that.”
She doesn’t quote bullshit about just making a start. “I think moving here is a good idea,” she whispers, her chin tucked on top of her kneecaps.
She’s sad. She’s in pain. She’s waiting for me to tell her what I need. I know that the only thing she’s ever wanted isme. It sounds so stupid, but I’ve always been afraid to tell her just how much I need her too. She knows, but that’s not enough. I haven’t given her nearly enough, even when I was giving her everything, and that was always the problem.
How could I want her when I’d never been wanted myself?
How could I love her when I was such an unloved child?
When you’re kicked enough times, you get to the point where you numb out and stop feeling it, but you also quit waiting for it to stop. You know it’s never going to stop. Life will always be a series of kicks.
But this time I take that first step to healing, “Would you come with me?”
Her face breaks into the brightest smile. The only reason she doesn’t launch herself at me is because she doesn’t want to do anything to hurt me. She does set her hand over my foot. Even through the blankets, I can feel the magic of her touch. The power of it. A shiver zips up my spine and clenches around the base of my neck. I’m in my boxers under here, and when my cock thickens, getting instantly hard at the thought of Bronte, her hands, her mouth, the warm heat of her, the scent of her skin, the feel of her lips on my body—it’s impossible to hide. I have to pretend to shift against the headboard like my back hurts.
Bronte unfurls, ready to reach for the pillow beside me, but I wave her off, shoving it behind me and drawing my knees up at the same time.
“I know your family wouldn’t be close.” I need to stop thinking about Bronte’s skin. About putting my lips to the hollow of her throat, about kissing her until she opens for me, of having her lithe form on top of me, legs straddling my waist while she rides me.
Fuck.
“I went to college for four years, I know what it’s like to be away from home.” She wraps a strand of hair around her fingers but drops it. She looks me dead in the face. I go from turned on as fuck, to flustered because I swear that she can read my mind. “I’d miss them, but two hours isn’t an insurmountable distance. And when I said it was a good idea, I meant forboth of us.”
“We’ve never lived together.” Fuck. Fuck, fuck. That familiar panic veers back at me, taking a sharp turn, throwingme straight back into its wild currents. I’m not afraid of marriage, of commitment, of a lifetime with Bronte.
That would be heaven for a man who has only known hell.
I’m just right back into the midst of all those shit thoughts, the ones that tell me they’re going to fuck me over, fuck Bronte over, and ruin everything.How dare you ever dream?That’s the kind translation.
