Page 93 of Temptations of a Wallflower
“Why?” was all he could manage.
“Because . . .” She paused, as though gathering herthoughts. “These days without you have been excruciating.” Another long pause. “When I was a little girl, I was standing behind a dog cart, and it backed up, rolling over and breaking my foot. The pain was everywhere in me. I couldn’t escape it. It encompassed everything. But that hurt is nothing,nothing,compared to the time we’ve been torn apart.”
His heart beat faster and faster as tears thickened her voice—he hadn’t been at peace ever since she’d come unexpectedly into his bedroom. In truth, he hadn’t been calm or easy for days. The torment she described was precisely what he felt.
“I haven’t been able to write,” she went on. “Not a sentence, not a word. And I realized . . . what was the point of writing when it gave me no pleasure, no purpose, anymore? It was worthless. I was worthless.”
Those words from her sent a stab of alarm through him. He’d heard such despair from parishioners on the very brink. “Sarah—”
“I’ve thought about it,” she continued, talking over him. “Turned it over and over in my mind until I’ve worn the thought down to a shiny pebble. None of it matters, none of my joys or achievements, if I cannot share them with someone. If I can’t share them withyou.”
She reached over and took hold of his hand, her own faintly trembling. It was their first touch in days, and it rocked him to his depths. It had been agonizing without her, being torn between wanting her desperately and roiling with fury at what she’d done. He needed her so much, yet her betrayal continued to burn him. She was hurting and he wanted to gather her close, shield herfrom the pain. Yet it was an injury that she had caused with her recklessness.
“There’s that story about Solomon,” she whispered. “With the women and the baby.”
“The Judgment of Solomon,” he recalled. “Two women fought, each insisting that they were mother of a baby boy.”
“King Solomon called for a sword,” Sarah went on.
“He said the only solution was to split the living child in two, and each woman would get one half. One said to go ahead and carve the child in two, the other said she’d give him up to spare him the judgment.”
“Because she’d rather the boy lived, even if it meant being raised by another.” Sarah exhaled. “If I must choose between writing and you, I choose you. I won’t kill the love that we shared. And I hope,” she went on, her voice shaking, “that in time, you’ll forgive me, and we’ll find a way back to what we once had.”
The enormity of what she said she would do struck him hard, as though he’d been thrown by an explosion. Writing waseverythingto her.
“You cannot give up the most important thing in your life,” he protested. “Not for me.”
“I have to,” she said firmly. “I need you to trust me once more, and this is the only way I can show you that I will not hurt you again.”
“Sarah, love,” he choked. Reaching out, he pulled her against his body. She wrapped her arms around him. They held one another for a long, long time. Time moved onward, but he paid its passage no mind. He cared only for the feel of her in his arms again. It felt right. Like coming home after a long, wearying voyage.
“Life without you has been a miserable, shriveled thing,” he murmured into the cascade of her hair.
“I can’t do this without you,” she breathed. “I can’t—”
“You don’t have to.” Pulling back slightly, he cupped her face with his palms. “It will be us, together.”
“But your father . . .”
“I’ll think on that. Later. Let’s just have this moment.” He kissed her, slowly, cautiously.
They lay side by side. Unable to truly touch. Something very precious had been lost forever.
They had made peace, but there would be no going back to the way things had been. That life was gone now. Moving forward, all he could see was murky haze and more uncertainty.
What was to become of them?
Jeremy tucked Sarah’s hand into the crook of his arm as they left Astley’s Amphitheater. The happy crowds exiting the theater after the performance were thick, threatening to force them apart. But he held on to her tightly as they made their way toward the street.
He glanced down at her. “Didn’t know horses could dance,” he said above the din of the throng.
“Or that dogs made for superior equestrians,” she said with a smile. “Of all the things I thought I’d ever see, a pug atop a gelding ranks toward the bottom.”
“The wonders of London are manifold,” he noted. “Hope they don’t make Rosemead seem tedious in contrast.”
“I’d never feel that way about Rosemead,” she answered at once.
This was the first they’d mentioned their home in some time. Neither of them seemed willing to discuss their return—though it would have to happen eventually. There were many things that needed to transpire, but both he and Sarah avoided all these topics. Avoidance was the way things went, lately.
