Page 57 of Freak
With a final, firmer smack of his lips at her ear, Mel let her go and busied himself elsewhere in the kitchen. Abigail breathed out her flutters and focused again on breakfast.
“Can we talk about yesterday while we eat?” he asked as he poured his coffee.
Abigail felt a fresh set of flutters—these of nerves rather than desire—but she knew he was right. More than that, she was glad he’d brought it up first. It would be tempting, for either of them, to sweep yesterday out the door and call it the past, but there was something important in that conflict. Something that might rise up later when it would hurt much more to repair—and be devastating if it couldn’t be. Putting off hard things only ever made them harder.
“I think that’s a good idea,” she answered, but found she couldn’t turn to face him as she did.
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~oOo~
Mel slipped a forkfulof biscuit and gravy into his mouth. His eyes slid shut and he groaned. “Goddamn, woman. Where’ve you been all my life?”
A feather-light touch of delight warmed her cheeks as she grinned. “Right here, where I’ve always been.”
He gave her a sharp look at that answer, but it was gone in a flash. He went back in for a bite double the size of the first. After he’d swallowed that down and chased it with a slurp of coffee, he set his fork and cup down and focused on her.
It was time for the talk. Again she was pleased to find him leading this and not running from it.
“I need to understand what happened between us yesterday—not last night”—he grinned broadly as he made that clarification—“I don’t need an explainer for that. But at the clubhouse, when everything went wrong. You were mad. I hurt you somehow, and I don’t know how.” He reached out and clasped her hand. “But I know I don’teverwant to hurt you. So I need to understand.”
Taking a breath to consider her response, she decided it would be helpful to hear him describe that scene. What had his motivations been? They hadn’t had a chance to talk it out yesterday in the parking lot; Double A had interrupted just as they were getting to the dangerous part of the discussion.
“How would you describe what happened?” she asked.
He studied her for a moment. Then he shrugged. “Some bitch said something shitty to you. I called her on it. Her man took up for her, and we had it out. Somewhere in there, you got mad and left.”
How interesting were the ways perception, perspective, and personality shaped memory. Mel had just told a perfectly true, even factual, version of the events, from his perspective. A pared-down version, devoid of most context, but that was consistent with his personality. Though poetry occasionally escaped from his mouth, he generally got to the point and didn’t dangle adjectives like baubles on the branches of his truths.
The truths she’d gleaned from those same facts, shaped by her own perspective, were considerably different. “I told you in the truck yesterday that I didn’t care what that woman said. She didn’t hurt me. I don’t know her, I’d never laid eyes on her until that minute, and I likely won’t lay eyes on her again after this weekend. It doesn’t matter what she thinks of me, and nothing that doesn’t matter can hurt me.”
Mel was quiet as he processed her words. His head canted to the right, and he frowned. “I think I get it, but not totally. Because she did say something shitty. To you. In our house, with me standing right there. You want me to walk away from something like that? Abs, no. That’s ... that’s never gonna happen. I’mnevergonna let anybody do anything meant to hurt you—even if they miss. And I gotta say, it feels kinda nuts for you to say I hurt you when I took up for you.”
His perspective was that of a man defending what he cared about. A man who embraced violence in multiple ways in his life. Of course he couldn’t see the view from where she stood. His own shadow obscured it.
The hurt she’d felt yesterday had been healed by the balm of last night. She didn’t want to relitigate that silly encounter that should have meant nothing. Instead, their newborn romance rested on the balance, and a moment that should have been meaningless now meant everything.
He still held her hand. Now Abigail slipped it free and set it on his arm. “You”—her voice broke. Swallowing, she began again, keeping her eyes locked with his, trying to send the heart of her message into his soul, hoping it would settle there and take root.
“I think you reacted to what she said the way you did—with an insult in kind—becauseyouwere embarrassed by what she said.Youtook that on as an insult because you saw truth in it. I think you were embarrassed for me. And I wonder if some part of you is embarrassedofme.”
He reared back so hard the front legs of his chair came off the floor. He dropped forward again with athunkand shoved his breakfast plate away before he replied. “No! Fuck, Abigail, no!” He stared for another second, then huffed a sharp breath. “Jesus, nowI’mpissed. I can’t believe you’d even think that!”
She didn’t reply. Until he said more, there was nothing she could add.
Overcoming his shock and offense, Mel leaned toward her again and picked up her hand again. “You’re wrong, Abs. I’m not embarrassed of you! Notever.I’m in awe of you. You’re beautiful from head to toe—but the way you look is just the fancy paper on the real gift.You’rebeautiful—your heart, your mind, the way you see the world, the way you treat people, all the things you know, all the ways you help—that’s your real beauty. I’mproudto be with you,proudthat you think I’m worth your time. What happened in the Hall yesterday—somebody meant to hurt you. That’s what I heard. The words barely mattered. She wanted to hurt you. I didn’t think about why, I just saw somebody trying to hurt you, and I got in her way. Yeah, I know you’re way stronger than some rando’s nasty comment, and I’m damn sorry it made trouble between us, but I’mnotgonna apologize for getting in the way of somebody who wanted to hurt you. I’m not as nice as you are, and I’m always gonna protect the people I love. Don’t ask me to step back from that. I won’t. I can’t. That’s whoIam.”
Red and green sparks shot through his aura, the blue of which was more vibrant than usual, commensurate with his heightened emotional state. Abigail wondered how her own explosive emotional state affected her aura. Her mind was louder than she could think around.
Their topic was important; they needed to find common ground on this point. They were making progress; he’d shown her a different angle from which to see his side and understand. He’d also said something that made her not care at all about yesterday.
“People you love?” she whispered, almost afraid to give the question life.
Mel blinked, and she knew he hadn’t meant to speak that word into existence. But then he smiled.
“People I love. I’ve been feeling that lately. After last night, it’s like somebody’s shouting it in my ear. It’s early, and you probably think I’m—”
She shook his hand sharply to stop him. “If it’s a truth, don’t take it back. If you’re not sure, though ...”
