Page 63 of Chasing After You
NESSA
I run without any sense of direction. I just need to run. I need space to breathe. To think. To feel all the damn feelings.
One foot in front of the other, over and over, I keep moving them. Until one of my straps snaps on my shoe and I’m forced to choose between stopping and tripping.
I only slow down enough to undo my sandals as much as I need to kick them off and keep going.
Now who’s having a fucking Cinderella moment?!
I don’t dwell on the fairy tale twists of my life. I just keep moving. Keep getting faster until my lungs burn, and my legs give out from the blow of anxiety and adrenaline colliding within me.
Down on all fours, chest heaving for air, bursting with emotion, I feel myself breaking from within, being swallowed in the empty stillness of being alone out in the endless space of sand and sea.
“Ness,” Matti whispers my name.
I’m sure I must be imagining it. He can’t really be here.
Then his hand lands on my back, softly moving in circles the way he used to do to calm me in moments of overwhelm. My body doesn’t know how to respond. Part of me wants to lurch forward, deny myself the comfort his touch grants me. The other part wants to sink into the weight of his hand, feel the safety of being held by him.
But it’s my mind which overshadows everything.
He’s here. He came after me. And it’s all I can do to keep repeating those words inside my head over and over.Matti came after me.
“Why are you running?” the deep rasp of his voice only makes the hurt in his words echo louder.
“I don’t think I can do this again.” I don’t turn around to face him. I can’t. But I sit up, resting against his hand, allowing myself the grace of his comfort. Just for a minute more. “I want to, Matti, but I’m scared.” I force myself to look back and meet him eye to eye. “You didn’t have to run after me. That’s not why I took off. This wasn’t some sort of twisted test.”
He doesn’t chuckle like I expect him to, like I count on him to make light of heavy situations. “I know that. You think that’s why I followed you?”
I turn my gaze away again, seeking the dark of endless night-drenched sea instead. “I don’t know what I think anymore.”
“Fine.” He moves in closer to me, both hands taking up the tender swirling motions against my back while his legs stretch out on either side of me. “Forget thinking. What are you feeling?”
Even just trying to tune in and narrow it down to a feeling or two I can voice out loud rattles my body with a wave of shaking, like I’m trying to escape my own heart, but my body is holding me captive, forcing me to face what I’ve shoved down all this time.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, soft lips brushing against my ear, my hair catching in the scruff of his chin. “You can fall to pieces right here and I will hold them all. I promise.”
“Stop,” I wince, breaking away from his touch. “You have no business trying so hard to make this right for me when I’m the one who screwed everything up to begin with.”
“It always takes two, Ness. You know that. When it worksandwhen it falls apart, it always takes two.” He doesn’t try to pull me back, but he doesn’t move away either. Just holds steady where he sits, like he’s waiting for me, certain I’ll return and willing to wait no matter the time it takes. “And I get thatit’s going to take more than one gesture, one declaration of my commitment to us, for you to believe in me again.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” I cry, two years of grief I thought I healed still fresh beneath the surface. “It’s not you I don’t trust, it’s me. Fine, we’re both to blame, but Matti, how I hurt you, how I was so easily willing to break your heart on my quest to fulfill my own needs, I’ll never be able to forgive myself for. We were a team. It was my job to look out for you, not be the one who hurt you worse than anyone else ever could.”
Silence settles between us. Silence but for my crying and the crash of waves moving in over the sand at a steady rhythm.
“Will you look at me?” he asks when so much time has passed between us, the numbness that follows heartache has started to spread inside me.
I don’t answer with words, but I do start to drag myself through the sand until I’m turned sideways. Not facing him directly, but still able to meet his request easily by lifting my head in his direction.
“I trust you,” he starts. “I trust you. And yeah, for a long time, losing you felt like it should have killed me, like maybe it still would. But I haven’t ever, not for one moment, thought what you did was selfish, or that you should have protected my heart at the expense of your own.”
I sniff. The numbness retreats again and a new surge of feelings begins to rise. I can’t define it. But it scares me. “How could you not? I was willing to risk everything, our marriage, our family, just to find the pieces of me I thought were missing. And they weren’t even missing, Matti. That’s the worst part, they were already there. Everything I thought I needed to figure out, was already staring me square in the face. I had a business degree. I’d been practicing yoga since college. I even got certified to teach the year I got pregnant with Nate. Then I had a newborn and forgot about it. I grew obsessed with nutrition and holistichealth practices instead. I was already the woman I was seeking to become. I just couldn’t see it.”
“Maybe.” He nods and I notice for the first time, he’s crying too. “But I think you’re still hiding from the real reason you’re holding back, Ness. The only thing I can’t figure out is if you’re worried facing it will hurt you...or me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do.” His voice is gruff and deeper than normal, the way it only gets when emotions are getting the better of him. “Just say it. Whatever it is, you holding it in isn’t helping either of us.”
