Page 63 of Crumbling Truth
“My kindergarten best friend and I were building Play Doh castles at their dining room table, not knowing her older brothers ate peanuts there the night before, and when I cried because it was time to go, I rubbed that residue into my eyes and swelled up like a boxer who’d just lost the fight. On school picture day two days later, I still looked like I’d been punched in the face. The skin under my eyes was still all puffy and bruised. My mom took one look at the proofs and hid them in the back of a closet.”
“Jesus,” he whispered.
“After that, the invitations dwindled, not that my mother would have allowed me to accept any of them, anyway. Nobody wanted to be responsible for a mistake like that.”
Theo held me as I spoke in fits and starts, more stories about allergic reactions and teasing and isolation, about myown husband moving in to kiss me before I caught a whiff of candy bar on his breath. It was worse than if he’d come home smelling of another woman’s perfume, a disregard not only of my feelings, but my safety.
“He was an asshole.” The growled words settled over me like a weighted blanket.
“The relief after convincing him to keep his hands off me was incredible, because I could finally stop worrying he’d inadvertently send me into anaphylaxis with his carelessness.”
My breath hitched, causing Theo’s arms to tighten around me.
As they poured out into the darkness, all those memories and anxieties, the pressure that had taken root in my chest the minute I opened that box finally began to ease. My body melted into his, boneless and weightless, as he stroked my hair and waited for the words to trickle to a halt.
When nothing else came out, his lips found my forehead in the darkness. “Tomorrow morning, I want you to show me how to use the EpiPen, just in case.”
I nodded, my hair whispering over the fabric of his t-shirt. Sometimes it seemed so hard to know if I was overreacting—that had been such a common refrain during my marriage, and the years of therapy had never quite removed the doubt from my mind when it came to certain things.
Hearing Theo’s unveiled anger over the package, his commitment to keeping me safe, untangled another tiny knot in my chest I hadn’t realized was there.
Whatever happened down the road, he was here now. I’d let him keep pulling me back into the light, out of my solitary existence, so I could regain the strength I’d need when he was gone.
There were always lessons to be learned, weren’t there?
My thoughts slowed from a whirl to a lazy review of all I’d learned from Theo, and without intending to, I slipped off to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Theo
Forthefirsttimein our short acquaintance, sleeping together meant exactly that. When I awoke, it was with a crick in my neck and Esther still tucked against me, her head on my chest and waves of silky black tresses everywhere, including one stuck to my lower lip. I managed to dislodge it without waking her, then shifted carefully against the pillows to stretch the side of my neck.
Those late night confessions had been cathartic for her, I knew, but each one had landed like a blow to my soul. She was truly remarkable, this woman in my arms, and I felt like practically everyone in her life had failed her time and again.
How could I join that line of tragedies in her life, knowing what I did?
Logically, I understood that what happened between us wasn’t just up to me. Emotionally, the urge to shield her, to love and cherish and protect her, was nearly overwhelming in its intensity. She could take care of herself, but I didn’t want her tohaveto.
Hard to take care of someone from twelve hours away.
That tiny voice in my head taunted me, leering and vicious in its honesty. What was I even thinking? Would I ask her to uproot her life and move to North Carolina with me? Or was I really considering moving back to the hometown I’d forsworn almost twenty years ago?
No answers came from the silent house, not that I expected any. Since the moment I left Spruce Hill, I’d told myself nothing would force me back here, and yet here I was. If a spoiled ginger cat had convinced me to return during my parents’ absence, was it so outrageous to think that a woman like Esther would be such a lure?
Maybe it was time to lay the past to rest.
I was grateful she was still asleep during this little crisis of faith. Her stance on baiting my mother’s trap had been perfectly clear right from the start—she wouldn’t stand for it.
Surely my mother would have known that, too.
Not for the first time since my arrival, I wondered what sequence of events my mother had foreseen when she orchestrated this. Maybe she’d expected nothing more than a fling, something to soothe Esther’s spirit and brighten my return.
As soon as the thought occurred to me, I rejected it. My mom was just as fiercely independent as the woman in my arms, just as sharp and intelligent. Even if she thought it might work, she wouldneverput Esther in a position like that, even if I was meant as a gift for Esther rather than the other way around. While my mother might presume to toy with my life, she wouldn’t toy with Esther’s.
Back to square one.
Esther began to stir, waking up slowly, sweetly. I set aside the endless stream of questions parading through my mind and let myself enjoy the simple pleasure of holding her in my arms, ofbeing the first thing she saw when she blinked her eyes open, pale green in the morning light that snuck through from behind the curtains.
