Page 34 of Misadventures of a Curvy Girl
“You’re goddamned right it’s never happening again,” she hisses. “Because I’m never coming back here. Ever. Ever.”
Her words tear at me, tear at the part of me that wants her to feel safe. I should let her leave, and at this point, saying anything else aside from my apology is dangerously close to manipulation or coaxing, and I don’t want that. I want her here because she wants to be here, not because she’s guilted into it or convinces herself to stay against her better instincts.
That’s what Caleb would do—clearly, that’s what he did—given he’s no longer here and Ireland is in possession of her car again. Ever the country gentleman, he escorted her to her car and honored her wishes the whole time.
I’m not Caleb.
I step down the stairs. “I don’t want you to leave,” I say in a low voice. She lifts her chin at me defiantly, refusing to step back as I approach.
“Then you shouldn’t have told me to leave,” she seethes.
“I shouldn’t have,” I agree.
“You treated me like shit for no reason,” she continues, color rising in her cheeks, her eyes bright. “You made me feel stupid and awkward and embarrassed—and I don’t deserve to feel any of those things!”
“Of course not,” I murmur soothingly, because she’s still letting me get closer and I don’t want to spook her.
“I’ve spent so much of my life feeling like that, and I’m not going to feel like that anymore!” she says, blinking fast. Each blink feels like a blister rupturing open for me, knowing I’m the source of those tears. Shame and anger at myself stab deep, but I don’t let it stop me from getting closer to her, close enough to reach out and stroke her cheek.
Her eyes flutter closed…and then snap back open. “Stop! You can’t handsome your way out of this! You were an asshole!”
“I was.”
“And you made me feel like I was the asshole!”
“I did.”
A tear escapes one of her sweet blue eyes, and I catch it with my thumb. She bows her head slightly, as if defeated by the strength of her own emotions. “I’m so angry,” she says to the ground. “I’m so furious with you. And I’m even more furious that I’m crying right now when all I want to do is yell at you.”
“You can yell at me as much as you’d like,” I tell her, sliding my hand to the nape of her neck while my thumb strokes along her cheek. “As long as you stay here to do it.”
Another tear spills out. “I want to. Don’t you see why it makes it extra awful? I want to stay here with you and Caleb so badly.”
I don’t miss how the present tense slips out in her words. A ray of hope shoots through me. “Stay, Ireland. Stay and let me make it up to you, make me suffer every minute you’re due after what I did, just please”—I bend my face down and brush my lips against hers—“don’t go.”
She shivers at the touch of my mouth on hers. Parts her lips just enough to invite the gentle stroke of my tongue. And then we are kissing in truth, with her gathered in my arms and our slow kisses turning hot and sultry. Before long, my cock is burning against her belly and she’s subtly rocking her hips against me.
When we part for air, her tears are gone, although her eyes are still vulnerable and glinting with turbulent feeling. “How?” she whispers. “How can you kiss me like this when just a couple hours ago…?”
I need to tell her about this part of me, but I don’t want it to sound like an excuse, like I’m justifying my awful actions because I’ve had awful things happen to me in the past. I press my forehead to hers and accept there’s no easy way to talk about the busted parts of one’s mind, the broken and the healing parts. “Did Caleb tell you I was in the army?”
“Yes,” she answers softly. “Afghanistan. PTSD?”
“And a sprinkling of garden-variety depression and anxiety. It’s—well, it’s a work in progress. I’m a work in progress. I was already on the edge after seeing the town like that, but when I thought you might have died, when I saw you were in danger…” My fist is clenched in the material of her tank top at the small of her back, and I force myself to uncurl my fingers. “We went through so many villages that looked exactly like that. Just heaps of stones and bricks. And you never knew what would happen when you were walking through. Would you be shot at? Step on an IED? Find the bodies of a dead family left out in the sun? It’s like being turned up to maximum volume for hours…days. And then the volume knob breaks clean off and you can’t turn it down anymore.”
I stare at her, letting her see something I’ve only ever let Caleb see. Me, as I am, part shell and part sensitive boy who got beat to shit after school every day. “I’m so sorry, Ireland. I didn’t want to hurt you. I wanted you safe…and I was so desper
ate to get you away from anything unsafe that I hurt you to do it. It’s unforgivable, and I know that… I just also want you to know why. It’s not because I don’t want you or care for you. Just the fucking opposite.”
Her eyes are huge and liquid, like deep-blue waters of emotion, and her lower lip trembles the slightest bit as she asks, “How can I trust you won’t be awful to me again?”
All over again, I’m stabbed with shame and regret and self-directed fury. I know it’s not helpful—I’ve spent the last five years listening to therapists and other veterans tell me it’s not helpful—but the shame comes all the same.
And yet with it comes the faintest note of something else. Hope? Optimism?
Certainty?
Yes, I think, it’s because I’m certain about Ireland. I’ve never had a reason to believe in things like fate or destiny—the war was very effective at proving there’s nothing but chaos in this world—but Ireland makes me doubt all that now.
