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“You avoiding me,” he finishes, trapping me with his eyes, so dark and controlling.
I fight off a frown. “You should be used to the avoiding. You’re so good at it.” I know why I’m being defensive. I’m scared that once this conversation starts, there’s no going back. We’ll fight to the bloody end. Graphic, sure, but it’s the truth. Neither of us likes to give up. It’s why he avoids.
He watches me carefully. “I deserve that. Come with me,” he whispers, quietly leaning into me, his eyes sparkling under the flickering of the twinkle lights blowing around in the breeze.
“I don’t think we should do this here.” The wind picks up again, blowing napkins and tablecloths around. In the distance, I hear the sounds of children’s laughter mixing with the music and the distant sound of thunder. “I should go check on Kelsey.”
Noah smiles tightly, glancing at Oliver and his friends on the dance floor before looking back at me. Even with the low lighting, it’s clear he’s nervous, or upset. “She’s fine.”
I can’t look at him, even though I can feel his eyes on mine, contrite and somewhat sincere. I don’t look because if I do, if I give in and find those eyes I miss so much, I will want to crawl inside his storm and find cover. I’ll take what I want to say to him, everything I’ve been feeling and shove it aside because I won’t want to make a scene. I won’t want to upset him, so I don’t say anything at all, and I certainly don’t look at him.
“Come with me,” he repeats under the wind, his voice stronger, biting so much back. When I don’t reply, he growls in my ear. “I’m not fuckin’ asking you, Kelly.”
“What about the kids?” I nod, as does Noah. The mom in me knows I should be doing this myself, but the wife hanging onto a broken marriage knows I need to stay in his arms and hear what he has to say. If we’re going to survive this, I have to stay and talk to him for once. We have to face this head-on. We need to surrender and believe we can work through it.
He sighs, stands straight as he’s shifting his weight impatiently. “They’re fine. My mom will watch them.”
I gaze up at him, uncontrolled tears surfacing. “Why now, Noah?”
I can tell when his jaw tightens. Hehatesthat I would even hesitate to go anywhere with him. His disappointed eyes tell me so. “Because I have some things to say to my wife, and I don’t want to talk about this around everyone else.”
“Let’s just do this later. I’ve had too much to drink and now’s not the time. It’s Kelsey’s day.” My heart starts pounding because I’m standing up for myself.
He surprises me when he boxes me in against the counter, his hands on either side of my hips, his voice comes louder, determined even. “You handed me a fucking journal full of memories of how you fell in love with me, and heartache I caused by not being there for you. Let me at least set a few things straight.”
“Let you?” I snort, arching my upper body away from him. “Now you want to talk? I was forced to write in a journal because at least that notebook listened.”
When he notices my anger rising, he adds, “Please.” Like that’s going to be the deciding factor of me dancing with him or not. This is not the Noah I know. My husband, Noah Beckett, he avoids, deters conflict… he doesn’t engage them. I look down at his extended hand, and then his face, and there it is, the fragile hope in his eyes and the nervous set of his mouth. I can’t say no. “Don’t say no,” he murmurs.
I’ve always been a sucker for murmuring and whispers that send sparks up your spine. “Fine,” I say, placing my hand in his, our fingers curled around each other, fitting together perfectly. It reminds me of when I took his hand that night at the Pearl Jam concert. We made a choice that night, and tonight we were making another. Hopefully the right one.
We don’t go far. Instead, we go around the back of the house and down the trail to where I handed, I mean threw, Journal at him. “What did you do with Journal?”
Noah looks over his shoulder at me. He’s probably wondering why I’m referring to Journal as if it’s a person. In reality, it has been one for me over the last two years.
“Did you mean everything you wrote?” he asks, wanting my truth.
“Yes.” My voice does that thing when you’re so unsure of your words, you stumble over their pitch and meaning. I focus on my hands instead of his face, trying desperately to not cry that he knows everything. Every single thought I couldn’t tell him, he knows now. It’s like one of those horrible dreams I have where he knows my fantasy about Jason Momoa spoon feeding me Nutella while he massages my… well,you know.
Noah tilts his head, trying to catch my stare. I wait, but then I can’t resist and slide my eyes to his. There’s a wince to his features. “There’s a few things you got wrong,” he mumbles.
My heart skips a beat. “Like what?”
His face hardens, heavy swallows taking over and withholding his reply, “You thought all this… everything that went wrong between us was something you did. It wasn’t,” he finally says. He scans the space between us, then around us as if he’s looking to see who’s around. We’re completely alone.
“Noah…,” I begin, but he silences me with one look, knowing I might just tell him to forget this. Anything to avoid having this conversation. I want to tell him to forget everything he read, but I can’t. I’m still not sure I’m ready to talk about it.
Twisting toward me, he grabs me by the hands and pulls me into him. “I fucking missyou,” he breathes, his voice shaking over the words. He’s opening up to me with those four simple words. They’re leading into something so much more. It’s not “I miss this,” or even “I miss us.” It’sme. Me he misses and the words hold so much more meaning when spoken like that.
“Why?” I whisper, resting my forehead on his chest, the voices in my head screaming for me to shut up and let him hold me the way he wants to. The way he needs to.
His arms tighten around my waist, and we’re both silent, but I can tell by the tension in his body he’s working himself up to say something. Finally. I almost can’t breathe being this close. I don’t know why, maybe because he knows my truths. His eyes are puffy, wearing these last few days on his face. Hell, he’s wearing the last two years of heartache and loss. His mouth parts, his face dropping forward until lips meet skin. I feel his breath, his pause, his “Will you listen to what I have to say?” I watch as his frown deepens, the lines on his forehead becoming more pronounced.
My gaze finds the sky, my attention on the clouds changing colors. “Yes.”
He nods and blows out another huge breath, like he’s completely ridding his body of oxygen. “Yes, you will?”
My heart stutters when I sneak a glance at him. He’s taking large, even breaths now, warming himself up for something, or maybe settling his nerves. “I think I will.” I can’t say for sure I will because sometimes we block out the things we need to hear in fear they’ll hurt too much and leave a cut too deep to mend.