Salvation (23 page)

“Hey! None of that! There are kids around.” That was Jeff, a friendly, middle-aged member of his team. Even after just one afternoon, I recognized his voice.

Gideon chuckled and gave me another little kiss. “Tell them to look away.”

I was blushing when I turned back to face everyone. They were all smiling at us, some teasing and some almost paternal.

It made me incredibly uncomfortable because I knew what was prompting the looks. They were all so glad that Gideon finally had a real, functional girlfriend. While he certainly wouldn’t have told them the ins and outs of our relationship, they had to have known that he was unfulfilled in the relationship department for a really long time.

Another guy on his team—this one a little younger than Gideon—said, “I’m glad you came today. We’ve been waiting a long time to meet My Diana.” His wife elbowed him, making it clear that this wasn’t something he should have said.

I frowned in confusion. “What?”

“It’s nothing. Don’t listen to Rick. He’s an idiot.” Gideon said it loud enough for Rick to hear, although he only sounded faintly annoyed. Then he muttered, “Shit,” and released his hold on me.

One look told me he’d realized what he was doing, holding me from behind, and he felt bad about it. He looked apologetic, but I shrugged it off. I certainly wasn’t going to get into that discussion now.

Instead, I asked, “What did he mean by My Diana?” I looked from Gideon to the rest of them. Obviously, everyone knew what it meant except me.

Gideon looked sheepish, and it was Jane, one of the women on the team, who actually answered. “It’s just our way of giving Gideon a hard time. For a while, whenever he referred to you, he’d stumbled over what to call you. Friend, girlfriend, what. So it was always something like, ‘I’m going to my...my...Diana’s house.’ So we took to kidding him about My Diana.”

“Oh.” My stomach was twisting horribly, but I couldn’t possibly make a big deal over such a little thing. “That’s funny.”

I hated the idea of them talking about me, laughing about me. Not that they were making fun of me, but their teasing made it very clear that they’d all known how much in limbo Gideon had been for such a long time.

Now they were all happy because I was fixed and Gideon could at last be in a real relationship, where he wouldn’t have to stumble over what to call me.

Except I wasn’t fixed. And Gideon really deserved someone who was.

I made sure to hide this response, and I laughed with the others. I was getting good at faking it.

***

T
he cookout broke up a little early because half of them got paged. Something work-related had come up.

I was relieved, since it meant I could go home.

Gideon gave me a quick kiss and told me he’d be late, so he’d just call me tonight and see me tomorrow. That sounded exactly right to me.

I drove out to my little cottage and tried to unwind. There was no reason to feel this way. I hated myself for feeling this way.

I didn’t even have as many nightmares and breakdowns as I used to. I just felt anxious all the time.

I tried to read and then tried to watch TV, but I couldn’t seem to focus. So I sat and brooded until I was absolutely convinced that the most ethical thing for me to do was break up with Gideon.

I didn’t want to break up with him. I couldn’t imagine having the strength to do it. But I kept thinking through how it would be best for him, and then I felt guilty for not wanting it.

After a long time, something unstoppable propelled me to my feet. And I saw myself, felt myself, going into my bedroom, putting on my old shoes, and getting onto my elliptical trainer.

I felt better when I started to push myself, so I didn’t stop.

T
he next day, I was sore and exhausted and disgusted with myself.

I had Sunday brunch with some of my friends, and then we did some shopping. I had a good time and felt better afterwards, determined not to fall back into the emotional state I’d been in months ago.

On my way home, I went to a gourmet grocery store and bought salmon, couscous salad, olives, cheese, and chocolate mousse. Gideon was coming over for dinner, and I wanted to have a romantic dinner to remind myself there was no reason for me to be feeling the way I had yesterday.

I lit candles and turned on music and put on a pretty, low-cut top I’d bought earlier in the day with a pair of soft, slinky pants. When Gideon arrived, he was obviously surprised, but he seemed to appreciate the effort.

Dinner went well. His parents wanted to meet me, but his mother refused to get on an airplane so we tried to work out some plans get out to the Midwest to visit them.

We were cleaning up afterwards—I was washing dishes as he brought them from the table—when he suddenly turned me around and pulled me into his arms. The music was still playing, low and sensuous in the quiet cottage, and he eased us into a rhythmic slow dance.

He wasn’t actually much of a dancer. I’d known that for a while. But we rocked together in an embrace in the middle of the kitchen, and I completely forgot that I still had a dishcloth in one hand.

“You’re in quite a mood tonight,” I said, smiling up at his handsome face. Then I screeched to a mental halt when I saw the look in his eyes.

They were darker blue than normal in the artificial light of the kitchen, and they gazed at me with tenderness, need, passion, hunger, trust...something like awe.

And I saw right then, as clear as day, what I’d been stewing over for the last several weeks, ever since we’d started having sex.

The person he thought he was looking at—the person that provoked that awe in his expression and in his heart—simply wasn’t me.

I ducked my head against his chest, pressing a few little kisses on his shirt, so he wouldn’t see my expression, the bleak knowledge that had finally taken shape in my mind.

He nuzzled my hair and tightened his arms. “Baby,” he murmured hoarsely, “I’m so crazy about you I can’t even begin to tell you.”

And it hurt so much. That he meant it. He believed it. But he didn’t know what I knew.

I couldn’t let him keep talking. I couldn’t stand to hear any more, since it felt like the words might rip open and expose my chest. So I raised my head and pulled his head down into a kiss.

He responded immediately, passionately. He was already aroused. My body was pressed up against his, so I could feel him hard against my middle. It never took long for him to get turned on. He wanted me all the time.

Or he wanted the person he thought I was.

The kiss grew deeper and I relaxed into it, not letting the ache growing inside me affect my response to his lips, his hands, his body.

“I think the dishes can wait,” he rasped, tugging the dishcloth out of my hand. Then he swung me up and carried me into the bedroom.

He laid me down on the bed and moved over me immediately, kissing first my mouth and then slowly moving down my body.

I closed my eyes and let him. I let him take off my clothes, arouse my body, murmured tender little endearments as he did so.

I wanted it. Wanted it desperately. I wanted him and all of his strength and kindness and passion and generosity and devotion. I wanted all of him but knew it wasn’t right.

Tears burned in my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall. I arched up as he suckled my breast and then mouthed a line down my belly.

When he moved lower on my body, I didn’t resist—since it felt like punishment, this clash of pleasure and grief. He spread my legs to make room for his head, and then he skillfully, tenderly, made me come and then come again with his fingers and mouth.

I gripped the headboard and dropped my head in a silent cry as my body released. I kept my eyes closed. Didn’t dare to open them. Didn’t dare to let him see that I was so completely broken.

When he moved back up and over me, I had to open my eyes again. But I kissed him and took off his clothes so we weren’t looking each other in the eye.

He positioned himself between my legs and slowly entered me in a series of little thrusts, and I gasped and jerked my head to the side, squeezing my eyes tightly closed, as the penetration deepened.

He was breathing heavily as he started to move, our motion coordinated, rhythmic. We knew each other’s bodies now. We knew how to move together.

I kept my face pointed away from him as the motion intensified and he started to huff. One of my hands gripped the headboard still and the other gripped his ass.

“Baby.” His face was close to mine, but I still couldn’t look at it. Couldn’t see that look in his eyes again. Couldn’t let him see what was in mine. “Baby.”

I could tell from the way he said the word that it wasn’t just an expression of pleasure. He was trying to get my attention.

“Yeah,” I responded on a taken breath. I bent my knees up to bring him deeper inside me.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” He was still moving above me, inside me, and I could feel heat radiating from his body.

“Nothing. It’s good. It’s so good.” I arched up, panting from the pleasure in my body and the aching emotion in my heart. It felt like me. The core of
me
. This hopeless clash, this contradiction, one that would never be reconciled.

He groaned low in his throat, and I could feel him reining in his need, slowing down his primal motion. “Then why won’t you look at me?”

I knew I was in trouble then. If I didn’t look at him, he would stop. But if I looked at him, he would see.

Taking a few slow, shuddering breaths, I pulled back the overwhelming ache so it wouldn’t reflect in my eyes. Then I turned my head and opened my eyes, smiling up at him. “It’s just so good I...I can’t stand it.”

The words were actually the truth, and I thought maybe they’d be convincing.

But he stared down at me, a slight sheen of perspiration glistening on his skin, and his motion between my legs slowly came to a stop.

“What?” I asked, fighting a flare of panic. “I was enjoying it. I want it.”

Something horribly tight was closing down in his face. “No, you don’t. I saw your face just now. You
don’t
.”

My hand clenched spasmodically in the tight flesh of his ass. “Yes, I do. I’m into it. You can tell I’m turned on.”

“But just physically.” He reared up onto straightened arms, and then he carefully pulled himself out. “You don’t really want this.”

“Gideon,” I began, an edge of frustration in my tone. I sat up as he climbed off the bed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m just—”

“You’re punishing yourself.” He stood next to the bed, completely naked, still aroused, dark tattoos marring the perfect contours of his body.

I was trying frantically to get my mind to work, so I could handle this situation, pull everything back to the careful balance I’d been maintaining. “I’m not—”

“You are.” His expression was heartbreaking. I could barely stand to look at it. It was horror, pain, betrayal. “I saw it in your face. You’re using me—
me
—to punish yourself.”

I tried to reply, but couldn’t get my throat to work. It hurt so much because he was right. I was still trying to get my throat to work when he bent down to grab his clothes and then walked out of the room.

“Gide—” I couldn’t even say his whole name. And my inability to speak was torture because he was walking away from me.

He was walking away, and I couldn’t stop him.

I knew I shouldn’t stop him.

I’d always known it would come to this.

It was only a few seconds, not time enough for me to pull myself together, when I heard the front door open and close.

He’d left. He’d left me. He would drive away and wouldn’t come back. After everything, this was the thing that had finally pushed him away.

I tried to be relieved, since I knew it was better for him this way, but it felt like darkness was closing in on my mind. I bent over in bed and strangled on sobs, but it hurt too much to even cry.

I managed to get up and pull on a t-shirt and yoga pants. Then I sat on the edge of the bed shaking and gasping.

Then I got up to find my socks and shoes. I had to do something. There was no way to fix this, but I had to do
something
.

So I climbed onto my elliptical trainer and prayed I could get to the agonizing pain and exhaustion quickly, that it would drown out everything else.

I’d been going only five minutes when I started to see myself, that strange sensation of being above, at a distance, and watching myself from afar.

And I didn’t like what I saw. I didn’t want to be that person. I didn’t want to be doing this, and I suddenly realized I didn’t have to.

Dr. Jones was right. I wasn’t in the same place I’d been six months ago.

I could stop. I could just stop.

I slowed my pace until I’d halted my motion completely. I panted on the machine for a minute, until I finally climbed off.

There might still be a lot of lies in my head, but I didn’t have to listen to them.

I would call Gideon. I would tell him the truth, no matter what the consequences were. I would make this right.

With a raspy sigh, I turned and jerked in surprise when I saw him standing in the bedroom doorway. He must have been watching me for the last few minutes, since he’d obviously not just walked in.

We stared at each other in silence for a long moment. Then I saw him something break on his face, and he took a step toward me. He stopped himself, though, looking torn and hurt and bewildered.

All the tears that hadn’t been able to fall for the last hour rose up and crashed inside me. My face twisted helplessly and my whole body shook in a few sobs. Then I ran toward him, stumbling a little in my urgency, and he reached out for me, caught me, drew me in.

I sobbed in his arms, and he didn’t let me go until I’d finally grown quiet in his embrace.

When he finally released me, I was afraid my legs wouldn’t hold me up so I went to sit on the side of the bed. He followed and sat down beside me.

Neither one of us spoke, and the air in the room felt on the cusp of something, like the inhale before the release.