He rolled himself higher on the bed. “And I still think you’re amazing, on so many levels, and I’m still so proud of you. But I get this impression you like to make out you’re made of Teflon, and that you can glide through your life and the people you meet, and nothing and nobody sticks. I think you like to believe I don’t feel anything for you and you like to pretend that you feel nothing for me, and maybe in the beginning that was true for both of us, but I don’t believe it now. Because I do care about you, and I keep getting this feeling, that you care for me, more than what you want to let on.”
“Why are you doing this?” She put her hands over her face. “You’re risking everything!”
He snorted. “But that’s just it, Ava. What is this everything we’re supposed to be having? We skulk around having furtive rendezvous and secret sex. While the rest of the time we go around pretending we’re strangers who mean nothing to each other. Don’t you see? When it all comes down to it, we have nothing. So the answer to your question has to be, yes, I am willing to risk what little we have for the chance of a proper relationship. A normal relationship. With you and me and no more secrets, and we’ll see where it takes us.”
“It will take us nowhere!”
“That may well be true. But what if it’s not? What are we throwing away by closing our eyes and not even looking? We could be together. Maybe make a family together. Have children.”
She looked aghast. “I told you from the very beginning that I wasn’t looking for a relationship. You said all you wanted was sex. They were your words, your terms, and all I did was agree with you! And now you want to change things you dare to tell me I’m fake?”
“Why do you keep going back to that? That was twelve months ago, an entire year. Are you the same person you were back then? Because I’m sure not. I’ve had twelve months of being with you and getting to know you and, yes, having some of the best sex I’ve ever had, and what I’ve learned from that, is that the more I’m with you, the more I want to be with you. And not just for the sex and not in brief snatches of time. Not in secret. Jeezus, Ava, now that it’s going to be out in the open, can’t we at least give a normal relationship a try?”
And in the glow from the city lights, he could see her downturned lips and her sorrowful eyes. “I knew I should have ended it.”
His gut jerked but he wasn’t about to give in. “You had the chance, but you didn’t, did you? And why was that, did you ever stop to think, unless you didn’t really want it to end? You care for me, I know you do. Just like I care for you. I just don’t understand why you can’t admit it. Why are we insisting that we mean nothing to each other, when, from what I can tell, each other is the one thing we both cling to? When each other is all we have?”
She stood against the window, unmoving, unrelenting, and as still and cold as a statue. A column of blue ice impervious to the smothering heat.
“I think you should go now.”
“I’ll go,” he said, gathering up his scattered clothes, knowing he’d said all he’d wanted to say, hoping she wasn’t as impervious to his words, “but only to give you time to think. And this time I really want you to think, Ava, about what we could be together, instead of this pathetic little half-life we’ve been squeezing ourselves into until now.” He pulled on his shorts, not bothering with his underwear, and snatched up his few remaining items. “And I’m not going to wait this time. I’m not going to hang around waiting for you to see sense. I’ll be back tomorrow for your answer,” he said, not making a move towards her when he knew that was the last thing she wanted. “I’ll talk to you then.”
Ava stood under the shower for a long time after Caleb had gone, letting the water stream over her head and body, wanting it to wash away this sense of emptiness and utter desolation, willing anger to fill the void. Why did he have to make it so complicated? It had started out easy enough, the boundaries clear, finding pleasure in each other’s bodies and as well as enjoying an easy rapport that had been fun – for a while. But lately, just lately, things had started to go wrong.
She wanted to turn the clock back and return to those simpler times.
But now he was talking about becoming a family. Having children. Dear god, what kind of mother would she be? What kind of parent could she be after the parents she’d had? After what they’d turned her into, her bed a revolving door for her father’s business cronies?
The water rained down on her and she let it run, for once casting off all thought of conserving the water in her rainwater tanks. There was rain forecast for the coming week and tonight she needed the touch of something against her flesh that might wash away the bleakness of her soul.
She slapped her open hand against the tiled wall, embracing the sting, searching for anger. She wanted to be angry, not to feel this deep sense of loss.
Why couldn’t he have listened to her? Why had he had to go and make things so complicated?
She leaned her forehead against the wall and let the water course down her spine, knowing Caleb wasn’t the one she should be angry with.
Because wasn’t this
