He looks just as determined to keep me here as I say I am to leave. Towering over me, he rests his hands lightly on my upper arms. “Are you sure?”
I nod but don’t move. His body’s so warm up against mine.
“Because I’m not going to lie. I still want you.”
I gulp. “Oh. Okay,” I reply stupidly.
He doesn’t seem interested in conversation, anyway, thankfully, so my insufficient grasp of the English language isn’t a problem. The kiss he plants on my lips sends an immediate signal to my brain to get every intimate part of my body humming. His tongue does more than fill my mouth; it fills a space inside me that’s been empty and cold for more than a month.
As he unbuttons my coat and slides it off my shoulders, I stay with the kiss. There’s no harm in a little goodbye kiss, right? Nothing more, just a kiss. I press my hands against the wall behind me, reasoning that if I don’t get any more engaged than with my mouth, it’s still legal. It’s not making out if hands aren’t involved. It’s just a kiss. A really good, intense kiss. But still a kiss.
I’m somewhat aware that we’re moving down the hallway by millimeters. My suspicions are confirmed when I open my eyes to see we’ve arrived in the living room, still attached by the lips. My coat fell off somewhere along the way. I should be concerned that I’m losing articles of clothing. But I’m still in control. Still just kissing. My hands are only on his shoulders for balance now. Honestly.
But the living room doesn’t seem to be the ultimate destination for this train. Jude keeps his mouth on mine and his eyes behind me as he walks me backwards toward his bedroom. Kissing in the bedroom is nice, I suppose. More comfortable, anyway. He’s just being a good host. A little food, a little drink, a little conversation, a little affection, and a big…
“Oh!” I finally pry my lips away from his, just before he pushes me down onto the bed. I fall backwards with a squeak and immediately scramble back up.
He reaches for me and grasps my wrist. “Please, don’t be skittish,” he begs, tugging on me.
While I plant my feet on the wooden floor, the tread of my sneakers sticking nicely, I avoid looking him in the eye, but that means my gaze falls on the bulge in his shorts. That’s been inside Leslie, I remind myself (crassly and unnecessarily, I might add).
“Oh, God!” I say out loud, frenetically tucking my hair behind my ears, straightening my bra, and biting my swollen lips.
“What?” he asks, sitting up. “What’s wrong?”
I look disbelievingly at him. “This!” I cry, twisting my wrist and yanking my arm away from him. “This is wrong!”
He shakes his head and reaches for me again. “No, it’s not. Please don’t run away again.”
“Can I walk?” I ask pathetically. “This was… You weren’t supposed to be home! Chocolate is an aphrodisiac! I have to go!”
I stumble through the bedroom door and the living room, which would be a lot easier to navigate if his furniture was gone, like I’d imagined. I snatch my coat from the floor, but I don’t put it on. I don’t need it.
“Bloody hell, Libby!” he says, following me. “I don’t understand you!”
“You started it!” I defend myself. “It was supposed to be a goodbye kiss, that’s all.”
“When you showed up, I had no intention of this being ‘goodbye,’” he states.
One hand on the door, I say, “It has to be, okay? There are things that we can’t fix. I can’t change who I am or what I’ve done. And neither can you.”
“Tell me what you think is the biggest problem, and I’ll find a way to fix it,” he promises. “Please.”
When I remain silent, then open the door, he lets loose a frustrated, anguished sound somewhere between a groan and a scream.
“I’m sorry, Jude. I really am. I didn’t mean for this to happen today.” There’s nothing more for me to say. I walk—not run—down the stairs and out to my car. When I get home, I stand in the shower long after I run out of hot water, but I can’t seem to wash the smell of him from my skin.
26
The oddest thing happens. Monday I go to work, and everyone in the world seems to be acting like it’s just another day. Two people honk at me and one flips me off during my commute (although I have to admit, I probably deserved all three). The people in the elevator face forward on the ride up to the tenth floor and look like they don’t have a care in the world other than that it’s another Monday. Some of them even talk about their weekends and who they’re going to root for in the Super Bowl next weekend, since the Bears aren’t one of the teams involved. In the office, coffee is brewing, the phones are ringing, and I’m pretty sure—yes, there it is—I hear people laughing. And I think, How can anyone laugh when that office over there is dark and empty?
As melodramatic and teenage-angsty as it sounds, I can actually feel Jude’s absence from the city. He’s not here anymore. Not even in the same country. He might as well be on a different planet. And I’m grieving over it.
I remember when I started to forget what my parents looked like. The first time I realized it was happening, I had a panic attack. Never ones for photography, they didn’t keep pictures of themselves around the house. We never even had a family portrait made. My mom seemed to be afraid of people pointing cameras at her, even though she was a moderately attractive woman (I think… again, her face has grown fuzzy in my memory over the years). There were pictures of me as
