“I'm not trying to fix you,” she started, her voice tight. “I want to help you. I want to be there when you're hurting, and help you through it, and I want you to do the same for me.”
“I won't sit by and hurt you. Not knowingly,” I told her.
Julie shook her head, scoffing. “I hate to tell you this, but the people you love the most hurt you the worst. You're hurting me now, and it doesn't seem to bother you a bit,” she said, and she turned around.
I closed the distance between us and grabbed her hand. She stopped, and she waited. She didn't turn around to look at me, and she didn't say anything.
She just waited.
She had said what she needed, and I had nothing to promise. I released her hand. After a moment, she took in a deep breath, and she walked away.
And I watched her.
♥
The steering wheel took most of the beating, to the point that the horn would blow with every pounding, and sounded like a car alarm going off. I was only lucky that no one was in the parking lot to see my outrage.
I was angry at myself, but beating myself up was just as easy if I was pounding on something else. By the time I was done, my hands felt raw and sore, and my knuckles were bleeding.
I pressed the palms of my hands into my sockets, and stopped the tears that wanted to come out.
Men don't cry. I told myself this over and over.
I felt more like a wounded little boy than a man. I thought I might break at any moment, just as Julie had looked. She had looked so fragile, so broken, as if she would completely shatter if she was around me for too long.
I knew the feeling. I was feeling the brute force of it now. I felt the waves of depression washing over me, reminding me of how badly I was screwing my life up.
I waited until I felt stronger before I moved my hands. The wipers were going, and the lights were all on. The radio had spit out the CD and was now on a hip hop station, with some guy rapping words I'd never heard before.
It wasn't Tone Loc.
I turned off the lights and wipers. Slowly, I put the CD back in, and then turned down the music. I fixed one thing at a time, and did so numbly.
She loves me.
I wasn't sure if the words had hit me when she had said them, or if I had always known. Maybe from the moment I had laid eyes on her, smiling her adorable smile as she walked past me, I had known it would lead to this.
A part of me had to know, didn't it? I couldn't be completely blind to where things would lead. Somewhere in my mind, I had known that eventually I would be here, scared out of my mind, and angry. Angry at her, but mostly at me.
She loved me. Past tense.
No, she loves me. Present tense. She still loves me.
Did I love her? I could answer that question honestly and efficiently. Yes, I love her, right now. I love every part of her, her body and mind, her soul and life. I love her more than I've ever known I could love someone.
The real question, the one I was battling with and continued to battle with until that night was whether I loved her enough to open up and be vulnerable.
Did I love Julie enough to completely change the course of my life and include someone else in it? Did I love her enough to want her there?
Did I love her enough to hurt her?
♥
At six, I called the hospital. I asked if Mrs. Michaels was at the hospital. They informed me that she wasn't. It was her day off. I thanked her and hung up.
♥
The second time wasn't as difficult as the first. I concocted a speech in my head as I drove to her house about all of the things I wanted to say. How I would get her to forgive me.
It was all thrown away as I knocked on the door and Liam answered.
He grinned. “Hey man,” he said cheerfully. “Back for more?” he asked.
I smiled slightly. “Round two.”
“It might cost you. Julie won't appreciate me telling her to talk to you,” he replied.
“You owe me, remember?” I asked.
Liam smiled and nodded. “I told you not to forget. I'll get her, just wait,” he said, and closed the door again.
I tried to remember any of the speech I had memorized in my head, but I couldn't recall the flow of words. Only the meanings. I knew what I needed to say, but I couldn't remember the way I had strung those words together.
When I saw Julie come to the door, even that thought process was gone. Staring at her, how beautiful she was, everything sounded silly and childish.
This time, as she closed the door behind her, she looked like a warrior. She was shielded by her armor, and prepared to combat anything I said. She wouldn't be lured in by my phony excuses or promises.
I had nothing to say. She stole my words.
So I borrowed someone else's.
“You can close your eyes to the things you don't want to see, but you can't close your heart to the things you don't want to feel,” I stated, then took in a deep breath.
She finally met my eyes. There was a fierceness in them that I never knew Julie could hold. I guess she was just protecting herself by coming off angry.
“Who said
