Chapter Twenty Three – Oliver

My blood pumps boiling hot in my ears, my heart pounds so fast I can barely think straight, my brain churns rapidly, it’s foggy and desperate. I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m not sure how I’m feeling, the word ‘love’ bounces around through my body which confuses everything, but there’s one thing I’m certain of. I can’t let Louise leave now, if she walks out that door everything changes, and not for the better. I can’t have her, but I can’t lose her either. I think I might need her…

Teasing Louise at the sink, partly because I wanted to and partly because I thought it would help her to open up to me was a bad idea. It stirred up absolutely everything inside me.

As soon as my eyes spot her, I lose any rational thought. Standing in the doorway with her bags in her hands, her red hair messy and a deep sadness in her eyes, she looks more beautiful than I’ve ever seen her before. A feeling that’s a lot like love balls up in my mouth and I cannot control myself. I want her, and it doesn’t seem like anything is going to stop that. Not even sensible thinking.

“You can’t go,” I declare in a gushing tone of voice. “Please, Louise. Don’t leave.”

I don’t give her a chance to answer me, I’m too desperate. I grab onto her cheeks and pull her towards me with only one thought in mind. I need to kiss her, if I don’t connect her lips with mine then I might die. I can’t remember the last time that I actually kissed a woman, it’s the one thing I never do, but with Louise I need to. I’m like a drug addict and her lips are my fix. I absolutely have to have this.

The moment leading up to our kiss is intense, my eyes are open, I’m fixed entirely on her and during that time I can feel all the chances I have to pull away. I can stop this before things go too far, I know I can… but I don’t. I don’t want to, I need this to happen, and it doesn’t matter that Louise has just told me that she loves me and it’s all so very complicated. This will make things really messy, even worse than they were before but even that isn’t enough to stop me. That pales into insignificance.

Then, our lips connect and everything feels perfect with the world. My insides still, making me realize that they’ve always been up in the air and all over the place. I haven’t ever felt anything close to settled before… not until I met Louise. The world around us melts, it’s only me and her left, and I’m honestly absolutely fine with that. I don’t need anyone else but her. She’s everything to me.

My hands that are cupping Louise’s cheeks pull her closer to me. At first, she seems a little resistant and freaked out, but soon she can’t help herself either and she molds into me, dropping all of her bags to the ground with a loud thump. I think things scatter about, but neither of us part. She parts her lips, allowing me to deepen the kiss by slipping my tongue into her mouth. As I do, a small very sexy groan bursts from Louise’s lips which makes every inch of me heat up and melt. She’s wonderful, everything that I could ever want in my life and more, I’m so damn lucky it hurts. This lovely, amazing woman that is beyond perfect loves me, she really does. She actually said those words ‘I love you’.

Shit… she loves me. Like, actual love. All of a sudden that thought splashes ice cold water over me and I leap back. I shouldn’t be kissing someone who loves me when I can’t return the feeling, it just isn’t right. I mean, maybe I do return the feeling but that doesn’t change everything else. I’ve heard the words ‘sometimes love isn’t enough’ before but I never really knew what it meant. Well I know now and it’s horrible, the worst thing in the world. I want us to work, but we can’t.

“I… I’m sorry,” I mutter to Louise as I take a giant step back. I need my personal space back now. “That shouldn’t have happened, I’m really sorry about that. I don’t know what I was thinking…”

She nods and touches her lips, I’m sure she can feel the tingle still there just as I can. That truly was some kiss. Maybe I don’t have a lot to go on because I don’t do a lot of kissing, but I know how she made me feel then and it was wonderful. Too good, better than I deserve. As Louise’s cheeks flame bright pink all I want to do is wrap my arms around her to hold her close to me, but I can’t. Any physical contact is dangerous. I don’t think I can risk it, we can’t do that again.

“You’re right. That shouldn’t have happened,” Louise agrees with me. “I’m sorry, everything is all very confusing at the moment. That’s why I think I need to move out. I think we need to keep our distance from each other. Maybe if there wasn’t all this other stuff going on with my baby and things, we could think about it, but we can’t now. We need to just have a break.”

Why can’t we think about it? All of a sudden, I’m struck by the thought that we could make it work if we really wanted to. How hard would it be to try and have a relationship? I can do that, right?

But it wouldn’t be just me and Louise, would it? It would be a baby that doesn’t belong to me biologically which makes a massive difference. I don’t know if I have it in me to be a good father to a baby that’s mine, never mind someone else’s. I don’t know if I have the skills within me to be a good boyfriend, never mind step father. I mean this is heavy for anyone, taking a giant leap from screwing around and answering only to myself, to having a live in partner and changing diapers is intense.

“But I don’t want you to go,” I gasp. “I know that you’re right, I don’t think I’ll be any good at being with you. I can’t just have something causal with you because of how we both feel about one another.” That’s as close as we’ll get to me reciprocating the I love you today. I don’t know if my mouth can even form those words, especially not now. “But I don’t know if I can do serious either.”

The breaths falling out of Louise’s mouth are sharp and ragged, it’s as if she’s struggling to get any air into her lungs. That’s a feeling I recognize well. We probably both look insane to the outside world, panting, staring at each other, nothing but madness in our eyes. But what can we do? This is a very difficult situation, one that I’m sure neither of us want to be in.

“I understand,” Louise replies thickly. “It would be absolute madness to get involved with one another now. That’s exactly why I don’t want to feel this way, I just want to feel normal…”

“Oh but you can’t leave.” I can’t let her go and I don’t know why. “Can’t you just stay anyway and we try to figure things out?” She purses her lips, seemingly unmoved by my begging. “Where are you even going to go anyway? Do you have something planned?” I run my eyes all over her much too calm demeanor. Why isn’t she more freaked? “I guess you do since your bags are already packed…”

It hits me that this is why she wasn’t at work, she was planning to abandon me all day long. I’ve merrily been working away, thinking of her, turning down Kelly potentially at the expense of my own career and Louise has been packing up her belongings and preparing to uproot my life completely. Whatever her logical reasons for doing so, I have to admit that it hurts me a lot.

“I’m just going to head to a motel for a while so I can figure things out. Like I said I need to find a home for me and my baby boy now.” She cradles her stomach, proving what I already knew. “Ever since I saw that ultra sound picture I’ve known for certain that I can’t give my baby up for adoption. The more I keep trying to tell myself that it might be for the best for my child, my maternal instincts shut me down. I have no idea how I’m going to be a mom and a doctor, but I don’t have a choice in the matter. Life has dealt me this hand for a reason, I have to get on with it. And I can’t escape the fact that I need a home to do that. I can’t have him here or on the streets.”

“Just stay tonight,” I plead. “Don’t go to a motel, just stay while you figure it out.”

“I can’t.” Louise shakes her head determinedly. “It isn’t right, I can’t do it to both of us. You don’t want a relationship, never mind a baby, and I’m about to become a mom. Plus, we have all of these… feelings between us that don’t seem to be going anywhere. We can’t survive that.”

I slap my palm against my forehead in distress, I think I’m trying to knock some serious sense into my brain but nothing is coming. Nothing makes sense anymore, I don’t know what I feel, it’s all just crazy. The urge to forget about everything smart and to just kiss her again so I can get that warm, delicious feeling back is so powerful that I almost act upon in. Almost. It’s just fortunate that I manage to stop myself at the very last moment. Thank goodness, I have some self control.

“Could we try?” Shit, I can’t believe I just said that, what am I thinking?

“Try what?” Louise obvious asks. “Try, like me and you? Try like a casual thing or try for real? Because I don’t think you’re ready for real and to be honest I don’t know if I am either.” Uh oh, Louise is babbling, this isn’t good. “But we can’t do casual either because we’re basically living together and I’m pregnant. So I guess whatever the question is the answer has to be no. But not because I don’t want to, just because we can’t. We’re both adults who understand logic, so if we can’t do it, we can’t do it.” Her eyes flick up at me and instantly I want to scream. “You haven’t ever had a girlfriend before so you aren’t experienced in relationships, and I’m damn naïve too. We’re a disaster waiting to happen. This is for the best, it’s better for us to just… keep our distance, you know?”

I can sense that she isn’t going to stop talking any time soon, not unless I do something drastic which I do, again without even thinking about it. I kiss her hard and fast, letting all of my passion and emotions flow free through my lips. I throw everything into the kiss, including the hope that despite all the very accurate arguments that Louise just gave, we can somehow find a way to make it work. I know I’m not thinking straight because there’s still a baby in the picture, and a relationship that I won’t be able to handle, but the dream is strong inside me.

“Oh God, Louise,” I groan into her mouth, pressing my body into hers as the deep seated desire runs free. “You are just… oh fuck, you’re everything.”