MARY
Am I healing? I didn’t think I would ever heal from what happened to me. I don’t feel like I’m healing. I feel raw and pathetic and so terribly broken I’m not worthy of his time, but Tom holds me and he tells me that it’s going to get better, and there’s a little part of me that believes him somehow. This man gives me hope.
“You really think I’m healing?”
“Mhm,” he nods. “I do. Healing can hurt, Mary. Sometimes just as much as the original wound did. Sometimes more. But it happens. All you have to do is hold on. Can you do that?”
I nod. I don’t have any choice. There were times in the hospital where I’m sure I could have died if I wanted to. I was weak enough that I could have slipped away. A lot of people did. But I stayed. I didn’t know back then why I was staying, but I think I know why now. I stayed for this. For Ken. For Tom. For the chance at a life beyond those sterile walls.
This is a world I thought I’d never experience. This is something I knew I never deserved. Actually, it’s something I know I don’t deserve. This all has to end, and soon. But before it does, I’ll bask in it and maybe that will get me through what inevitably happens next.
* * *
“Am I interrupting something?”
A voice at the door makes my heart leap. I stare at Tom, then look toward the front door, which is being opened as I stare. I can barely believe what my eyes are showing me.
A man is standing there. Tall. Powerful. Handsome as hell. I recognize him, but it takes a second for my brain to realize that he’s really here.
It’s Ken. It’s fucking Ken!
I pull out of Tom’s arms, and run to him, the few feet from the lounge to the front door feeling like the longest run I’ve ever done. “I thought you weren’t coming today!” I throw myself into his arms and hold him so tight I can feel the hard muscles of his body contracting beneath my grasp.
He picks me up and holds me close. “I’m sorry,” he says. “There was a mixup and…”
I don’t even care. All I care about is the fact that it’s him. He’s here. He’s safe. He’s not being shot at for now at least and he’s mine. He smells like him, a unique musk which is forever etched in my mind. I can feel my internal chemistry going crazy at recognizing it, an internal fizzing of excitement and immediate desire.
He kisses me, his hand at the back of my head, his fingers curled in my hair. Our tongues twirl with passion and need and the sheer relief of being reunited and tears of sheer joy begin to roll down my face. He’s here. He’s back. He came for me. He’s mine.
Ken walks into the house, carrying me like a great weight on his front and sits down on the couch next to Tom.
“Hey bro.”
“Hey man.”
They’re no less pleased to see each other than I am to see him, I’m sure of that, but some men express feelings toward other men differently, in other words, by not really expressing them at all.
I draw back a little, just to look at him. I want to take his face in. I want to let my eyes feast on him. He looks a bit tired after a series of long flights, but he looks so fucking handsome too. I look at him, and he looks back.
“What have you been doing to the girl, Tom?” Ken says, taking in my disheveled appearance, my eyes puffy from crying, my bandaged hand.
How do I explain everything that just happened? How do I put words to my relief and my glee now he’s here, and the pain I went through when I thought he wasn’t coming, and the chaos that Tom unerringly guided me through, just as he has every time my world has threatened to fall apart since I got here?
I look at Ken and smile. “He’s been putting me back together again.”