Chapter thirty-eight:

 

 

It’s a crazy thing, love.

It can be rewarding and it can be smothering. You get to choose which you want it to be. My love for Carrie is blistering. It scorches every ounce of me. It carries me away on a cloud of euphoria. It makes everything worthwhile.

I can’t deny that I wasn’t worried for a while.

I can’t deny that I didn’t think we would get to this point.

That our love wouldn’t come through in the end.

I believed, rightly or wrongly, several times, that she was a fake, a phony, a fraud.

But I understand now why she’s acted like she has. She’s built a life for herself, a way to survive. It’s just like I thought when I first saw her with Adam—she doesn’t want any of this. She’s using it to camouflage herself. To hide from what she was. To escape from her past. From everything and everyone. Even me.

But not anymore.

My arms tighten around her. She sleeps soundly, peacefully. I did that.

I took her nightmares away, like I always used to.

I helped erase the pain. Like I always used to.

Something has changed, something significant. Not only have we both grown older, and wiser (yes, I’m wiser than I was, but not as wise as you, Dad), but we’ve both adapted to our pain, and our pasts. We’ve each learned our coping mechanisms. They help us to survive.

Because I get it now, I see! She had to do what she did to survive. Because above everything, even love, is our will…no, our drive to survive. And hers was strong, no matter what life threw at her. She wanted to survive, at any cost. And who am I to say that what she did was wrong?

Who. The. Fuck. Am. I?

I’m almost angry with myself for being so judgmental of her. I stare up at the stained ceiling, the light slowly filtering out of the room as night falls. I don’t know who I am anymore. I honestly don’t.

I used to be Ethan Cowells. I was a good boy. I was a student. A son. A friend to a damaged but beautiful girl named Carrie. I was her confidant. Her lover. Her secret-keeper. Her friend. I was her slave. I was her chef. I was her world. I was her victim.

But I didn’t mind. I accepted those titles without prejudice. I still do.

I kiss the top of her head, and know that it doesn’t matter who I am; it’s only who she wants me to be that matters. I’ll be whatever she needs me to be. As long as she loves me. As long as she allows me to be a part of her world again.

I can’t lose her this time, I think as the thought comes unbidden into my mind. The image of her turning her back on me again. Of never seeing her beautiful smile. Or her eyes that spark with fire when she’s angry. Or her lips that tremble when they say my name. Or her body that tightens around me as I make love to her.

I can’t live without her. Not again. Not ever again.

Love is everything. It’s our everything.

I might not know who I am anymore. She may not be certain who she needs me to be this time around, but the one thing that is cemented in my mind, the thing that I know to be true and real and never-ending, is my love for her.

“Ethan?” She whispers my name so quietly that I’m not sure if I imagined it or not.

I don’t answer right away. I’m still in a daze over the day’s events. I’m still lost within her body. Every contour, every inch of pale skin.

She moves, and I squeeze her. She freezes and I kiss the top of her head again.

“You’re awake,” I say.

“Yes,” she replies. Still quiet. Like a sleeping lamb.

I stroke her hair and I kiss her head and I hold her close. I can never be too close to her. If I could live inside her, I would. If I could go about my days with her lithe body wrapped around mine, I would. I never want us to be apart.

I hear her swallow.

She’s thirsty, you fool.

“Water?” I say.

“Yes,” she replies.

“Manners?” I tease.

“Yes, please, Ethan,” she teases back.

My heart soars when she says my name. When her lips meet mine. When her arms wrap around me and hold me close. When her burning body devours mine.

I slide her head from my chest to the pillow, and I sit up and reach for the glass of water on the bedside cabinet.

“Oh!” I say, and laugh when I realize that she can’t sit up because her wrists are still tied. I put the glass back down and I help her sit up. I put the glass of water to her lips and help her to drink.

She smiles and then she says thank you. And I love that she is polite.

“Can you untie me now?” she asks, her tone suggesting caution.

I look down at her hands. At her body.

My smile falls. It slips from my face like water from a glass. I put the glass down, turning away from her to do so, to give myself precious seconds to think her request over.

Her tied hands reach up to touch my back. “What happened here?” she asks, her fingers tracing the scars on my body. And she’s so tender when she touches me that it gives me faith that she is being genuine with her concern.

My chest and back are scarred from the viciousness of my life. From when I was a pussy, I think but don’t say.

I turn back to her and her hands slip away. Her eyes meet mine, cautiously, optimistically. I take her hands in mine, and my mouth tugs at sadness.

“The past happened to it,” I say.

Her almond-shaped eyes are cast across my chest. “I’m so sorry,” she says. And it’s sincere.

“That’s okay,” I reply. I feel overwhelmed, almost choked by her beauty. By her tenderness toward me. By her love.

She shakes her head, her knotty hair tumbling about her shoulders. “No, it’s not, Ethan. It’s not okay.”

She leans forward and she kisses one of my scars. The act sends lightning through my body. An electric current surging through my veins.

“It’s not okay at all,” she murmurs as she kisses more of the scars.

Her lips press against the scars from my life in prison before they sent me to the hospital.

The cigarette burns. The pen stab. The razor slices. The boot kick that broke the skin and fractured my ribs. The baby oil burn. And all of the other ones that make up the patchwork of my body.

She kisses each and every one. Not a single mark of the past is missed by her tender kiss.

And when she is done, she says, “Roll over now.”

So I do. And I am still wary of her, but it’s falling away because she is gentle, and loving, and kind. And I’ve waited so long to feel this kindness, this gentle touch from her. From my Carrie. Her skin smells so sweet. And her hair smells of cinnamon. And her kisses are wondrous, magical gifts that she’s bestowing on my broken, battered body. And I need this. I need her kindness. I need her love like I need air.

She tries to straddle my back, and it’s clumsy and awkward because her ankles and wrists are still tied up. She laughs lightly. It sounds like fairy laughter, light and airy, a set of tiny bells tinkling in my heart.

So I swallow and I nod, and I untie her hands and I untie her ankles. Because she is mesmerizing, and beautiful. Because she is real and here and present with me. Because she is sweet and kind, and wants to take care of me like I take care of her.

“Turn over, onto your front,” she says. “Let me kiss each pain away.”

And I am floating away as I turn over and she straddles my back, and her lips press against each scar, each mutilation carved against my skin. Her kisses burn, they sting, they heal, and they undo me.

“I’m not a pussy anymore,” I say.

“I know,” she replies.

“I promise. I’m a man now.”

“You are,” she says.

And she continues to kiss. And she does not run from me. She does not hide anymore.

It’s just her and me, and everything else falls away while she puts me back together.