Something Real
It was six in the evening before we got back to my house. I grabbed us both a beer while Hannah stared at my wall of framed pictures. She took her time, giving each one her full attention. There were pictures of my days in the Marine Corps, me with soldiers I’d helped through Wounded Warrior, and a few of my family. There were also pictures of time I’d spent in other countries providing security for embassies.
“Who is this?” she asked, pointing at a frame.
Handing her a beer, I stood beside her and took a swig before answering. “That’s my sister Lauren.”
“Oh,” she perked up. “You have siblings?”
“Had,” I clarified. “She’s been gone about ten years now. Suicide.”
Her dark eyes moved to mine. I glanced at her briefly before looking away. My sister’s death wasn’t something I liked to think, or talk about. It evoked emotions I didn’t like feeling and worked hard to push down.
I expected Hannah to say the thing all people say in this situation. I’m sorry. But she didn’t. Instead, she pressed her mouth to my arm and kissed it before wrapping her arm around mine and resting her head against it. “She was beautiful.” She paused a moment, then asked, “How did she get all that gorgeous red hair and you ended up a brunette?”
I smiled. If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me that question. It was always a running joke in my family. “I have no idea.” I wanted to change the subject, badly, but didn’t want to seem like a dick. “You have siblings?” I worried she’d be upset by the change in subject, but thankfully she rolled with it.
“A brother and a sister. I’m the baby.”
“Nice. And your parents…where are they?”
“Well…” She exhaled deeply. “My mother lives states away. My father lives close by. What about your parents?”
Pointing to a family photo at the top, I said, “That’s my mom. She passed away five years ago.”
Her arm was still wrapped around mine and I felt her body deflate. Looking down at her, she had a hand over her mouth as she stared ahead, her eyes hooded in sadness. I winced as I noted her expression. Was she going to cry? I hated when women cried, and something told me Hannah was a crier. She felt too much…and in all honesty, she was too much. Too much…feelings. She was doing so well, and now she was gonna cry. Damn it. I knew this based on the conversation we had on our second date, or redo first date. The way she’d watched the couple she didn’t even know, concluded the husband was a douche, and absorbed it all as if she were the one that had been wronged. On the spectrum of feelings, Hannah and I existed on opposite ends. I couldn’t deny that if I intended to be serious with a woman I’d have to make some adjustments—try harder to be softer. But on the flip side, if Hannah and I had a shot at having something real, she’d have to get some thicker skin. Learn not to internalize everything and carry it with her. Calling her on it would be a risk. She might think I’m an asshole, a man that is inconsiderate and unsympathetic to her. But I wondered if maybe she needed the exact thing I needed—someone to hold her accountable—to call her on her shit. I doubted she’d been this way her whole life, and I was certain her experiences had created this wrecking ball of an emotional woman.
“Hannah,” I said her name sternly. “Don’t.”
A small crease formed between her brows as she narrowed her eyes and looked up at me in question.
“Don’t absorb my sad shit,” I told her.
Her brow relaxed and she reared her head back slightly, dropping her arm from around mine. She stared at me blankly, as if she didn’t know how to react. Should she be mad? Apologize? “What did I do?”
“You were internalizing my…sad shit. Making it your own. Don’t do that.”
Her features tightened in frustration. “It’s called sympathy, Wren.”
“No. Not what you were doing. There’s a difference between feeling sorry or upset for someone, and taking someone else’s problems and absorbing the negative feelings from them as your own.”
Shaking her head, clearly perturbed with my assessment, she huffed, “It made me sad. Sorry for making you uncomfortable.” I’d offended her; hurt her feelings. I didn’t want to hurt her; that wasn’t my intention. But being around someone so emotionally volatile wasn’t easy. Trying to be in a relationship with one would be hard. We all had days when we were off; bad day at work made us pissed off and grumpy. We all had sad shit in our pasts; things that got us down. I needed a partner that could handle that. I wasn’t the easiest man to deal with, and I worried Hannah might crack under the pressure of…well…me. As I said, we’d both have to adjust if this was going to work. We both made up for our shortcomings in other ways. This would be one of them.
I nudged her, letting her know it was okay. “Pity is not my thing, okay? Cancer,” I explained, jutting my head toward the picture of my mother. “She fought a good fight, though.”
“Your dad?” she asked.
“Alive and well. Still the best man I know,” I told her.
She must have sensed, finally, I wanted to move past this conversation because she glanced over the wall of frames and sighed. “You look like you’ve lived an eventful life,” she said. “You must have a million amazing memories.”
I nodded in agreement. “I do. Too many to count.” I had been lucky in that department. I lacked many things in life, but experiences were not one of them.
Bobbing her head a few times, she turned to face me, a smile plastered on her lips that looked forced. “I should probably go.”
Taking her hand, I pressed it on my chest, as I obnoxiously pouted out my lower lip. “Don’t leave me. I don’t want you to go,” I begged, feigning agony.
She twisted her mouth as if fighting laughter. “I’m sure you’ll survive.”
“Seriously though. No pressure, but you can stay tonight if you want.” I decided I should reword that. “I’d like it if you stayed tonight.” That sounded better, and it was true. I’d enjoyed our day together.
Biting her lower lip, she looked away from me, mulling it over. When she cut her dark gaze back to me, she nodded once. “Okay.”
Taking her beer from her, I sat both our bottles on the counter, then turned back to face her. “I can’t stop thinking about last night,” I admitted.
Letting her head drop, she smiled. “Me either,” she said quietly. “It was…” She looked up at me, “You were…”
“We were,” I corrected her as I slid my hand around the back of her neck, gripping it gently. Her lips parted as her gaze flicked from my eyes to my mouth and back. “I’m going to take you upstairs and take my time with you…I mean,” I shook my head, “that’s what I’d like to do.”
Reaching up, she traced her thumb across the seam of my lips. “I’d like you to do that, too.”