I rush home after the conversation
with James. I know for sure now that I need to be with her. I don’t care if
it’s a dick move or not, but I’m sick of waiting. I’m sick of waiting for her
to be ready, because I know she already is. She’s just scared. And that’s okay.
She can be scared. But she can be scared with me, right next to her. We can be
scared together. I’m not giving her a choice anymore . . . whether it’s all or
nothing. I’m giving her all of me, and one day, she’ll let me have all of her,
too.
When I get to the house she’s not
home. I start pacing the hallway, waiting for her. I wait for about 5 minutes
before I feel like my body is two seconds away from exploding with
anticipation. I need to do something. My mind is frantic and I’m edgy. I try to
play out in my head the words I’m going to use when tell her that she has to be with
me. That she has no choice. Because I think I would die if I didn’t have her.
I head to the garage and pull out
some of the moving boxes. I bring them to the house and go to her room. I don’t
know what the fuck I’m doing and if this backfires then I know we’ll definitely
be done. But I need to do something. I need to show her that I love her.
And that I need her. Right fucking now.
I start to pack up all her things. I
start at her dresser and move everything from the top of it. Her jewelry box,
and the box that Ju-ju gave her go first. Photo frames and make up and other
girly stuff too. I move at a frantic pace. I move to her closet and start
pulling out her clothes that are hanging up, I walk to my room and hang them in
mine. I remove her sheets and covers from her bed and move them to mine. Her
comforter and baby blanket that her mom made her when pregnant with her, will
now cover my bed. Our bed. I go to the kitchen and get some garbage bags
and go back to her room. I start packing more and more things. Everything she
has, everything she is. I want her to have them with me. I want her to share
them with me. I want her with me. All the time. Forever.
I hear a car pull in to the driveway
and a second later the front door bursts open.
“Jake!” she yells.
“In here!”
“Where?”
“Here!” I keep packing her things.
Her clothes from her dresser are dumped into a cardboard box on her bed.
I feel her standing there for a few
seconds just outside the bedroom door. I keep doing what I’m doing. I don’t
look up at her because I don’t want to give her the chance to talk about this.
To talk her way out of it. To make some shitty excuse about why we can’t be
together when we both know we have no choice. It’s like a pull, this need to be
with each other. I’m sick of fucking fighting it and I’m done letting her
decide that we can’t be who we truly are. We need to be together.
I sense her come into the room and
sit on the edge of her bed. I continue to pack up her room. I don’t know how
long she sits there quietly, while I move her stuff from her room to ours. When
I move to stand in front of her, her heads bent forward, her face is wet, her
eyes are closed. She’s been crying.
I bring her hands up and position
them behind my neck and lift her up off the bed so her legs are around my
waist. I carry her to our bed and pull her covers on top of her.
I lay next to her and position us so
we’re facing each other, I put my arms around her and hold her tight. And I
hope to god she gets it. That she understands what I’m saying without me
actually speaking the words.
Then she opens her eyes, and I look
at her, and really see her. And I fall in love all over again.
I kiss away the wetness on her face,
caused by her tears and then I kiss her. Really kiss her. And kiss her some
more because this, being with her, like this, it feels like my heart’s about to
explode. And I want nothing else in the entire world as long as I can be with
her like this, all the time. This love I have for her, the love we have for
each other, it’s so huge, so powerful, like I’m drowning in it.
We kiss for so long our lips begin
to hurt.
When I pull back I watch her, and
wait . . . for her to say something . . . anything . . . that will let me know she
understands and feels it too.
“Jake,” she says. “I so much more
than a lot love you”
And then I make her mine.
***
“Kayla . . .” I say, after getting
back into bed with her and pulling the covers over us. We’re completely naked
and our bodies flushed against each other, holding onto each other so tightly,
our faces an inch apart.
“Mmm?” she hums.
“I love you so goddamn much. You’re
it for me, you know that? We’re not going backwards anymore. I need to have
you. Every single part of you. Broken or not.”
Tears start to well up in her eyes,
but I continue, “I know that you’re scared, that you’re not complete or
whatever, but I want to be there with you to help you get back to that. I can’t
. . . I just can’t not love you anymore. You need to let me love you,
Kayla.”
“I know, Jake,” she says, as she
kisses my lips a few times. “And I am now. Complete, I mean. Because it’s you.
You glued me back together when I was broken, when I had nothing. You were
there through it all, and you became a part of me. You became everything I
needed to feel whole again.”
It’s silent for a while as I take in
her words. I start to kiss her mouth again, so thankful that I can finally do
that to her. My kisses move from her mouth to her jaw and start making there
way down to her neck, her chest, the swell of her breasts.
“What made you finally see that?” I
ask, looking up at her.
“Logan.”
