Page 114 of Mark my Words

“Do we need to say goodbye to your Nana?” I asked as she jabbed her finger into the call button.

“No. She saw the whole thing. Piet was holding her back from coming over. I’m fairly sure she started clapping when I dragged you out of there.”

The elevator doors opened, and the older man inside nodded passively as he selected the button for the lobby. This entire world was foreign to me. Doormen and elevator attendants. Penthouse suites in Manhattan that were nearly as large as my parents’ comfortable middle-class home in Michigan. Trust funds and marriages of convenience. It was clear we’d both grown up in vastly different environments, and the protective part of me wanted to take Kristine away from this place and never return.

These people didn’t love her; they joked about her not having a heart, but they were emotionless zombies. She’d admitted everything I’d wanted to hear from her in the last several months to her mother in one vicious sentence.

Despite the ways she distanced herself, she cared for me. She may have even loved me, but this morning, I’d cemented things for her in a way that showed that I cared about her just as strongly. I knew her priorities and ensured her career went exactly where she wanted without me in the way.

“I’m sorry,” she sighed as she slumped against my shoulder, glancing up at me with a look of open sincerity. “I knew they’d probably try to corner me, but I...”

“It’s okay. I think that was a long time coming. Watching you stand up for yourself was amazing. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. You may be convinced you’re heartless, but I see you. I see how fiercely you care for the people who matter.”

“I didn’t mean to drag you into that, but I wanted you to meet Nana, and having you there made everything not feel like such an obligation...”

She was getting herself worked up again, and I couldn’t resist her anymore. Even if this was the last time she spoke to me, I needed her. I needed to show her that I cared about her far more than even I’d confessed. And the things that would happen over the next few days were done for her. Because she’d worked so hard and deserved good things to happen to her, even if I wasn’t around to watch them.

“Relax,” I smiled, leaning down and softly capturing her lips, cognizant of our company in the elevator car. “You were astoundingly fierce in there. They deserved everything you said. Don’t apologize for standing up for yourself.”

“Sam, I...” Her voice cracked as her eyes watered, her hands grasping the front of my suit jacket and pulling me forward until my forehead rested against hers. Knowing how things would play out was the worst kind of agony, but I couldn’t deny her the future she deserved. The future she’d earned.

“It’s alright. I understand now. You don’t need to explain anything to me,” I whispered, my hands cupping her cheeks. I brushed away a stray tear with my thumb, leaning forward and kissing her softly. She’d probably hate me in a few days, but I wasn’t taking this time with her for granted.

I wanted to lean forward and whisper my true feelings in her ear, but I knew that wasn’t fair to her. This whole situation wasn’t fair, but I was making the best of the options I was presented with.

The Uber I’d ordered was waiting at the curb as we walked through the heavy glass doors of the building, ready to take us back to our hotel. I wasn’t sure what to say to her tucked in the backseat of the car. Nothing seemed like it’d make what she was feeling magically disappear, but I selfishly enjoyed how she clung to me in the back seat, her nose buried against my chest. The whole ride back, I ran scenarios through my head, trying to figure out how to fix what I’d done this morning, but whatever decision I made, she would pull away again, regardless. Every decision left her hating me, so I needed to stick with the plan and see it through.

When she swiped her card across the digital lock, I knew I shouldn’t follow her inside, but when she looked at me over her shoulder, her hand extending to grasp mine, I knew I was too selfish to walk away.

“Can you hold me? Please...” she whispered as she steered me toward the bed and pushed me to sit on the edge. “I need—“

“Come here.” Pulling off my jacket, I tossed it toward the chair and opened my arms. She didn’t hesitate as she kicked off her heels and wrapped her arms around my shoulders, clinging to me tightly as she settled on my lap. “I’ve got you.”

As her body trembled, I tucked her into my chest tightly, reaching up to pull the pins from her hair. I could feel the wetness from her tears against my neck, her breaths uneven as she finally let me see her walls break down. My fingers combed through her hair once it was free, a soft, dark cascade over her shoulders and down her back.

She seemed so fragile in my arms, this dichotomy of a woman who was so fierce yet so heartbreakingly alone in the world. I’d never felt this kind of desperation in my life. Sure, my family could be obnoxious, but I never doubted they loved me. I knew what it felt like to have the unconditional love of a parent who would make sacrifices for you. I knew what it felt like to have the friendship of a sibling, freely given without strings.

All this time, I’d thought she was incapable of feeling any real emotion, her heart locked up tight and inaccessible no matter how I tried to get her to open it to me, but now...

Now, I realized she didn’t know how to express her emotions because they’d been conditioned out of her by the people who were supposed to care for her most. The love of her grandmother had kept her from turning into an emotionless robot like the rest of them, but she could only do so much.

“Please,” Kristine whispered, her lips dragging along my throat as her hands gripped the back of my shirt. “Please pretend you love me, just for tonight.”

My throat tightened, wanting to tell her that I didn’t need to pretend, that I did love her, but I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t confess those things and then walk away. It was hard enough as it was.

“Kris, I...”

She leaned back, cupping my jaw and crushing her lips to mine before I could tell her to stop. Tell her that we shouldn’t. That I needed to confess to her something that might make her despise me, but a selfish part of me couldn’t resist how she felt in my arms. Just this once, I wanted to forget everything driving us apart and hold her as tightly as I could, for as long as I could.

“Touch me,” she breathed as she unbuttoned my shirt, her lips sucking my neck.

Her hair slipped through my fingers, and I grasped it, pulling her head back and kissing her with all the desperation I felt. There was no solution to this that left us whole, where we could move forward without resentment or settling for things we didn’t want. Tonight was all we had left, and I would embrace it while I still had the chance.

“You’re so beautiful,” I whispered against her lips as I pulled away. She was. She was glorious in her vulnerability, in the raw emotion she was letting me see, finally. “I don’t deserve you.”

She shook her head, tugging at my shirt and pushing it back from my shoulders. Her desperate fingers sought purchase on my chest as she leaned back in and nipped at my shoulder. “Don’t talk. We have plenty of time to talk about this later. I just want to feel you. I want you inside me, Sam. Please, let me have this.”

The sadness she’d been feeling faded into intense desperation that I returned as she stood and pulled her black dress down her shoulders, revealing the dark lacy underwear she’d covered up before I came out of the shower earlier. I’d been trying to distance myself, to step back and keep myself restrained for her sake because she didn’t have all the facts. But I couldn’t resist her.

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