Page 82 of The Love We Make

How annoying.

Because for a minute there, Mimi made me feel safe. Secure. Until she didn’t. Until she pulled the rug out from under me, and I didn’t see it coming because I let my guard down too much.

Instead of chasing her away again, despite everything—who I am and the rules I choose to live by—I very much want to kiss her. Although we’ll need to have a conversation first. Things always need to be said, words that can never convey what truly goes on inside us need to be spoken.

“Can I get you anything?” I ask.

“Nora.” Mimi steps closer. “It wasn’t an easy decision for me to come here, because—well, for many reasons, but that’s what I want to make clear. Maybe, for now, we shouldn’t care about reasons and why we do and say certain things. Why we had that argument and all the things we could say about it.”

“T-thank you for coming,” I stammer.

“I didn’t come here to have another frustrating conversation with you,” Mimi says. “Frankly, I don’t see the point in that at all.”

“Okay.” Why is she here then? She probably needs me to say I’m sorry. It’s probably my best bet if I want her to stay a while longer—and I do, because that desire for her isn’t going anywhere. “I’m sorry for how things end—” I start.

“No. Nora.” Mimi holds up her hand. “You don’t have to say you’re sorry and neither do I. At least not right now. I think what we need to do, what we need to practice, is just letting things be and then…” She takes another step closer. “See what happens.”

I can’t say I understand any of this, not on a present, conscious level, but my body seems to get it loud and clear. My skin reacts to her closeness. My pulse quickens. My heart’s all over the place.

“Do you think you can do that?” Mimi’s voice has lowered to a whisper.

“Fuck, yeah.” I may not fully grasp what she’s getting at, yet every word she says is music to my ears. Because I don’t want to go down the deep end of a draining conversation again. Most days, I’m perfectly happy not talking at all. Maybe Mimi’s about to give me the best gift of my life in not forcing me to express the unsayable.

“Can I kiss you?” Her lips are so close to mine, she may as well already be kissing me.

A long-held tension in my stomach uncoils as I nod. And I let her kiss me. We’ll see what comes after.

I open my lips to Mimi. I let her in. Her tongue is even softer than I remember, but her hands on my back are full of intention. She pulls me close and to stand pressed against her body like this is so unexpected, yet it feels so right. It makes me forget why I asked her to leave that day in the first place. It makes me forget where I am altogether. It makes me forget myself and my head full of reasons to not do things.

Maybe, sometimes, a kiss is all you need to reset, to start again. To gauge what’s really there between you and another person. Mimi’s not just any person, because she’s here. I was going to apologize, but she doesn’t need me to.

We break from the kiss, and she looks at me. “Come here.” She curls her arms tightly around me. “It’s going to be okay, Nora.”

Ninety-nine percent of the time, when someone speaks those words, they’re just saying something, because no one can predict the future. Yet, I believe Mimi when she says it. Because I want to. Because I want her and I’m ready to disappear into her embrace.

“If you want to talk, we can talk,” Mimi whispers in my ear. “But we don’t have to.”

“Do you want to go upstairs?” I whisper back.

Her chin bumps against my shoulder as she nods. Yet we don’t move. We stay tangled together in my living room for a good while longer, the heat of her body against mine melting the coldness in my soul.

CHAPTER36

MIMI

On the way to Nora’s house, doubts nearly got the better of me. But as soon as I saw her standing in the doorway, I knew I’d made the right decision. I knew I had to stay, and I knew what to do. I knew what Nora needed, and it wasn’t more dialogue.

I’ve always taught my kids that communication is important, and it is, but there’s more than one way to communicate. The number of hugs I’ve dispensed when my kids were too furious about something to talk, or too sad to express themselves in words, or too tearful to squeeze a coherent sentence out of their mouths, have taught me that. I’ve learned as much from my kids as they have from me.

I can tell Nora I love her all I want, but maybe I should just show her instead. While doing so, we can assess if what we had before is still there. Whether our feelings for each other are strong enough to withstand what life has made us.

We’re in Nora’s bedroom and the vibe is quickly shifting from serious to something more playful. I can see it in Nora’s eyes. I can’t read her to save my life, but I can see that much.

“You’re quite something,” Nora says. “To show up like that and just have your way with me.”

“You’re quite something,” I reply. “Because as it turns out, that’s exactly what you want from me.”

Nora reaches for me. “Thank you for coming.”

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