Page 5 of Frozen Flames

Suddenly, she drops my hand, and I can only imagine the amount of pain I’ve inflicted upon her tonight.

“I’m sorry.” I look away. When I look back at her, she simply nods, burning a hole into the couch with her stare. Anything to avoid looking at me right now, not that I blame her.

She grabs her bra on the floor and puts it on again. When she’s done, I close my hand around her wrist, knowing she’s about to leave. “I’m sorry. I am.”

I wish I weren’t me.

She just shakes her head, yet I can see the anger brewing in those eyes of hers.

“Do you love me, Harv? Because I love you still.”

I’m taken aback by her question. “That’s the silliest question I’ve ever heard. You know I do.” I squeeze her wrist gently.

Then she leaves and heads to her own bedroom, since we don’t share a bed.

At first, I feel nothing but guilt, nothing but hate for my own self.

I hate the cards I’ve been dealt with in this life.

I hate the body I’ve been stuck with.

As the night progresses, my fears regarding her new job and our failed attempt at intimacy resurface, and slowly my irritation soars.

Because she doesn’t listen, she doesn’t get it.

I’m constantly being bombarded with the notion that I have to continuously push myself, my body, to another limit, another level, another plateau.

This is what she wants. What she demands of me daily.

AndI do. I push myself harder than I ever thought possible.

For her, for my parents, for Hen.

I don’t have anything left. Nothing sexual here for her.

Not today, not this moment.

I hope this changes tomorrow, yet I have no way of knowing. All I know, from the bottom of my heart, is that I’m trying.

I wish Gemma could see that.

That I am enough and that my efforts could please her and satisfy her. So she would stop treating me like a patient and stop trying to better me.

This is what she gets. This is the new twenty-four-year-old me.

The old me fucking died during that motorcycle accident two-and-a-half years ago.

I can’t get him back. Believe me,I’ve tried.

I tried to hang on to him for so long, and nothing happened. I wasn’t there, and I was never getting that part of myself back. That piece left, and I knew that it would never return. It would be easier if everyone around me, including Gemma, made peace with that.

Because I’m simply empty.

Harvey

I’m hidden from Gemma’s view as she dresses in her bedroom Friday morning, picking out a black suit for her interview.

The look on her face last night when I rejected her keeps tormenting me.

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