Page 94 of Surviving the Merge
Damon opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He hesitated with some decision. His gaze browsed the room before dropping to his fidgeting hands. I ran my fingers from his jaw into his hair and made a fist, pulling his head up. I searched his eyes while whispering, “Your secrets are safe with me. I would die before I betrayed you. You know that. Tell me.”
Damon’s fingers gripped my thighs, the pressure so severe he would leave marks behind. The hairs on the back of my neck raised, and my warm skin beaded all over. Whatever was to be revealed, he didn’t take telling me lightly.
“When Ash found me over Benjamin in the living room, he went in search of Emilia. When he found her badly beaten and with my belt still around her neck... he removed the belt, retrieved the revolver used to kill Travis from the floor. He wrapped her hand around the hilt, placed the barrel under her chin, and pulled the trigger.” It wasn’t just his secret needing to be safeguarded now.
“He was protecting you. The shot covered up any signs of what you did to her, making it appear like the bullet had done it?”
“Yes, and with all things considered, no one investigated anything to the contrary.”
“God. Does Paula know?”
He shrugged. “Ash ran and got her right after. She came in, called the cops, and told us not to say anything. That she would do the talking. I don’t remember anything past someone trying to remove me from Benji’s body. We’ve never spoken about that day since.”
“Good. I’m glad she’s dead. For what she did to you and to Benji. You did the right thing, Damon.” He averted his gaze, and I pulled his hair tighter until he returned it to me. “You did the right thing. She doesn’t deserve your misery.Please, baby,” I begged, my eyes began to burn.“Believe me.Let it go. Take away her power.”
He inched closer, going to his haunches and resting his head in my lap. His arms snaked around my waist. I touched every part of him. Anything I could reach. I whispered to him as he fell apart, “I’m proud of you, you’re loved, and you’re worthy.” I told him that he’d saved me, and I would in turn save him. We would face what came next together, and if he needed to be weak, I’d be strong enough for the both of us. “I’m not leaving. I’ll never leave,” I swore. “It’s not your fault.”
I’d never seen Damon cry. It left me raw like an exposed nerve. I wished I could reach back into the past and rip Emilia apart with my bare hands for what she’d done to this man. My lover, my best friend, my sometimes enforcer and forever savior. Myeverything.
He shivered, and I pulled him onto the couch and onto me, and I held him all night. Filtering all my love into him, into his meat and bones. “I love you. Always.”
24
It’d been several weeks since Damon’s night of confessions. Some things had changed since then, and some remained a work in progress.
We moved the image of Benji to the spare bedroom, where Damon could go be with him when he felt the need, instead of him feeling the crippling sensation of grief every time he walked through the front door.
We no longer worked on pushing him past his limits. Now, when he reached them, we stopped. With the agreement in place that he wouldn’t stop out of fear, but when his body and mind gave the signal that it’d had enough.
Emotional intimacy still challenged him. Damon could bare his soul verbally, to an extent, as long as we weren’t touching, but he continued to rely on dominance and aggression when we had sex. My motto became:We’ll get there when we get there. As long as we weren’t moving backwards, I became patient with how long it took to move forward.
I stopped playing therapist. That might have worked for Julie and her husband, but it didn’t work for us. I showed him the respect of asking his opinion before taking matters into my own hands.
I asked if he wanted to go to his mother’s grave; he said no. I let it be.
Damon had his Blake moments, kind of like flipping a switch. No telling what would turn it on or turn it back off. I still occasionally found myself wondering who stood in front of me. Julie insisted I stop viewing it as something that needed to be on a schedule: Damon from sunup to sundown, Blake at night and on weekends. “Personalities don’t work that way,” she’d said.
On the evening before the fundraiser, we were all at the center getting things ready. Damon, Max, and Sam volunteered for the dating auction, and they were in the auditorium practicing their catwalks.
“I’m not strutting like some peacock up there. Tell me where I need to stand, and I’llwalkthere from backstage,” Damon grumbled.
“If we’ve gotta strut, then you’ve gotta strut,” Max shot back.
Sometimes they got along well enough, and sometimes they didn’t.
He came offstage and walked over to where I stood in an aisle observing, draping his arm around my neck and pulling me into his side. I reminded him that this was for the kids. He nodded, grunting gruffly. I patted him on the belly and kissed under his chin.
“You know you didn’t have to do this, baby. Your donation was enough to build the library,” I said.
Max planned on removing a portion of the ground floor ceiling in the room designated for the library, in order to expand it to both floors. All thanks to Damon.
“I don’t mind doing more. These kids deserve as much as they can get. I’ll probably be bought by some old lady for a measly hundred bucks. The date will be over in time for her to catchJeopardy.”
“What a horrible thing to say.” I chuckled, digging my fingers in between his left flank.
“Damon! Get your ass up here and suffer like the rest of us.”
We looked to the stage at the same time. An annoyed Sam watched us with her arms folded over her chest.
