Page 61 of The Caretaker
“And I didn’t recognize you.”
“No,” he answered, his anguish clear.
“And then you told me the truth.”
“And then you pushed me away.”
“Because I…was in love…” The puzzle pieces began slotting into place then. I couldn’t insert that last one, though. I couldn’t say it, couldn’t hurt him with it, so he said it for me.
“Because you were in love with her.”
“I didn’t remember… Solace… Leland said I would become disoriented after being brought out of the coma. He said I would forget where I was, forget what had happened. I-I don’t remember you being there.”
“I know. I was there when they woke you up. I was hiding in an empty patient room across the hall. You broke down when Leland and the doctors explained everything to you. The sound of your pain…” His features contorted with emotion. “Otherpatients and staff began filing into the hall to see what was going on. They had to sedate you. I nearly lost my mind.
“I just needed to get to you,” Solace said hurriedly. “I just needed five minutes when no one else was around. I told myself that seeing me would fix everything. I got my chance when the sedation wore off, but you didn’t know me. You didn’t want me. You only wanted her.”
“And I lost it again,” I guessed. “I-I couldn’t have wanted her. Not before the accident. Not after everything you’ve told me. I couldn’t have.”
“Not remembering me, and only remembering that you loved her, was just as bad as you leaving me for her, Noon. Don’t you get that?”
“Yes,” I breathed. “I do.” Because either way, in the end, he’d lost me to her.
“I would have fought for you,” I said. “I wouldn’t have given up on us.”
“I know.” He nodded sadly. “You were always better than me in that respect. You have to understand,everythingthatI love, I lose. Maybe deep down inside, I’d always just been waiting to lose you. And then I did.”
He was conditioned to expect the worst. He’d lost his mother, his father, his grandfather, his son, his marriage, and in some ways, the brother who he hardly ever got to see. And then he lost me. Now he was afraid that he’d lose me again. I inched toward the bed, surrendering to the need to be closer to him. I kept my hands at my sides, though.
“I tried showing up at your place again, after they released you. There was always someone around, going in and out. I spent most of my time licking my wounds at my grandfather’s farmhouse,” he admitted, letting the blanket fall from his shoulders now that the room had warmed up again.
His body was perfect, exquisite, as if parts of him were carved from the finest marble. His heart was supple, though, able to bend and endure without being indelibly broken. He was stronger than he gave himself credit for.
“Pauly convinced me that I could fight in other ways. He reminded me that memory loss wasn’t always permanent, and that I could work on getting this place finished. Because if you came back to me, I wanted you to have a home to come back to.”
He ran a hand through his hair, or tried to. It was a tangled mess, sticking up in some places and bunching together in others. He appeared debauched, as if someone had handled him roughly, as though they’d chosen not to take their time with him. I wanted that someone to be me.
“I didn’t get your messages,” I said. “Or your texts.”
“I know that now. I’d hoped that was the case, but the part of me that thought you’d taken her back wasn’t so sure.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried—”
“I’m talking about when I arrived in Haley Cove. You’ve had ample time to tell me the truth.”
“You didn’t want anyone telling you who you used to be—”
“Bullshit,” I said, quieting him. “The first thing you’d said to me was that we’d never met. Don’t give me a convenient truth, Solace. Give me the real reason.”
He took a steadying breath, then whispered, “Because I didn’t want you to push me away. Like…” He couldn’t even bring himself to say it.
“Like I did that day in my hospital room.”
He climbed to his knees, the sheet cascading to the mattress, his whole body revealed to me now. “My dreams had finally come true. You came back to me. But I hadn’t accounted for you still not knowing me. When you asked if we’d met before, all I kept thinking about was that day in the hospital. That I didn’twant it to happen again. That I couldn’t survive it again, not when I hadn’t really survived it the first time. I didn’t want you screaming how much you loved her while branding me a liar. I didn’t want you to run away.” He crawled over to me on his knees, not stopping until they’d hit the edge of the bed, until I could feel his words just as much as I could hear them.
“What about since then?” I asked, my leftover anger now moving inward because I was too weak to fight him like this. Too weak to resist what he did to me, stirred to life in me, and damn it, I didn’t want to. Not when the one thing of importance within me, the thing that beat ferociously now, belonged to him. There was more I needed him to explain, though. “I’ve been here for weeks. You could have told me what we meant to each other long before now. I wouldn’t have run away. Not now. I wouldn’t have.” In a spur of passion, I’d gripped the sides of his head. Solace winced but didn’t pull away, my reaction seeming to light a fuse to his own passion.
