Page 63 of Rejected
“All right, listen to me carefully, Jo. I don’t care if you are angry or writing too much or too little or mourning your sisters’ absence. I don’t care about anything, as long as I am here to help you through it. Please let me. It’s all I’ve ever dreamed of.”
“In that marvelous list of all my merits, you forgot my worst one.”
“I did?” he smiled. “Let’s hear it.”
“I am afraid that everyone I love will leave me.”
“I never will. You are not alone. You are not alone.”
“Oh, you are going to regret those words, my lord. You are going to wish you had left me alone the first time I lose my temper. And if not the first, definitely the tenth. Or the hundredth.”
“When have I ever left you alone because of your temper?” Laurie’s voice was rising.It’s happening already. I am making us fight already, Jo thought. “I might have attempted to strangle you at times, or fantasized about it,” he admitted. “But I never left until last spring. And I never intend to leave ever again.”
She lifted her hands in the air, exasperated. “Don’t you see? We would argue every day!”
“I would love that.” He grasped her hands in his, brought them to his lips. Impossible boy.
“You wouldnot!”
“I would.”
“See, we can’t even talk properly without fighting,” she said, but she had started laughing.Ridiculous, impossible boy.
“That is not fighting, love,” Laurie smiled.Beautiful boy. No, not boy. He is all man.“And if it’s with you I’d let you win every single time.”
And he is such a liar.
“That would never happen, Teddy,” she said, but her voice had gotten all soft and drawling, like thick, hot sugar.
“Who cares what happens if I’m with you?” Laurie murmured, bringing his head so close to hers, her curls brushed his forehead.
And he is mine.
“Jo, listen,” he whispered, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. She melted against him, and his arms came around her waist instantly, to hold her up. “I have no other ambition in life than to be with you.”
…
He stayed. They argued and kissed at intervals. They talked.
The days passed. He saw her at her worst. He stayed. Throughout her doubts, and fears, and questions, and hope. He waited. He answered her questions. He kissed her senseless when she started spiraling down into the abyss. And then he let her think and come to terms with her own demons. But throughout it all, he stayed.
He stayed.
He stayed.
Dear Beth,
For your enjoyment, I present to you, word for word, my latest conversation with Laurie. How I have not yet driven that boy away—or to Bedlam—I shall never know.
Me: “What if I ruin everything, just like I always do?”
Laurie: “You won’t.”
Me: “What if I push you away?”
Laurie: “I shall only come closer the more you try to repel me.”
Me: “What if my darkness becomes too much for you?”
