Page 88 of Fruit
“Yeah. It’s open late, right?”
I look around until I spot the clock on the wall. “Yeah, but not for long. We can go tomorrow—”
“No, please. Let’s go now. Jasmine can close up.”
Very suddenly, as he looks at me, I can see his side of the story. His desperate fear of losing me. The way his guarded, stone look the day he pushed me away must have been constructed carefully to keep him safe. How the lesson life had taught him when he was young must have had such a grip around his throat that he’d even given Nina away. He’d rid himself of everything he cared about in one fell swoop because the pain of loss was more familiar than the uncertainty of love.
I look at him and the feeling that rises is so acute and pure in its composition that it hurts for a moment.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s go.”
He smiles, and I have to kiss him again, just to feel the shape and the taste of it.
