Page 67 of Only One Bed: Anthology Vol. 1
When they ate at the breakfast bar, she sat, legs curled up beneath her, and they talked as they ate, spooning warmth with every bite. The smear of sauce across his mouth would have been easy to wipe off, if it wasn’t for the fact that he turned to press sauced lips against the inside of her wrist, infusing that simple action with a heat that took her breath away. Red to match the lipstick she’d left on his neck earlier. She’d muttered something about mess and thrown her paper napkin at him, but she’d been secretly delighted, had wanted to revel in the mess with him.
Even washing up together had been fun. She’d washed and he’d dried because, as she pointed out, she had absolutely no idea where anything went, but it had been an excuse to flick soap suds at him and then get chased around the kitchen in mock indignation before she let him catch her. Back to the door, arms braced either side of her until she smiled invitingly up at him and he moved in to kiss her again, his mouth stealing kisses she wanted to give him forever.
Dates like this didn’t happen every day. She’d had enough experience to know that. To know that this comfort and ease with each other, as if they’d been together all their lives, wasn’t the usual. To be able to flit from eating to kissing to laughing to comfortable silence in a space of moments.
When she’d gone to leave, each kiss of the afternoon a shadowy imprint on her skin, she’d almost told him how happy she was. How euphoric the afternoon had made her feel. But before she could, he’d pulled her in close and whispered how lovely she was against her lips, and how smart and funny and it was all she could do to not mount him right there by the shoe rack.
Instead, she’d kissed him again. Lingering this time. Slow and sweet and sensual and full of all the words that they’d left unspoken. Full of the promises that she wished she could make, the blossoming trust that she had in this new thing between them.
But when she closed the front door behind her, and looked out at the seafront, she realised with a crashing sense of foreboding that it was raining.
Normal rain wasn’t a problem. A light shower, even a heavy shower, wouldn’t be bad. She could drive in those just fine, but this? She swallowed once, twice, as the waves crashed against the shore, the sound of pebbles being dragged back over each other again and again echoing that sound and– She shook her head.
No. She’d worked so damn hard to move past this; the months of therapy, of developing coping strategies that were meant to help her in moments just like this one. She reached out for the coping statements that she’d worked on as a grounding tool with her counsellor and murmured them to herself over and over. “I can handle this. This will pass. The rain won’t last forever.”
But it wasn’t until she was stood there, hand frozen on her car door handle, hair plastered to her back as the rain lashed against her skin and every rumble of thunder made her shiver, that she realised that no. She couldn’t. She really couldn’t drive in this.
It seemed unbelievably unfair. It wasn’t even as if she’d been the one driving the first time around. No physical scars. Everyone fully recovered. But that didn’t prevent a wave of dizziness that overwhelmed her senses and threatened to cast her back into the unending loop of that night, her breathing falling back into that pattern of panic that she hated so. In and out so fast that she could feel her control unravelling.
Stop.
A long breath in. Held, then loosed in a barely contained rush.
She took a second, slower, jagged breath and realised that there was salt water mingling with the rain on her face. Tears betraying her.
A moment to make a decision. She could get in the car and sit and rock until the storm was done, to relive the sounds of that night until she became a sobbing mess; she could walk to a nearby pub, and to hole herself up in the bathroom until one of her friends could come get her; she could even give herself a ten-minute break in the corner shop across the road and then attempt the drive once more.
Or perhaps… No. The thought of him seeing her like this, broken and bedraggled, made her want to throw up almost as much as getting in that car did. But he was sweet and kind, and if she really wanted this relationship to go anywhere, then she had to be honest with him, had to show him this. Or at least she could dash the tears from her eyes and ask him if she could wait out the storm at his.
She shifted from one foot to another, and made a split decision.
This time, no Schrödinger’s cat of romantic possibilities whilst waiting on his doorstep. Just fear and anxiety and more nervousness than she’d felt in aeons.
But he opened the door, took one look at her, and gathered her inside. No questions. No “what’s happened?!” Just bundling her into the bathroom with huge fluffy towels and a hoodie that would dwarf even her curves, and a “what hot drink would you like?” question that she hiccupped out an answer to. Then the door closed behind him with a quiet shuck and she was left, just her and the bedraggled figure in the bathroom mirror, mascara painting their cheeks.
A step forward and she forced herself to meet her own gaze, her own reflection and then, slowly, she peeled back the damp clothes that clung to her, each layer a step further and further away from the feeling of pounding rain drenching her, drowning her in memories and pain and–
A knock at the door.
“Hey.” Not quite a question, not quite a statement.
“I’m okay.” Words gasped out as she felt panic threaten to engulf her. She looked down at clothes pooled around her feet, and a vague sense of bemusement at the starkness of her skin against improbably cheery underwear. Then jagged breaths as she grabbed the hoodie and pulled it up over her head, wet hair damp against the soft material, the hem falling to her knees.
But he didn’t say anything, didn’t reply, just waited until she pushed the door open and stood there, shivering in the onslaught of her emotions. It was one thing to be at the start of a new relationship, to be open with your feelings, to show that delicate vulnerability that caused a frisson of excitement. This was not that.
This was more than anxiety and catastrophising, this was drowning in memories and emotion and being a wreck of a person. This was not who she was. Not who she wanted to be. Not who she wanted him to see.
So she didn’t look at him. Didn’t look up into his face, didn’t see the pity or the concern in his eyes, didn’t even take a step out of the bathroom. She was stuck. Knee deep in quicksand that was rising fast. Opened her mouth and then closed it. Because how on earth could you explain being in this kind of state after a perfectly nice – a perfectly wonderful – date?
She almost jerked backwards as a hand brushed against her cheek, and it paused there for a moment. Waiting. Checking. And then it lowered the hood that covered her hair and replaced it with a fluffy towel.
There was something incredibly soothing about having her hair towel dried by him. She lent forwards unconsciously and found herself so close. His body heat warming her as slow movements, delicate deliberate movements, towel in hand against hair, helped ground her.
The quicksand subsided.
She took a shaky breath. And then another. And another. Small jittery breaths until she was slowly but surely breathing again. A little jagged still, sure, but in a regular rhythm that didn’t threaten to throw her off-kilter.
The towel moved away and he replaced the hood back up over her hair, and she found herself grateful for his understanding that, right now, the last thing she wanted to show him was her tear-stained face.
