Page 62 of Beyond Repair

He even stroked her cheek with the curl of one finger.

But when he spoke, his voice was sad and wistful.

“The weird thing is...I should want that. But I don’t. I want toknowyou. I want to know all of you...not just the parts that are easy and fun. You were okay with the not-easy and not-fun parts of me, when we first met. You didn’t mind reviving someone who’d tried to kill himself—because I did try. Maybe a little halfheartedly, but that was there in me. And you didn’t want that to go away. You kept asking, kept checking, kept bringing me back to life. Why shouldn’t I struggle a little to do the same for you? Why shouldn’t I want to find the right words?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

She did know. She just couldn’t speak for the rising emotion in her throat and the sting behind her eyes. He wanted to know her. Even after all that mess, he still wanted to know her. He wasn’t searching for the right solution—he was asking for permission to try. He was asking to go out into the darkness, as though the darkness were something a person might want to make their way into.

And though that sounded crazy in her head, it was less so when he actually said it.

“One of the biggest lies out there is the one that says you have to be whole to be loved—that if you’re not it’s a miracle anyone would. But my love for you is not some flimsy miracle based on whether you’re okay or not. Love is something you deserve. More than anything, Enid, you deserve love. You deserve it so much I sometimes ache to give it to you.”

She didn’t know what to feel first—amazement and joy that he could say something so beautiful, or despair that her first instinct was to shake it off. It almost broke her in two to do it, but she had to. He had to know completely, if this was really going to work. He had to see just how beyond repair she was, no matter how much it hurt to say. Oh God, it hurt to say.

She almost couldn’t get the words out, around the glut of tears. Her voice was high and strained and full of pain.

“I don’t know if I do, though. I don’t know if I do deserve it. Why am I the one who deserves it? Other people would have done better than me with this life. They wouldn’t tell a movie star to go away. They wouldn’t pretend they’re happy with nothing. They’d live their lives to the fullest, I know they would. But they’re gone, and I’m here, and that just doesn’t seem fair. I want them to have more than that. I just want to give...I want to help...I want—”

He stopped her there, though not with his tone. He spoke so quietly she could hardly hear him, but hardly was enough. If anything,hardlymade it more devastating—as if he didn’t need any extra emphasis. The point was clear and obvious all on its own.

“It isn’t the people who died who need something, honey,” he said, while inside her the music reached some terrible crescendo. “It’s the one who survived.”

She didn’t know what she was saying, after that. The words just tumbled out in a way they never had for her first shrink or her second shrink or the man from the airline who’d tried to counsel her right out of the millions of dollars they’d eventually handed over. She’d never been able to say it—not even to herself.

But it came out now.

It came out like someone screaming at the sky.

“I just wish I’d held on tighter to her hand.”

“Like you’re holding on to me now?”

“Yes, yes. God, yes just like this,” she said, because there was something about it that seemed the same, even though they were safe. There was always a chance after all, that everything could fall apart. That she might lose her grip again.

And she knew he could see that too.

“Can you feel the fire raging?” he asked, and when she closed her eyes she could. She could see the flames rolling along the ceiling, as though a dragon had breathed down the body of the plane.

“You know I can.”

“And you’re falling, and everything is going so fast, everything is so loud, everyone is screaming,” he said, as though he’d been there with her.

He was there with her.

“Oh God, they are.”

“And what are you doing, Enid? Tell me what you’re doing.”

“I’m holding on,” she said, and somehow it was true. His hand was in hers and she was squeezing so tightly, so tightly as the plane inside her went down. The fire roared and the metal screeched and the people fluttered away like pieces of paper into the vast blue beyond, but she hung on. She saw his face, and knew she could hang on. “I won’t let go. I swear I won’t let go,” she said.

And he told her the only thing she’d ever needed to hear.

“I know.”

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