Page 38 of Love Always

I close the door and sit on the other side of the bed. Her back is to me and she’s pulled the blankets all up over her shoulder. The bed vibrates with her shaking. The need to touch her, to hold her, is almost a compulsion.

“Laurel. You will be fine. What happened today is shocking, it’s terrible and that young woman’s life is over. But you will have other challenges in front of you, even more important. What’s awful about this is how violent it was. I am so sorry you found her. But in the end, isn’t it better that you found her rather than someone else, someone who didn’t know her? What if a child had found her? You’ve saved someone else that trauma. You’re a good person, Laurel.”

Her “What?” comes like a croak from beneath the covers.

“You are a good person.”

This is what sets her off, suddenly, like a switch. She just starts sobbing, clutching the blankets, the pillow, her small body rigid and tight, her knees drawn up into her chest. Gulping air, she cries with great long uneven sobs and rather than walking around the bed I try to roll her to me. The trauma is real, what her body is going through is real, and for all I know she’s back working out the day her parents died as well.

I manage to shift her to face me and then I reach under the covers and try to push her legs back down, to force her from a fetal position. Her body begins to shudder hard and her hands visibly shake. Her skin is like ice.

I cocoon her in blankets and stretch out on top of them, on my side, one arm under her head, the other around her back and pull her to me. She buries her face in my neck. Her cries are so filled with pain, my own eyes prick with tears. She’s crying for all that she’s lost and for all that I’ve lost—she’s crying for both of us and she doesn’t even know it. My sister’s face floods my memory, finding her in her bed curled in a fetal position, dead from an overdose. How I tried mouth to mouth, how there was no Narcan, my parents screaming at me, God, the telephone. Waking up, finding my leg gone. Making myself believe I wouldn’t be “fucked up.” Hoping I’m not.

“Shhhh, shhhh,” I say over and over, holding her as tightly as I can, feeling the shaking coming in waves, as predictable as a siren, waxing and waning in the same way. Her teeth chatter, her breath coming in small gasps as she tries to control it, her frame quivering with each onslaught. My grip on her never wavers. I hold her as hard and as tight at the beginning of each wave until the end.

After what seems like an hour, the shaking stops and she lays limp, exhausted in my arms. Her skin is warm to the touch and her hair is a soft mess, but dry.

“I’m going to get you some water and a washcloth,” I say.

She doesn’t respond but sits up in bed when I return and dutifully drinks the glass of water. She blows her nose with some tissues I found in the bathroom. I set the box by the nightstand, refill the glass, and place it next to the box. She scoots back down under the covers and I wipe her face with a cool washcloth. Tears have dried in salty little trails down her cheeks and temples.

“I am so sorry,” she whispers. “I’m such a wuss.”

“You are not a wuss,” I say, sitting down again and using both hands to tuck hair behind her ears. She’s on her back, her eyes closed.

“Can you just lie here next to me? For a while? ’Til Devon gets home?”

“I told you, I’m not going anywhere.” I stretch out next to her, again on top of the quilts.

Laurel shifts slightly under the layers of blankets, turning to me. “You are such a good person, Mateus. I’m so sorry about your sister and—”

Her lips are red and swollen from crying and almost without thinking, I lean over and kiss her. It’s a long kiss, but not amorous. Her mouth is relaxed, warm and salty from tears, her lips yield to mine and she sighs into my mouth before we separate. Her eyes, though red, are clear and she is glimpsing pieces of my soul, I am sure of it.

A piece of my heart tears open.

What did I just do?

Chapter Nine

Laurel

The moment he kisses me I feel like liquid. My body has been jacked up on cortisol with no place to go, no place to flee. When he holds me so tightly, the length of my body pressed so tight to his, I can feel myself shaking hard and then slowly the shaking stops and then it wells again, and I start all over. All I can see every time I shut my eyes is Colleen’s face, the bullet wound in the middle of her forehead, and though I can’t put her face completely together, it comes to me in pieces and when enough of the pieces assemble my body starts shaking. Then I start thinking of Mateus’s sister. He said he had a sister who OD’d and his family blamed him. She must have been about the age of Colleen and it makes me so sorry and so sad and I start to cry again.

He’s spooning me through the covers. I feel him next to me, I can hear his heart beating strong in his chest against my shoulder blades. My body was out of control and now I’m just exhausted. When he rolls me over to face him and I feel his hands on either side of my temple stroking my hair, a small sigh escapes me. This is when I feel him lean over me. My eyes are closed, and I can’t see his face, but I can feel the warmth of his body. Then ever so gently, there’s the pressure of his lips on mine.

That is when my body gives out. Those wracking waves of trembling are replaced with utter and complete exhaustion.

It’s a long kiss, tender, sweet, and I taste his mouth.

When he pulls away, his voice is deep, uncoiling something deep under my sternum: “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

Talking seems like something I did a long time ago. “It’s okay,” I say, but it comes out as a whisper.

Mateus moves away from me to the edge of the bed and swings his legs down. “You really need to rest. You must be exhausted.”

Fearing my teeth will start chattering again I clench my jaw before I speak. “If Cory gets up, he can come and lay with me. Sometimes he needs his Momma.”

“I think he probably needs her all the time,” he says and then tucks the blankets around me so tightly, I can hardly move. He adjusts the pillow under my head and kisses me again on my forehead.